ProgCoder

Duplicolor Ceramic High Heat Paint (DH 1602 High Heat Black) The color is a close match to the original Saiga Finish Resists temperatures up to 1200 degrees F Cured finish resists oil, gas, grease, rust, salt, humidity, and solvents including gun cleaning solvents.

Ditto - I've used it for about 5 years now without a hitch. I may actually break down and buy a licensed version one of these days - to show appreciation! http://free.grisoft.com/doc/special-get-isw-tpay/us/frt/0 I've used AVG for years with good results along with Comodo's Personal Firewall (free and much better than ZoneAlarm). Comodo recently combined their Firewall and their AntiVirus, now called Comodo Internet Security. I've switched several of my PC's over to this application and I'm very pleased with it. It's also free for personal use. http://www.personalfirewall.co

My son bought some of the heavy ball ammo with the same results. One out of every two where split, we realized what was happening when on one round we couldn't even open the bolt. We were finally able to force the bolt open and then had to tap the split case out of the chamber with a cleaning rod. I've read about "sticky bolt" problems on the Mosins' and I believe this is what's happening. The bolt sticking is due to the case improperly expanding whether it splits or not. I believe the heavy ammo was designed for more modern machine guns and not the old rifles. We now purchase only the 1

I'm guessing that he was talking about heating the sightblock but that doesnt sound good either Heating the barrel shouldn't be a problem. I just had the front site of an old sporterized 1903 Springfield replaced, the Springfield requires a long and tall ramp site. The standard practice is to silver solder the sights on, that requires a lot of heat. Typically if a sight (front or rear) isn't screwed on or held down in a dovetail, it's silver soldered on. The barrel should easily take the heat needed to expand the front sight block enough to loosen it.

Since that's where the rifle vents the excess gas, I'd recommend the vertical grip too (or the 'Ove' Glove )

A range report would be great. The original Saiga scope mount pointed high and therefore shot "very" low, it wouldn't even hit paper. I'd like to hear how the UTG mounts work.

I've found my RCBS 5*0*5 scale to do everything I need. Plus RCBS's warranty is 2nd to none. I've bought several used RCBS reloading items on eBay that were either missing something or damaged due to poor packaging, like the loss of an entire press handle from a RCBS JR3 press that ripped a hole through the box during shipping and disappeared. RCBS always sent the parts, no questions asked, at no charge. That policy has made RCBS my first choice for most of my reloading needs.

I actually purchased a few actual Saiga 5 round mags (MI has the same 5 round mag restriction for hunting). I noticed the only difference was the length of the body was different, the spring length and everything else was the same. The 5 rounder was the same length as where the secondary floorplate position on the 10 round magazine is. It seems that the manufacture was thinking ahead and used one injection mould to create 2 different sized magazines... Brilliant!

You already have one then.... The factory 10 rounders are also designed to be 5 rounders too. The 10 round mag needs to be trimmed at the red line. The mag body is designed to accept the floorplate at the 5 round level.

The most critical part is a 2nd Saiga, if one fails you have quite a few spare parts for the 1st. If neither fail, hand it to a friend (or spouse) to cover your back.

One is one too many... No US citizen should ever have their constitutional rights violated by any representative of the US government, ever! Juggetnaut statement is correct... any member of any police agency or military agency that participated in this should be tracked down, prosecuted and jailed for this crime. Period!

I've got a couple of original Saiga scope mounts and they're the same. They point to the sky... aim at a target and you hit the dirt at 50 yards.

They're under civilian mags... http://www.cdnninvestments.com/lemaforciuse.html

This link has a good article regarding the accuracy of an AK. He even uses a highly worn one to prove his point. In the article he talks about one of his pet peeves, the buffer. He shows how little wear the rear trunnion received even after much use. http://www.surplusrifleforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=31796