First Firing of Mak

Make sure the firing pin channel is clean. There's a thread elsewhere about a guy who's firing pin was imobile from being gunked into place.

What did you use to clean it? If you field stripped it and did a thorough cleaning job, I can't imagine you'd have a FTF. Mine not only ejects the shells, but it chucks them three stalls down at high velocity.

I used 50 rounds of Wolf the first time I took it to the range. It threw out little sparks occasionally, so you'll be able to celebrate the 4th of July if you shoot that day.

I had no problems the first day, except with accuracy. Took me awhile to find out that most of the Bulgarian surplus Makarov's shoot very high at 25 yards. Everything else was peachy.

jmm

Shootist,

Go to http://www.makarov.com/ and down load the detail stripping instuctions. Then take it completely apart and put all of the pieces in a big coffee can or bucket with a lot of dish soap and some very hot water. Let it sit there until the water gets cool enough for you to put your hands in to get the pieces out. Clean it with normal stuff, hoppes, remoil, brake cleaner, etc.

Put a nice coat of lube on it and put it back together.

Go to the range and shoot the heck out of it.

If it is anything at all like mine, it will shoot and shoot and shoot and hit what you aim at.

The Mak is a truly wonderful weapon, you will enjoy it.

Now my grand daughter, we were shooting many different weapons and I thought she would love the Mak, hated it. When I asked why she said she could see the slide cycle and it made her uncomfortable. She, however, loves my Ruger P90.

The detail strip instructions are easy to follow and you won't need any special tools.

I hope this helps.

Let us know how you like it.
DM

I had a failure to feed on about the 10th round out of my "new in box" Mak. And trust me, it was not because of residual cosmo. Only fired about 100 rounds through it since then, but no problems. I think it was a S&B hollow point that failed, but couldn't swear to it, nor can I remember which type mag I was using. So, it happens, but the concensus is that it's pretty rare.

And for what it's worth, it was surprisingly (to me) accurate. And also, I remember thinking the Pearce grips would be a good upgrade, but haven't gotten around to that yet.

I also had problems with the S&B ammo.........2 FTF.........

"Now my grand daughter, we were shooting many different weapons and I thought she would love the Mak, hated it."

That doesn't surprise me. The Mak has a pretty snappy recoil.

+1 for a thorough cleaning of the firing pin channel. I used a tip from another poster and used a hair dryer to heat up my Maks and melt the cosmoline. All it took was a rag and some Q-tips to get it all off (but I still cleaned & lubed thoroughly afterwards as I would any new firearm).
Tomac

The only problem I've had with my Mak is FTF Silver Bear HP's on a very cold day. The tip of the bullet got caught on the feed ramp. Incidentally, I took my friend shooting for the first time yesterday and she liked the Mak more than my Arcus or Buckmark because of the snappy recoil. Go figure lol...