Vista

Take a look at my fairly recent thread in the Saiga Rifle Conversions forum: "Saiga Conversion Observations". I converted my .223 Saiga a few weeks ago, and it turned out great. And yes, the BHO retention complicates the conversion, but it is worth doing, IMO. Just make sure you use quality cobalt drill bits! Hope this helps... Vista

I'm using the original Saiga mag plus three Surefire 10-round mags. If you take a look in the .223 Saiga forum, you'll see a rundown on my difficulties with the Surefire mags. Now that they have been modified, they are working OK, not as good as the Saiga mag, but OK. Being in California, I also have to use a "Bullet Button", in my case the Solar Tactical Bullet Button. This little gizmo makes it even more difficult to eject tightly fitting magazines, because you can't get as much leverage on the mag release as you can with your thumb. Vista

JT1911: It took about 5 hours over two days, but a lot of that was "thinking" time. I also spent too much time trying to get substandard 'cobalt' drills to work and probably wasted more time than necessary in masking and spray painting the receiver bottom and trigger guard. As I mentioned in my writeup, the BHO spring can provide many minutes of entertainment. I also spent a lot of time cross-referencing the various conversion guides I had. I'd guess that doing another conversion would take me no more than 2-3 hours. Hope this helps...you've probably already started yours by the time

Gerry: Unfortunately, my Warsaw stock is a Tapco. How about making the trade if I pay your shipping cost? Vista

I found a YouTube video which demonstrates a fix for exactly the same problem that I described. The fix is to take a few swipes of a file to round off the lower corner of the mag locking lug. The upper corner of the locking lug pushes the mag catch out of the way as the mag rotates up, and then the rounded lower corner allows the mag latch to snap back in under the locking lug. I tried this on all three Surefire mags, and now they're working OK - not as smooth as the Saiga mag, but I suspect they will wear themselves in... Vista

After lurking on this forum for many weeks, I finally got a .223 Saiga, shot it a few times for familiarity, and decided to go ahead and convert it. I ordered the conversion parts from Carolina Shooters Supply (surprisingly fast shipping over the New Year's weekend!) and completed the conversion yesterday. I shot the Saiga this morning and everything ran like a champ. I thought I'd offer a few observations about the conversion process that may help someone thinking about converting. 1. I had a pile of conversion guides - the vimeo.com video and cross-con.com were very useful. The guid

I'm astonished that SGM has sold 40,000 .223 mags in three years! Assuming that each buyer gets as many as four mags, that's10,000 Saiga .223 rifles out there...I further assume (with zero facts available) that there's a lot more 7.62 Saigas, and maybe more .308 Saigas, sold than the .223s. That's a lot of Saigas! Vista

Here's some email correspondence with Surefire Gun Magazines regarding my difficulty with getting their 10-round .223 mags to latch. I've edited the emails somewhat to protect the innocent. I did find a Utube video on this exact subject - the guy in that video used a rounded file to knock down the lower corner of the mag rear locking lug and a flat file on the lower surface to narrow the height of the locking lug. I guess I'll try that lower corner mod next. I'd appreciate info on any fixes you guys may have discovered... Vista -----Original Message----- From: Thomas To: suref

First Post from a Newbie: I'm just getting into the Saiga conversion cult, and have a question about my particular S223. My rifle is of fairly recent manufacture (12/08?) according to the shipping box, and has the "dimples", handguard retaining grooves on the barrel, and what appears to be a thin cylindrical cover over what might be a threaded barrel forward of the front sight base. I've seen some discussion of this over on the 7.62x39 forum. Could it apply also to some of the S223s? If so, what's the best way to determine if there are threads underneath the barrel cover, and then to ex