Your barrel diameter where the front sight is should be the standard
0.575". Guess what? The standard AK74 front sight goes on at a
barrel diameter of 0.575" (except some Romananian ones)!

Install an AK75 front sight housing, and take a 5.45x39mm AK74 brake
(original), and open it up to allow the 7.62x39mm bullet through.
Now you have a threaded muzzle brake and a bayonet lug. (I know this
will work, as a buddy of mine did it to a "beater" pre-ban AK he had.)

Rick Randall

--- In Practical_Carbine@yahoogroups.com, "not hard if you try"
<sfcnathansmith@...> wrote:
>
> All,
>
> I've been reading this group for a while but this is my first post.
I
> have a Maadi ban-era AK rifle that I am now modifying into the rifle
> that I want. The rifle has had the threads turned off of the muzzle
> and the bayonet lug locks removed - rather crudely too. No big deal,
> the rifle was inexpensive by AK standards and what I want is an
> intermediate caliber rifle/carbine. It is that. I am now modifying
the
> rifle to be a little more tactically oriented. I put a Romanian side
> folding stock on it, which I love, and am modifying the rest of the
> furniture as well. I also bought one of those pin-on AK-74 looking
> muzzle breaks for it. That is where the trouble began. The bayonet
lug
> had to removed the rest of the way, which was not hard, just
> unexpected and time time consuming. A little flat file work squared
it
> away so that I could slip the muzzle break on over where it had
been.
> I drove the front pin out of the front sight assembly, slipped the
> break on, and drove the replacement pin into place. It looked
great. I
> was disapointed because it rattled every so slightly. I looked at it
> more closely and realized that it is canted to one side, just enough
> so that if I were to fire the rifle the bullet would strike the
inside
> edge of the break. Not good. I am looking for any advice from
someone
> who may have encountered this problem and found a workable
solution. I
> may resort to removing the break permanently. That would piss me
off.
> I also bought the UltiMax picatinney rail gas tube on the rifle. I
> found that the tube cannot be tightend down completely without it
> binding the gas piston. When the piston runs smoothly the rail
> rattles. It does me no good to have a loose scope mount. I also
bought
> the lower handguard with the rails on it. Again, it looks great, but
> it binds on the barrel bands that hold the gas tube. It can be
> modified with a little careful file work, but the friggin handguard
> cost me 50 bucks, the gas tube cost 100. I now have over $300 in
> accessories for this $300 rifle and instead of a rifle that has all
of
> the features that I want I have a rifle that is nearly unusable
unless
> I remove some of the mods! I hope some experienced carbine
afficienado
> has some good ideas.
> In the mean time - Happy Easter and thanks for listening.
>
> ~NKS
>