De-frankenpinning an sks mag

[theSKSguy45]

So my 1949 like so many others had the misfortune of being frankenpinned by Westrifle. Now I personally don’t think they look atrocious but they are definitely unsightly, so I figured I’d try to fix mine. I ground down the weld to the point at which a co-worker could weld the gaps left on the mag closed. Unfortunately they aren’t a gun guy and didn’t understand exactly what I was asking for. Although I’m very grateful they took the time to help me the result isn’t what I had hoped for. I’ve been thinking of hitting it with a torch to heat blue the stainless portion and go over the rest with cold blue afterwards. Regardless it was an excellent experience and all the more reason to get a tig welder and start learning so I can do these at home.

[running-man]

I'm a bit confused, were there pits under the edge of the frankenweld that needed filled in after you ground it flat?  Did your buddy use stainless weld wire?!

I think regardless of what you do, you're going to always have some kind of discontinuity at the edge of the frankenweld after you grind it flush.  It might be able to be hidden with a good rebluing, but it'll always be there if someone looks hard enough.  Not to say that what you have is not 10X better looking than the frakenweld wart, I think you did great for your first one!    Do you think a different weld bead layout would have helped hide things a bit better??  I'll be interested to see what it looks like after you blue it.  You might surprise yourself with how well it looks.

[theSKSguy45]

Those photos are after a cold blue, I didn’t go very far because I noticed the weld was done with stainless wire. When the pin was welded originally there was a chuck that had burned away, leaving a noticeable hole in the weld. The original weld came down and was nearly indistinguishable from the original material but the stainless sticks out more than I was hoping for. Here is a picture from right after the weld


Basically I’m looking to to blue stainless