6.5x55 Conversion

My dad and I are building a 6.5 caliber AK.  This has become one of his pet rounds and we've talked about it so long I just want to see if we can do it :)

He wants to base the build on a PSL style rifle. 

While the Swedes did have a BAR-styled MG, the magazines are simply impossible to find.  So we had to research a suitable replacement.  We determined that his particular load - using 100 grain bullets - would work in a .308 magazine.  However the most ubiquitous load uses 140 grains, and some load even larger for extreme long-distance shooting.  Therefore we are going to attempt the use of French 7.5mm LMG (25 round!) magazines as they are slightly longer than .308.  8mm magazines are simply too long and cause rounds to tilt in the mag. 

Mock-up on my PSL for a rough idea of how the mags will look:

Parts are mostly from a Yugo M70 kit and various PSL parts we scrounged.

We used a Mauser barrel which is already chambered.  We profiled it into the PSL profile.

The barrel parts layout - we are using my PKM flash hider:

The barrel profile was too thin in the front for the Yugo front sight.  I had an old 3/4" bolt that we used to make a sleeve and thread adapter.  The barrel was uniformed to .560".