How many Poles does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

The Polish may have trouble dealing with modern lighting techniques, but they make a darn good AK-47.  The AK is the most famous and influential gun in history.  It's the most common gun in the world, and no gun has had more influence on both freedom and oppression.  Both friend and foe alike, it's the official standard military rifle for 106 countries around the world, and is one of the most reliable weapons ever devised.  Even US Special Forces often use it on covert missions.  Often seen as the gun of rebellion and evil intent, it's also been used for good much like out M16/M4/Ar-15 has.  For example, the people of Mozambique credit it with so much influence during their struggle for freedom that they put it on their flag.  Since I have an AR-15(ish) gun, I decided I needed it's counterpart.  Also, with the Mosin done, I wanted another project and decided to stick with the Russians. It also continues my theme of dirt cheap ammunition.

You can buy these things called Parts Kits for many firearms, they are typically from fully automatic military weapons.  What they do is take disassemble the gun and destroy the receiver beyond it's usefulness and repairability according to ATF regulations.  Then, they sell you the leftovers and you build or buy your own receiver to reassemble it.  As long as it built for personal use and not intended for sale, you can build as many guns as you want.  There are a few very important caveats.  It CAN NOT be made into a fully automatic weapon, and CAN NOT be made as to be easily convertible to full auto.  With imported parts kits, there are also regulations as to the number of foreign made parts you can have in it.  We'll get more into that later.

I decided on a Polish parts kit.  The is the undisclosed project I've mentioned a few times.  Technically, it's an AKM, not an AK-47.  '47 was the year it was first introduced, and the M is for modified as the design was changed for cheaper/faster manufacturing by the Soviets in the 50's.  All later AKs are of the AKM variety.  The Polish guns are of middle quality, not as good as Russian or Bulgarian, but better than Romanian and Chinese.  I also went with a fixed stock instead of a folder because I like the more classic look.  As with most AK parts kits, mine was missing the receiver completely.  This particular gun was made in 1970, and except for the front trunnion, all the serial numbers on all the parts match.  Here's how it looked when I got it, all laid out and the missing receiver quite obvious:

Done, and done.

I actually finished the Mosin a few months ago.  It's been sitting letting the oil finish cure since February.  To recap, it's a numbers matching, hex receiver, 1932 Mosin-Nagant 91/30.  I bought a cheap clamp on bipod for it and ground the ends to fin into the front sling slots.  You know what's really hard?  Photographing dark colored long guns on sunny days. 

New target

The problem with shooting long range is that without a really good scope or a separate spotting scope, it's hard to tell when you've hit the target.  Even then, after you've been shooting for awhile, you get to the "did I hit it, or is that an old hole" point.  There's a better way.  Enter the steel gong target.  It's basically a just plate of steel.  The most important part is that you can hear it ring when you hit it, no more guessing.  Sounds great, but wait!  There's a problem with that!  Regular mild steel like you'd find at the hardware store might seem strong, but when bullets are involved, it may as well be tin foil.  For example, here's what a 7.62x54R bullet like my Mosin uses does to 1/2" mild steel at 100 yards(not my picture):

Yeah, like butter.  Shooting through the plate is bad, but not as bad as leaving craters or divots in the metal.  Craters can actually act as a u-bend and send shrapnel flying back at the shooter.  Not good.  So, mild steel is out.  But, there is a perfect steel to use for targets, specially made to handle bullets: AR500 armor plate.  For what it is, it's surprisingly cheap and easy to come by.  I e-bayed up myself a 12"x12"x3/8" plate of genuine AR500 for around $50.  Then I made a stand for it.  I used a cheap sawhorse kit for the legs, knowing that the 2x4s would have to be replaced at some point.  To hang the plate, I used 3" baler belt because, unlike chain, you can put a whole lot of bullets through it before it needs to be replaced.  I hung it from a 3/4" steel bar, and attached everything with grade 8 bolts.  I used 5" bolts for the plate so that it hangs at an angle, not only reducing the impact on the plate, but also directing any shrapnel or ricochets into the ground.

I shot at it all day and hit it with nearly 100 rounds of 7.62x54R from the Mosin, and 100 rounds of 7.62x39 from the[project undisclosed], plus 75 .22 rounds(which is like hitting cement with a snowball).  The AR500 handled bullets like a champ. The paint is blasted off, but the plate it's self is still flat with hardly any marring at all.  Because of the angle of the plate, you can clearly see a line in the sand where the bullets and bullet pieces safely hit the ground.

To give you an idea of just how tough AR500 armor plate is, here's one of the grade 8 bolts holding the plate on.  You can see that the bullet left a big gouge in it.  The AR500 plate it's self though looks like new under the blasted paint.

This AR500 plate was well worth the price, and the "Ding" lets you know you've hit it from a long ways off :)

The Vette

I've got a soft spot for C3 Corvettes, and a penchant for abused and neglected cars apparently. Here's my '73. It was my first foray into real sports cars. I'm only the 3rd owner, the lady I bought it from bought it used in 1974. It's an L48, 4 speed car, and about as base model as you can get. The only option is the AM/FM radio. The paint is rough(and missing in places), interior fair, and the frame and birdcage are very solid. Since it's had so few owners, it's never been messed with and was still completely stock and original when I got it(even the spare tire is one of the originals off the car). I put on the wheels and side pipes because C3s are supposed to have Torq Thrusts and sidepipes. I also swapped on Vortec heads and a mild cam, keeping anything original and date coded wrapped up for safe keeping. The G-Tech dyno says I'm getting around 250 RWHP. It's still not fast, but faster than the wheezy 190 FWHP it had. It may get restored some day, but for now I've declared it "Done" because it's fun to drive as is, and it still in an original unrestored state(everything I've done is easily undoable).
Then:

Now:

Too shiny...

If you remember back, I bought a shiny billet aluminum power steering pulley for the Viper last November.

I didn't buy it because it was a shiny billet piece, but because the factory plastic one is known to fail and this one will not.  It is shiny though.  Too shiny.  As the only shiny thing in the engine compartment, it would have looked out of place.  So, I decided to paint it.  The first step is to get rid of the shiny.  The quickest way to do this is with a sandblaster.  I taped off the belt grooves, and into the blaster it went.

Then came the paint.  I got a new type of paint for an as of yet undisclosed project, and this seemed like a great test piece.  I'm using a product called Duracoat.   It's a two part epoxy paint that is reported to be incredibly durable, and is solvent and heat resistant to 500°F. It's actually made by Sherwin-Williams as an industrial coating, but it's only sold through them by the gallon. The folks at Duracoat repackage and relabel it in (much) smaller quantities. Though I wouldn't call life in a Viper's engine compartment "rough," it's a good place for a long term test. If the coating does fail, I'll just repaint it with something else. Once again, I taped off the belt groves and laid on the paint. Duracoat is made to be primerless, so I shot it straight onto the pulley and here's how it turned out:

This one time, I restored a Porsche.

Many many years ago, I restored a Porsche.  Not just any Porsche, but a 1955 Speedster.  The 486th Speedster ever built in fact.  I'm a bit ashamed to say that I don't have any good pictures of it.  I've got many many close detail pics that I used during the restoration, but very few overall pics.  Here is a small selection.

It was pretty rough when we got it, the under side was pretty rusty, and it had been "restored" some time in the 70's.  I think it turned out OK, lousy pictures not withstanding.  We farmed out the seats, engine and transmission, I didn't recover the convertible top or do the paint work, but nearly everything else was my doing.