Can you modify the Daewoo safety? Add flash suppressor or folder?

[MatthewVanitas]

Greetings:
My local shop has a Daewoo .223 (I do not recall the exact model type, but presumably postban) with the Ace stock set, listed at $750. Shopping around, there seem to be a few cheaper deals (though many listed higher) for this type of rifle. It's imported by Kimber (during their Clackamore phase) if that's any help.
I'll definitely shop the Net, as I'm pretty sure I've seen better prices, even with the Ace stock set. But the important thing was that I got the chance to handle a Daewoo in person, and that sucker handles great. I've read the various posts IRT the Dawoo, and still feel overall that the coolness factor and the piston-function hit my buttons, despite the lack of customer support/parts, etc. And it's still cheaper than most ARs.
Question is this: is there anything that can be done about the Daeoo safety? It's the single un-ergonomic feature of the rifle, and I feel (though I am biased) that it is far inferior to the AR-15 safety. Are there any mods which make the Daeoo safety operate differently? Even a simple swapped-side lever that pushes down rather than up would help.
Further, I still don't quite fully grasp the '89 ban and its followers. If I buy a post '89 rifle, can I add "assault" features like folding stock and flash suppressor, provided I keep the US parts count up? I've read a few threads on the subject, and seem to be getting contradictory impressions. I understand that I can't turn a post-'89 rifle into an "assault weapon" that would be current unimportable, but can I do that if I decrease the number of foreign parts?
So, I think I can probably get a better deal than the $750 on the shelf, but would definitely welcome any advice (or warnings) from Daewoo owners out there. Thanks for your time, -MV

 

[PMDW]

If I buy a post '89 rifle, can I add "assault" features like folding stock and flash suppressor, provided I keep the US parts count up?

Yep. Sorry I can't help you with anything other than this question, but it's a start.

 

[Ian]

I used to have a Daewoo K2, and I looked into modifying the safety. What I wanted to do was make it a 90* turn from safe to fire rather than the 180* that it was designed with. I never got around to doing it, but it would have been really simple - just a matter of milling a flat onto the selector switch cylinder, and drilling a detent hole if you want to be fancy about it. I don't remember it well enough to say how difficult it would be to swap the safe and semi positions.

IIRC, the receiver was slightly different between the preban and postban versions - you might not be able to fit a preban folder on a postban rifle. 'Course, if Ace makes a folder for it, then that's a moot point.

Also, FWIW, $750 with an Ace stock sounds like a pretty good deal to me, especially for a gun available locally. You might find a slightly better price on the net, but then you'd have to deal with shipping and transfer costs. I'd go for it - they are great rifles.

 

[MatthewVanitas]

Ian: were you going to do the mod yourself, or did you have some smith in mind to do it?

If it's that easy, I think I would pursue that option (if I played with the Daewoo for a few months and really took a shine to it). To my eyes, getting a switch that extends rearward from the pinhole seems easy (just need to make a new switch, or even weld to the old one), but I don't quite see how to turn it from a 180 turn to a 90 turn. But then again, I'm not very mechanical.

I rather wonder why the Koreans would use such an odd safety. Am I just that horribly biased and blinded by the M16? It seems like such and ideal and convenient safety to me. I've seen no other pistol-gripped safety that is as fast and ergonomic as that on the M16 (or AR-15 as case may be). Or would a Korean serviceman claim that his safety is better? I just don't see it...

Also Ian: $750 doesn't seem bad, but I ran across a guy who has a for sale pic up for almost the same rifle, plus a scope base, for $550. Of course, FFL fees and shipping would cost another $50, but the scope base must be worth at least that. Being able to buy locally, inspect before buying, etc. is worth something, though not quite worth $200.

-MV

 

[mfree]

"I rather wonder why the Koreans would use such an odd safety"

Maybe there's a few missing selections on the export model?

 

[Ian]

Hey, $550 is better than I've ever seen. It has been a while since I've been looking for them though, so I guess they must have come down a bit.

At the time I was tinkering with the safety modification idea, I was working in a gun shop, so I was going to have one of the smiths there do it for me. Since the shop had a full machine shop, it just made sense to do it there.

If I remember correctly, the sear is blocked by the body of the selector body (which is a large pin, basically - you can see the size where it comes through on the right side of the receiver). That body has a flat milled in it which, when aligned in the "fire" position, allows the sear enough travel for the mechanism to fire. If you milled another flat in the body on the proper side, you would allow the sear to fire when the selector was in a different position. In effect, you would still have a 180* throw, but it would be "safe - semi - semi" instead of "safe - safe - semi". Drilling a small hole for the detent pin would allow the selector to lock in place at the 90* point.

Theoretically, you could put that extra semi at any position over the throw of the selector.

I hope that made sense - I don't have the rifle or manual any more, so I'm doing this by memory.