AK AD whoa!

**BearTitan** · May 25th, 2007, 12:18 PM

Yesterday, I bought a Century Arms AK-47 in 7.62 x 39. I was all excited to take it to the range and run the IPSC house with it. I disassembled it to make sure that everything was in order, applied lube to the appropriate parts, and loaded up a mag. I went over to the staging area, inserted the mag, racked a shell and put the safety on.....BANG!

The gun was pointed in a safe direction, but the bullet did take out a chair in the IPSC house. Everyone thought that I had touched the trigger, but the RSO saw that my right hand was on the safety when the AD happened. I removed the mag and emptied the chamber.

I let the bolt forward and repeated the above procedure. The safety selector moves up beyond the dust cover, and when it does....CLICK. Every time.

I called Century Arms and they said to return it for a new one.

Any of you AK experts ever hear of anything like this?

Thank God for Rule #1 (point in a safe direction)!

**1FingrCHan** · May 25th, 2007, 12:44 PM

WHOA!. just return to Century for a new one? they should be hanged! what kind of quality control is that? someone could have been killed!..........and that could have been anyone including myself at the range.

That is why no matter how attractive CAI price are, I alway stay away from them. In addition, I have heard other "chop shop" AK part guns also often manifest AD. I hope people know what they are doing. Or leave it to the expert. Good thing no one was seriously hurt in this case.

1FingrCHan

**bige64** · May 25th, 2007, 03:34 PM

Originally Posted by BearTitan

Yesterday, I bought a Century Arms AK-47 in 7.62 x 39. I was all excited to take it to the range and run the IPSC house with it. I disassembled it to make sure that everything was in order, applied lube to the appropriate parts, and loaded up a mag. I went over to the staging area, inserted the mag, racked a shell and put the safety on.....BANG!

The gun was pointed in a safe direction, but the bullet did take out a chair in the IPSC house. Everyone thought that I had touched the trigger, but the RSO saw that my right hand was on the safety when the AD happened. I removed the mag and emptied the chamber.

I let the bolt forward and repeated the above procedure. The safety selector moves up beyond the dust cover, and when it does....CLICK. Every time.

I called Century Arms and they said to return it for a new one.

Any of you AK experts ever hear of anything like this?

Thank God for Rule #1 (point in a safe direction)!

Thats the exact reason I now build all of my AK's.... I can control the quality control...

**KeithPA** · May 25th, 2007, 03:47 PM

When you push up the slide, it physically blocks the trigger from being pulled.

If you fire control group isn't in properly the hammer might have come loose. Do you have the clips that hold the two cross members in? Is there wiggle room? The single hook can accidently release the trigger if the cross members are held in well. Some people replace the old auto sear spring with very thin clips and that allows movement horizontally.

Thats all I can think of.

**jsb889** · May 25th, 2007, 04:22 PM

Wow, glad to hear you're okay. Just goes to show, can't always put faith in safeties and to always have it pointed in a safe direction...glad you're a safe guy! Sorry to hear about your new toy already being broken

**BearTitan** · May 28th, 2007, 04:48 PM

So Friday morning, I called Century and they were pretty nice. They said that I could send the gun back and they would send me a new one in 3-4 weeks. Or, they suggested that I take it back to Dunhams for an exchange and they would handle the return. I drove down to the Dunhams in Fox Chapel, where I bought it and the manager looked at me like I had two heads. She gave me the whole "all firearms sales are final" line of BS. I asked her to contact the District Manager. She left him a voicemail.

When I got home, there was a voicemail from the district manager. I called and they now have a new AK waiting for me to pick up tomorrow. I hope this one is not defective.

**djturnz** · May 29th, 2007, 10:56 AM

Make sure you get to try it out there and double check all of that again with the safety.

Also dry fire it, hold the trigger back, and re-rack the slide to make sure it won't double or somehting.

I am guessing that you are not new to AKs. I know I would not take a gun that I had never shot before, and try to run through a stage with it first thing. I guess if you are not new to AKs, this was just "another AK".

Oh, if they don't like you doing all the dry fireing and checking in the store, voluteer to do it in the parking lot with a live round, and the gun pointed at the managers car.

**KeithPA** · May 29th, 2007, 11:03 AM

Did you bother to tinker with it and see what was wrong? Considering there are all of 10 parts to the gun it should be pretty easy to see what was wrong.

I've had the hook not hold the hammer back when I didn't have the retaining clips in to hold the cross members.

**BearTitan** · May 29th, 2007, 11:10 AM

Originally Posted by djturnz

I know I would not take a gun that I had never shot before, and try to run through a stage with it first thing. .

Live and learn. When you put it that way, it doesn't seem that smart, does it?

I am no gunsmith, so my diagnosis of any firearms related problem is always symptomatic. In this case, the safety lever can be rotated past the dust cover. Way past. When it gets to about 45 degrees above the dust cover, the hammer drops. I know that the safety is not supposed to rotate that far north, but I don't know what is happening to fire the gun.

**djturnz** · May 29th, 2007, 11:17 AM

Oh now I get it. Someone else described that on either akforum.com or ak47.net. i forget which. It does have somehting to do with the exetended travel of the safety though. Apparently ALL akms would do this if the safetly moved that far. If you look at the safety bar, it's not hard to see why. I immediatley checked mine when I went home to see if it would do that. It does not.