I’m picking up a Zastava ZPAP92 this coming Sunday. It already comes with a rear 1913 section to brace and later SBR. My question, should I pick up spare parts for wear and tear and what’s the most common item breaking?
I’m aware of the firing pin breaking, my AK-V had to have a replacement sent under warranty from PSA. I hate not having repair parts on hand though and I am seeing that Zastava has parts showing in stock. What would you guys suggest to have on hand?
Thanks ahead of time.
I’m curious about this as well.
A set of springs, a firing pin, and maybe a spare extractor. Broken case extractor should be in your range bag as well.
Broken shell extractor for sure. They’re a pain in the ass to get out otherwise.
Which broken case extractor would you recommend?
I really like the samson kit with the case extractor that stows in a hogue grip. Oddly enough now that I have an extractor with me all the time I don’t think I have stripped a casing.
It’s called the Samson Field Survivor or something like that.
I have a fairly sizable AK collection. It’s not common for AK’s to break. Your PSA firing pin broke because of PSA’s poor quality control, not because they typically break. I’ve literally never had one break (knock on wood). I personally don’t sweat having a big spare parts stash as it’s a common platform and there are there are tons of AK parts around. We don’t have that luxury with the more proprietary designs. Of course, you might be looking at it from a SHTF perspective. That’s smart, but don’t neglect the financial aspect of your decisions. For the same amount of money, would you rather have five rifles with spare parts or six rifles without spare parts? I’d personally take the latter. Finally, some of the Zastava AK parts are proprietary, so don’t assume that your gun will take all AK parts. Fortunately, the proprietary parts are the ones that are extremely unlikely to break.
When I’ve worked with AKs that actually get shot (vice my personally owned reference guns), they’ve been maintained by skilled armorers or not at all. By the time things start breaking on the range, the gun is completely roached; not serviceable without repair well above the user level. What I don’t know is if the armorers are replacing things like springs preeemptively. But the ones that weren’t maintained at all displayed that end-of-life pattern also.
Not all have been nearly as reliable as their reputation, even relatively new allegedly top-tier ones. But durable, for sure.
There’s a dude that used to post here that’s a US armorer in Iraq that probably has a lot of expertise on this. Some of the indig dudes’ guns* are really worn, beat up, or shitty from birth, and that was the story 15 years ago, too. Until that dude shows up, Bret seems pretty knowledgeable and I’d defer to him.
*ironically, a lot of M16s, too, these days, and even the occasional weirdo nerd gun.
It never hurts to have spare parts to any of your guns. You can always start small and get larger subassemblies as your wallet sees fit. Nothing worse than a deadlined gun due to a broken or missing small part.
Agreed GNXU, and a good practice for any platform, but AKs are not as user serviceable as ARs. Many parts require “more advanced” skills to be learned and specialized tools. Not terribly difficult, but either way you ain’t doing it quickly in the field and going back to the line.
A small list of uaer serviceable parts should cover the basics. AKs tend to be pretty reliable. Sure, they break. But when they do its usually gonna be a more complicated repair.
Well I have it. The original owner was a nice guy but didn’t know any better so I cannot fault him but he’s been making up for it regardless.
Thankfully the only dremeling he had done was to an aftermarket handguard. Easy fix, he had the original one so it went back on. But the rear metal piece for it that was the shelf for going into the receiver was jacked up. He zelled me enough for a replacement set for me shipped.
It also came with a pre 89,000 serial numbered MRO, mixed feelings here.
I can say that after disassembly to clean up the thing and then lube or grease where needed, is that the Serbs must have dipped the entire gun into a vat of rust looking grease. Holy moly there was so much. Just when I had thought I had got it all, nope, there was more appearing out of nowhere. This was the furthest from fun I had ever had to do for quite some time.
I also noticed that there’s a learning curve with the safety selector that’s different from the one on the AK-V. The AK-V’s lever goes in, push to fire and reinstall guide rod and bolt along with spring and trunnion, close cover, function checks pass, done.
Not so with this NPAP. After researching it, one guy said on reddit (yes I know, reddit of all places) that he had something similar where the lever would not go into safe or fire and stayed up, so he installed the piston and bolt then spring and carrier. He then pulled the trigger and held the trigger down and then got the lever to go back into position. WTF? It then passed function checks.
Is that normal with Serb AK’s or AK’s in general that’s not a blowback like the KP9 and AK-V, or what?
I’m having a hard time visualizing the issue you’re having with the safety selector, but the NPAP’s does work like a typical AK.