Wasr 10/63 side plate

[jnewps]

I was wanting to take off the side plate on my wasr 10/63 since I do not need it and it could drop some weight. I know the weight lost is not super significant, but it does compensate for weight that has been added. The plate is held in with rivets (the rivets have no head formed on opposite side??) I could simply drill out the two front-most rivets, however, the rear rivet also holds in the rear trunnion. Is this possible to do, assuming fairly basic tools?

[Krupski]

I was wanting to take off the side plate on my wasr 10/63 since I do not need it and it could drop some weight. I know the weight lost is not super significant, but it does compensate for weight that has been added. The plate is held in with rivets (the rivets have no head formed on opposite side??) I could simply drill out the two front-most rivets, however, the rear rivet also holds in the rear trunnion. Is this possible to do, assuming fairly basic tools?

Hi! Welcome to Gunsnet! :welcome:

By "side plate" do you mean a thing that looks like this (in the center of the photo):

http://tantal.kalashnikov.guns.ru/media3/T2leftrecsmall.jpg

If so, that is a Russian Standard Optics Mount (i.e. a scope mount) that works very well and (in my opinion) much better than the American 1913 mount.

I suggest you leave it on. You may one day wish to mount a scope or red-dot sight on your rifle and if you take off that mount, you will be forced to use a mickey-mouse dust cover mount or some other junk.

Also, if you drill out the rivets, you will have bare metal exposed, ugly holes where they don't belong and possibly a poor finish on the receiver under where the plate was.

More importantly, some of those rivets are part of the structural integrity of the receiver. Who knows what may fly apart if you take them out?

REALLY... don't remove it unless you absolutely want and need to. It belongs there and it only weighs a few ounces.

Again, welcome to Gunsnet :welcome: and be sure to check out the General Discussion forums too: http://www.gunsnet.net/forumdisplay.php?16-General-Discussion-NON-GUN-Forum!

Stop in and say HI!

And if you have any other questions, please feel free to ask. That's what we're here for!

-- Roger

[jnewps]

I have a TWS dogleg. I have shot around 450 rounds with it. Taken it off and on, off and on. I even knocked it around a bit and it's holding zero. I put a completely ridiculous scope from my hunting rifle on it so that I could rule out any human or optic error. I am not fully committed to removing the plate, but it's very tempting. I could replace the trunnion rivet with a bolt, which could double as the bolt for an 870 type sling mount, since the sling mount on my mako stock (which I absolutely love) is part of the moulded plastic. I just have troubles trusting that to hold up over time. It would leave two extra holes, and this may may look ridiculous, but for the time being they can be cover with a nut/bolt and grinded for clearance. The finish does not bother me. It's getting a cerakote finish sometime in the next year.