VZ-58: Feed Ramp Addition

In the previous attempts to get steel case ammunition to feed reliably I showed an issue I was having with feeding, not related to the shell itself. Rather the meplate of the bullet was large and it was not being lifted high enough to feed smoothly into the chamber.

This is a bullet incompatibility issue that causes a jam due to the large meplate.
The Meplate is damaged due to butting up against the barrel

I debated long and hard about how to solve this issue, or whether I wanted to solve it at all. The rifle would likely feed ballistic tip, and closed tip FMJ’s just fine. However it may have issues feeding soft tip, and bullet with large open meplates. Rifles that are picky on feeding ammunition are not unheard of, and shooters make decisions on what ammunition to buy based on what works the best in their rifles. However I didn’t really want to play that game. I want a firearm that just runs, and eats whatever you feed it. Afterall the VZ-58 has that reputation.

I had the following concerns

  • Removing too much material and leaving the case unsupported in the chamber, which could result in case failure, junking the barrel.
  • My ability to control a Dremel in removing the material
  • Despite my best efforts, the problem remains

I finally decided to do something about it. It nagged on me long enough that I just needed to bite the figurative bullet and try something.

I started with a file, but not matter how many different angles or files I tried I couldn’t get at the barrel to do the work. I seems strange to say that I had room with a Dremel, but not a file.

The grinding stone, felt lapping bob, and the lapping compound

Dremels scare the living crap out of me. Especially when doing precision guesswork. You have the power to remove way to much material, way to quickly, in a very uncontrolled manner. Such power gives skilled professionals the jitters, let alone undisciplined hobbyists like myself. I went slow, and tried very hard to only removed enough material to create a chamfer that offered a smoother transition from mag to chamber.

Once I was done with the grinding, I polished the work I did, and also polished the feed ramp on the receiver. This polishing made it rather hard to take pictures of my handiwork.

The final product, a small chamfer designed to smooth the chambering of large meplate bullets, you can see from the glare where I polished.
Another angle, in daylight, that shows the slight modification of the chamber, and the polished feed ramp.

So did it work? Yes it seems to have worked. The Wolf Ammunition fed flawlessly after that. Not so much as a hiccup. The steel cases did not show any signs of bulging or stress marks that would indicate the case was in danger of failure due to being unsupported. We will check this again when we test ammunition with Brass shells, but I feel like there wasn’t enough material removed to cause issues.

Now that we have the majority of the bugs worked out of the VZ-58 build there is only a couple things left to do before we can finish it off. We need to sight in the rifle, and then we need to get the receiver painted. There is already a light browning in some areas, the steel needs to be protected before we can call this build done.