My Saiga AK is about 2 years old. I just noticed during cleaning that the piston has just the slightest movement in the bolt carrier. Previous opinions are conflicting such as...........

 

- that's bad; it will wreck your rifle, fix it.

 

or

 

- that's how AKs are built; fugedabodit.

 

Anyone, anyone??????????????

 

 

my wasr piston has a slight wobble too. 

Its fine my saiga 223 and saiga 12 do that. If you are really concerned about it... drill out the dimples insert a role pin and bee done with it. If you wanna replace the piston while your at it.. measure the lenth of the carrier, drill out dimples install new piston... and drill a hole through it and install a role pin.... drill press works best

yep It's OK to have slight wobble, in fact I read seen it somewhere they are suppose too. I'll see if I could find it...

 

 

Edit:

Actually I didn’t read it I seen it in this video when I replaced my 223 piston. Kind of a long video but  he goes into a lot of detail which I like. Fast forward to the 1:30 mark for the wobble mention. There was nothing wrong with my piston, I reverted back to the Sagia 223 hammer so I wanted one more 922 compliant part

Its an ak. They aren't known for exacting tolerances

Shoot it!

Its an ak. They aren't known for exacting tolerances

 

Precision gunsmithing on AK variants usually involves sledgehammers and sufficient amounts of force.

Its broken if it doesn't wobble.

Seriously, it doesn't wobble because of tolerances or anything.  It wobbles because it's supposed to.  Look at how much the carrier wobbles during even hand cycling.  It needs movement (up to 4mm lateral) to find the gas block without bashing it.

Its suppossed to have a wobble. Theres a pin through the bolt carrier thats the pivot point. This allows for misalignment issues to be solved with loose tolerances.

 

Its fine.