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First time G43 owner, some questions.

C

Chekov's Pun

Member
Hey there!

I first fell in love with the G43 when i was still a kid, and when i held a poor looking deactivated one during a gun convention i knew the love was real, tho i never thought I'd own one... Now, many years later I'm happy to say that i finally have one! I had to make a decision between buying a collectors piece or a shooter, and being the gun nut that i am, i went for a restored shooter.

It's a bcd and was all matching when bought by the previous owner, but he found out the hard way that the chamber had not been properly made, causing a casing to split in half, ruining the matching stock and nearly taking his fingers with it.

He then had a new stock made by a specialized company in Poland, rebarreled it in .308, put in new springs and installed a shooters kit. The bolt and flaps are all matching and match to the frame as well, the only replaced parts are the new barrel, stock and the parts that the kit replaced, which i all got with the rifle. I just have a few questions about this specific rifle;

The trigger pull is really long! Is this normal?

When pulling the bolt back and letting it go forward slowly, the bolt seems to run rough and does not close by itself even with no magazine inserted (almost seems to get stuck), but when pulling it back and just letting it fly forward it does close like it should, is this a problem or just part of the design? I have test fired it before buying it, out of the 10 shots i fired it failed to fully chamber a round once, which i found acceptable as the previous owner had barely shot the rifle after restoring it.

It seems to be able to fire out of battery, also part of the design or is something broken?

It has a very small crack in the stamped part with the 3 holes in it that keeps the bolt together. it's tiny compared to the "bad example" on the Apfeltor website, so i'm confident that it can still be fixed quite easily. I have heard about a certain guy called Rob who specializes in welding these, but is he still around and where is he located? Because if he's outside of Europe i might just take my chances on sourcing a local micro plasma welder and not risk mailing the part.

Also; said part does not seem to have a number stamped into it, is this normal?

Is the barrel supposed to float in these? If not, since it's just a repro stock, would making it float increase accuracy?

I think that's all for now! Looking forward to your replies!
 
Chekov's Pun said:
Hey there!

I first fell in love with the G43 when i was still a kid, and when i held a poor looking deactivated one during a gun convention i knew the love was real, tho i never thought I'd own one... Now, many years later I'm happy to say that i finally have one! I had to make a decision between buying a collectors piece or a shooter, and being the gun nut that i am, i went for a restored shooter.

It's a bcd and was all matching when bought by the previous owner, but he found out the hard way that the chamber had not been properly made, causing a casing to split in half, ruining the matching stock and nearly taking his fingers with it.

He then had a new stock made by a specialized company in Poland, rebarreled it in .308, put in new springs and installed a shooters kit. The bolt and flaps are all matching and match to the frame as well, the only replaced parts are the new barrel, stock and the parts that the kit replaced, which i all got with the rifle. I just have a few questions about this specific rifle;

The trigger pull is really long! Is this normal?

When pulling the bolt back and letting it go forward slowly, the bolt seems to run rough and does not close by itself even with no magazine inserted (almost seems to get stuck), but when pulling it back and just letting it fly forward it does close like it should, is this a problem or just part of the design? I have test fired it before buying it, out of the 10 shots i fired it failed to fully chamber a round once, which i found acceptable as the previous owner had barely shot the rifle after restoring it.

It seems to be able to fire out of battery, also part of the design or is something broken?

It has a very small crack in the stamped part with the 3 holes in it that keeps the bolt together. it's tiny compared to the "bad example" on the Apfeltor website, so i'm confident that it can still be fixed quite easily. I have heard about a certain guy called Rob who specializes in welding these, but is he still around and where is he located? Because if he's outside of Europe i might just take my chances on sourcing a local micro plasma welder and not risk mailing the part.

Also; said part does not seem to have a number stamped into it, is this normal?

Is the barrel supposed to float in these? If not, since it's just a repro stock, would making it float increase accuracy?

I think that's all for now! Looking forward to your replies!
Click to expand...


Congratulations on your new rifle. It should work fine after some tweaking. Here is some history about it:
http://www.k98kforum.com/showthread.php?17477-Oil-or-Graphite-Grease&p=115203&viewfull=1#post115203
http://www.k98kforum.com/showthread.php?17657-The-end-of-a-BCD-G43-
 
Thanks!

Hah, he told me it blew up when he was shooting it, not that it happened on the test bench.

Almost feels weird to just have it standing here after all the history and work that went into it. I think it probably still has some flaws to iron out, maybe he just got tired of it after already putting that much money into it. But still, is it normal that the bolt does not travel back and forth smoothly? It had a FTF when i shot it and looking at the history it seemed to jam quite often, i'm willing to pick up where he left and make it a great shooter, i just hope that it is indeed just a bit of tweaking and not a big problem like the actual bolt or frame being warped.

I still need to present it at the police station before i can shoot it, but before that i'd like to get the crack in the bolt housing welded.
 
Chekov's Pun said:
Thanks!

Hah, he told me it blew up when he was shooting it, not that it happened on the test bench.

Almost feels weird to just have it standing here after all the history and work that went into it. I think it probably still has some flaws to iron out, maybe he just got tired of it after already putting that much money into it. But still, is it normal that the bolt does not travel back and forth smoothly? It had a FTF when i shot it and looking at the history it seemed to jam quite often, i'm willing to pick up where he left and make it a great shooter, i just hope that it is indeed just a bit of tweaking and not a big problem like the actual bolt or frame being warped.

I still need to present it at the police station before i can shoot it, but before that i'd like to get the crack in the bolt housing welded.
Click to expand...

Don't worry about the crack in the back of the bolt housing. It has always been there and is not critical. First you need to take the bolt assembly out of the receiver and remove recoil spring assembly, flaps and firing pin. Reassemble without those parts (only using bolt, firing pin carrier and bolt housing) and slowly operate the bolt carrier. Is it binding or sticking anywhere? If it does, remove the bolt carrier and check if the bolt is binding inside the bolt housing. If that's not the case, only assemble bolt carrier and bolt housing and check if it slides free or it binds. If that also works OK, you need to remove the magazine, then you put the bolt, bolt housing, firing pin carrier and bolt carrier back into the receiver and operate it slowly. If it now binds, check if it is caused by the hammer pushing up against the bolt.
Let us know what happened up to this point.
 
All the ones I have handled, mine and a few others all seem to have the long trigger pull you describe.

As far as the bolt binding, mine does this too. I think it is because how the recoil springs are pushing against the firing pin holder which is pressing the two locking flaps outward and rubbing the sides of the receiver.
 
I'd vote to call that weapon a wall hanger and buy another.

I like my fingers and face too much to put it close to that weapon and pull the trigger.
 
GunKraut said:
Don't worry about the crack in the back of the bolt housing. It has always been there and is not critical. First you need to take the bolt assembly out of the receiver and remove recoil spring assembly, flaps and firing pin. Reassemble without those parts (only using bolt, firing pin carrier and bolt housing) and slowly operate the bolt carrier. Is it binding or sticking anywhere? If it does, remove the bolt carrier and check if the bolt is binding inside the bolt housing. If that's not the case, only assemble bolt carrier and bolt housing and check if it slides free or it binds. If that also works OK, you need to remove the magazine, then you put the bolt, bolt housing, firing pin carrier and bolt carrier back into the receiver and operate it slowly. If it now binds, check if it is caused by the hammer pushing up against the bolt.
Let us know what happened up to this point.
Click to expand...
So the "crack" is just where the stamped metal meets up? I have done what you asked and i'm pretty sure it is the hammer pushing on the bolt. When i pull the trigger the hammer lowers a bit before releasing, and when i operate the bolt when pulling the trigger as far back as i can without releasing the hammer the bolt travels much smoother. EDIT: The previous owner did mention that he replaced the trigger because the old one was cracking, perhaps the new trigger has slightly different tolerances causing the hammer to rise up a bit too much?

Intruder196 said:
All the ones I have handled, mine and a few others all seem to have the long trigger pull you describe.

As far as the bolt binding, mine does this too. I think it is because how the recoil springs are pushing against the firing pin holder which is pressing the two locking flaps outward and rubbing the sides of the receiver.
Click to expand...
I thought this as well but i think it is that combined with the hammer rubbing as it has quite some wear marks where it meets the bolt.
 
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