acutedeath

Thanks for the suggestions. It had enough gas to run when it was stock, so I blamed the hammer. Then I messed with it long enough to decide I was doing a bad job and sent it off to Pauly (3 months ago). I think that in a few weeks I'll have a gun that works. I bought a retaining plate in the meantime but I've never heard of that plate issue; so thank you for the heads-up. I guess I was just trying to back up the Saiga by saying that mine worked perfectly until I messed with it.

When I bought my Saiga-12, new-in-box, it ran the very first box of 25 Estate light target loads without a hitch. I never had a single malfunction until after I converted it (with Tapco fcg). I started getting lots of FTE after that. I'm choosing to blame the parts, not my work. I'm currently having the internals rehabilitated, so hopefully I get back the reliability I started with. From my point of view, the Saiga-12 is made to a higher standard than the common conversion parts. Maybe I got a lucky gun, but I have much respect for this platform.

If the hammer is ground to provide clearance for the BHO, you may consider putting a BHO in place to limit side-to-side travel of the hammer, perhaps?

Even though the official Bosse Tech site seemed a little sketchy to me, I ordered the adapter directly from there, no sweat. This was in April or May, perhaps. They've improved the scheme of the site a bit since then. It's a great product if you are building the gun around the drum like I am. Take a spoonfull of salt with that, since I haven't had the chance to torture the gun hard and see how it holds up.

I can maybe provide pictures of my setup later today. The adapter feels like it's under spring/detent pressure when twisted. It either position, it stays in place without wiggle (unlike the ace push-button folder I have it bolted to). You have to press a button to make it go from straight to rotated, which isn't especially easy to do on-the-fly. Straightening it takes moderate force, and there is a click as you overcome the spring pressure. Unfortunately I don't have much live-fire experience with it, since my internals have been in the shop for the better part of three months.

This is what I use: http://bossetech.com/ It lets you fold around the drum. It locks up "tightly" but can still be straightened by hand when it's in the rotated position, without needing to push the button again.

One option to avoid needing a detachable stock is the rotating stock drum adapter. I have one and the rotating piece is solid. (I won't drop the name because I don't know if they are a business member.) As far as folding adapters that lock tightly in the folded position, I don't know. I'm thinking I saw a custom pin-release stock on these forums at some point.

Very cool, thanks. I was just surprised you had a stock other than an AK100 on there. I'm trying to build my Saiga reliable from the hip with the stock folded around an MD20 full of cheap shells or anything else... for no particular reason other than it seems good to maximize the versatility of it.

Congratulations on a clearly successful project. I'm curious, was your choice of that solid stock for the SBS a factor for reliable cycling with the Winchester?

I like the AR setups I've used that have a scope mounted really low, with a reflex sight mounted on top of the scope. You'd have to replace the scope if yours doesn't have a rail on top, but that can be cheaper than a whole gun.

I'm have a sling swivel on my folding mechanism and a blackhawk "storm" single point sling. The sling itelf is almost too long (I can't create tension in the firing position), but it makes handling the gun easier. I'm folding the stock to the left, so my swivel is screwed into the right side. This makes it only comfortable to use when the stock is folded. That is fine with me; folded stock + sling = fun mode.