So after some research, I found some technical drawings of the magazine specifying a width of 25.97 mm. But that might be original AK47. AKM is apparently a little narrower? On my particular rifle, the distance between the magazine blocks is 24.9 to 24.7 mm depending on where I measure. The particular magazines I got were from AIM surplus, Croatian origin I believe.
They measured 25.3 mm. There's the problem. So, I sanded off the super thick paint and squeezed them in a vice down to 24.5 mm. The top edge of the magazine was also very square, so I filed a bevel on that edge to help with them getting hung up on the blocks while inserting. Also, one of the mags was .2 mm too long front to back, so I had to take a little off the back on that one.
After the vise squeeze, the right lip on the magazine ended up a little too low and left resulting in either the bolt catching on the magazine, or failure to feed from that side of the stack. I bent that lip up a little with some pliers and that issue was solved.
Sounds like a lot, but it only took maybe 30 minutes for all three.
So now I have three mags that fit the rifle and work properly on the bench. We'll see how they do at the range, I don't expect any problems.
