Bolt won't go forward (except incidentally) on new Romanian PSL. Help?
Hello all, I'm generally new to Russian style weapons and have recently purchased a Romanian PSL with a Romanian made FPK receiver. I'm unsure of the specific origin (Century, other, etc). During the initial function test I racked the bolt to the rear...and there it stuck. I've heard of PSL's with bolt hold open devices, but that doesn't appear to be the case here, as there is absolutely no common sense thing I can do to make it go forward deliberately. I've had it run home while putzing with the charging handle, trying to make it go, but never anything that I could repeat twice. The bolt locks and stays to the rear with and without the magazine in. Unfortunately, I know nothing of AK type internals other than how to pop the cover, bolt, piston, and spring. So, any thoughts anyone could give would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, all.
Originally Posted By 3PantherSmoke:
Hello all, I'm generally new to Russian style weapons and have recently purchased a Romanian PSL with a Romanian made FPK receiver. I'm unsure of the specific origin (Century, other, etc). During the initial function test I racked the bolt to the rear...and there it stuck. I've heard of PSL's with bolt hold open devices, but that doesn't appear to be the case here, as there is absolutely no common sense thing I can do to make it go forward deliberately. I've had it run home while putzing with the charging handle, trying to make it go, but never anything that I could repeat twice. The bolt locks and stays to the rear with and without the magazine in. Unfortunately, I know nothing of AK type internals other than how to pop the cover, bolt, piston, and spring. So, any thoughts anyone could give would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, all.
If I had to guess, I would say that the BHO thingy is stuck in the up direction. There should be a little spring loaded tab thing that would be pushed up by the mag when its empty. Locate that and closely examine it. Make sure it freely travels up and down.
The other choice is that the bolt carrier is hopping out of the rails. GunPlumber has a nice write up on this, but I doubt that is your problem. The BHO thingy was pretty finicky with my PSL.
The bolt hold open thing sticks a lot in my PSL. You just have to push it down and it will work.
Might want to try cleaning that area so that it stops sticking.
Mine did that. (TN Guns build)
I had to very carefully dremel a bit on the hammer and the under side of the bolt to get them to slide smoothly together. Simply lubing it won't last long. When I first got it, I thought it had a BHO, cause it was that consistant and SOLID when it was pulled back. But, it would do it while firing.
So yeah, very carefully smooth out the hammer and bolt and you'll get it running eventually.
(To clarify, not all PSL/ROMAK III's have an actual BHO. I know most of the TN Guns ones did not. Others may.)
Good deal, I'll take a look at it. Is there any way to remove it w/o goofing the gun? I'd like the BHO on an AK, but don't need one, particularly a finicky one, on a PSL. Thanks for the reply!
Remove the top cover and recoil spring and cycle the carrier. Is the carrier tight in the rear of the receiver? There may be your problem.
or the receiver is out of spec and the whole bolt carier is popping out from the hammer pushing it up... try taking off the top cover and pulling th charging handle all the way back, hard.. then hit with your palm the bolt carrier down back into the rails... it might be trying to field strip itself
Sounds like a typical AK-type action - the bolt carrier might stay back or might not when cycling manually and trying to make it stick. If you yank the bolt back and let it go to snap forward, it should not stick. Clean and lube the gun - this is basically normal and doesn't matter, as long as it cycles normally when firing. Otherwise, just bump the bolt handle to make it snap shut when you 'stick' it on purpose.
