G/K43 variation in securement pins

[daltrey99]

I am thinking that when the G/K43's were assembled, that they used various sized pins. I am building two shooters currently and I am finding that slightly different sized pins were used for the gas block, rear sights, front sights from rifle to rifle. I tried to use the same size pin for gas blocks on both rifles for example and the fitting is slightly different. I have been buying many different custom sized roll pins to complete these projects. I figure the factories would have used a standard sized pin but they must have variations from when they were assembled. Both rifles are Walther rifles so it is not like the difference is from Walther to BLM. With all of the pins I will have in stock, I can probably help out people that are looking for pins to get them back up and running.

 

[Joseph Burke]

I'm in need of a pin for the front sight of an N block AC44. Are your pins the same as original or are you referring to your having just generic roll pins?

 

[daltrey99]

I'm in need of a pin for the front sight of an N block AC44. Are your pins the same as original or are you referring to your having just generic roll pins?

These are custom made roll pins. They are made in odd sizes that you cant normally buy. These wont be good for collector rifles.

 

[heavy_mech]

This totally sounds like building AK and their sub-variants. Even in Russian production they ran up to 4 different 'size classes' because of the insane tolerance differences. Good luck.

 

[Cyrano4747]

This totally sounds like building AK and their sub-variants. Even in Russian production they ran up to 4 different 'size classes' because of the insane tolerance differences. Good luck.

Not just AKs, a surprising number of guns are like this. Poke around Enfield forums and ask about bolt heads. You can fiddle there to fix worn guns, but it's not just an old gun thing, you can find a wide variety in near mint examples.

Basically before the 1950s or so the US is (mostly) the outlier in having functional interchangeability and uniformity in parts.

 

[daltrey99]

I got another lot of pins in stock and these work well. I have a barelled receiver in phosphate but the front sight rocked back and forth. I enlarged the pin hole on the front sight base ever so slightly and used one of the new pins from the lot. It was a tight fit and a perfect mount. The front sight base is mounted perfectly now. The other lot of pins I got work perfectly for the rear sight in the front ears. They are tight enough for the ears and a great fit for the sight to move up and down easily and on the outside of the ears I flared the pins slightly for extra added securement. I have enough various pins for all of the variations in mounting holes. I am glad that all of my research and caliper measurements panned out successfully.