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A couple recent Makarov threads got me to dig out two project guns to work on.
My first Mak was a Bulgarian from J&G online, and it was functional, but ugly. It was an old police gun from (I guess) Bulgaria. The bluing was bad, and the safety had been ground down probably due to having bothered someone when carried.
I cleaned it up, cold blued it with Oxpho, and installed Pearce rubber grips. Combined with a Falco OWB holster, it was a great little carry piece.
The second project gun was a Russian commercial model I found at a local gun store being sold as a non-functional parts gun. I snagged it for 125 bucks, figuring that it was worth more than that for parts alone. It was missing its firing pin. It was filthy and had some rust on it. There was minor pitting on the right side of the slide. The guys at the shop told me that it had been a police-seized gun that was sold off in a lot of various firearms.
I ordered a new firing pin and recoil spring, and brought it back to life. Over time I sanded out the pitting, cold blued it, and converted the adjustable sight to a fixed one. I tried to keep things as inexpensive as possible, as I considered this a fun little "budget restoration". For example, I even restored the magazine that came with it by cleaning it up and replacing the rusty mag spring with a new one from Wolff Springs.
The Russian gun ran like a champ, and looked a ton better, but always shot to the left. It did it both with the old and new rear sight. I scooted the new rear sight over as far as possible, but still couldn't bring it to exact center of the target. On a whim, I swapped the Bulgarian slide on to the Russian gun at the range, and it shot dead center. Heck with the Bulgie's slide, it was the most accurate Mak I owned out of 4. It was even more accurate than the Bulgie when shot with its own slide.
Not sure how or why. Anyway, I put everything back to original at the range.
Since I dug them both out today, I decided to change things around, and put the Bulgie's slide on the Russian gun's frame. BTW, the Russian's frame looks great because I put a lot of work into fixing it up (sanding and cold bluing). I put the Russian's safety lever on the Bulgarian slide, because the other had been ground down. To finish it, I installed some East German grips that I recently ordered to replace the fat Pearce grips to make a slimmer carry piece.
So now I have a Franken-Mak with:
Russian frame
Bulgarian slide
East German grips.
Here are some pics of the two original guns, and then the resulting combination.
Bulgarian Mak when I first got it:
Bulgiarian Mak with Pearce grips:
Russian commercial model Mak when I first got it:
And here's the Franken-Mak:
My first Mak was a Bulgarian from J&G online, and it was functional, but ugly. It was an old police gun from (I guess) Bulgaria. The bluing was bad, and the safety had been ground down probably due to having bothered someone when carried.
I cleaned it up, cold blued it with Oxpho, and installed Pearce rubber grips. Combined with a Falco OWB holster, it was a great little carry piece.
The second project gun was a Russian commercial model I found at a local gun store being sold as a non-functional parts gun. I snagged it for 125 bucks, figuring that it was worth more than that for parts alone. It was missing its firing pin. It was filthy and had some rust on it. There was minor pitting on the right side of the slide. The guys at the shop told me that it had been a police-seized gun that was sold off in a lot of various firearms.
I ordered a new firing pin and recoil spring, and brought it back to life. Over time I sanded out the pitting, cold blued it, and converted the adjustable sight to a fixed one. I tried to keep things as inexpensive as possible, as I considered this a fun little "budget restoration". For example, I even restored the magazine that came with it by cleaning it up and replacing the rusty mag spring with a new one from Wolff Springs.
The Russian gun ran like a champ, and looked a ton better, but always shot to the left. It did it both with the old and new rear sight. I scooted the new rear sight over as far as possible, but still couldn't bring it to exact center of the target. On a whim, I swapped the Bulgarian slide on to the Russian gun at the range, and it shot dead center. Heck with the Bulgie's slide, it was the most accurate Mak I owned out of 4. It was even more accurate than the Bulgie when shot with its own slide.
Not sure how or why. Anyway, I put everything back to original at the range.Since I dug them both out today, I decided to change things around, and put the Bulgie's slide on the Russian gun's frame. BTW, the Russian's frame looks great because I put a lot of work into fixing it up (sanding and cold bluing). I put the Russian's safety lever on the Bulgarian slide, because the other had been ground down. To finish it, I installed some East German grips that I recently ordered to replace the fat Pearce grips to make a slimmer carry piece.
So now I have a Franken-Mak with:
Russian frame
Bulgarian slide
East German grips.
Here are some pics of the two original guns, and then the resulting combination.
Bulgarian Mak when I first got it:
Bulgiarian Mak with Pearce grips:
Russian commercial model Mak when I first got it:
And here's the Franken-Mak:
