Captken

Go on youtube and search for Saiga 12 conversions. There is probably a half dozen. Watch all of them one evening. They are all close to the same but each one will have something different in the techinque. Take the good parts of each and go tackle your gun. Its really quite easy once you've watch the videos. You will need the G2 single hook AK 47 FCG, then trigger guard of your choice unless you chose the economy build and use the old one. Butt stock of your choice and pistol grip.

Just finished my Duracoat job and actually turned out pretty good.

My son taught me patience in painting years ago. I use to think I needed to get all the paint on in one coat.

Thought I had screwed the pooch this afternoon. Decided to go ahead and Duracoat my S-12 so it would have all night to dry. Had pieces and parts scattered around the shop and I would travel to each part, spray a light coat and move on to the next. This gave time for the first part to off gas and dry some before the next coat. After several coats on the barrel and receiver, noticed that the serial number was no longer visable. Aw Crap I thought. But the longer it dried, the numbers started reappearing lightly. Now the hard part, keeping my grubby hands off till tomorrow

Order my handy dandy Duracoat paint kit this morning. Doing the metal parts in Desert Beige so it looks simular to my avatar. But thinking, completely disassemble the gun or not? If I disassemble the FCG, then I need to paint the ends of the hammer and trigger pins so there isn't a black dot on the sides of the gun. But then I stand a chance of scratching the paint off the ends when assembling. Or I can tape off all the openings and leave the FCG intact and paint the pins in place. Gotta tape the internals off anyway. I really need to get a life if that's all I have to worry about.

http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.aspx?Item=331331814 Looking at this one on GB and it looks like the same cover over the original trigger hole as the Saiga has. So I wonder if the AK trigger kit could be used to convert it.

Bought several boxes of high brass #5 and went with a friend to test our S12's. I had converted his last week. First few rounds stovepiped or failed to load the round completely. So I moved the gas valve from 2 to 5 and it ran perfect. I forgot my drum mag at home but my friend brought his. He ran a full load through his with no problem and this was the first time his gun had ever been fired. Then he switched to his 10 round Pro Mag and I almost rolled on the ground laughing. He had filed the mag to get it to fit and every second round, the mag would drop out of the gun. Got pretty funny wat

Performed my second conversion today and what a breeze it was. An old friend wanted his converted so I gave him the shopping list with his choice of stock and pistol grip. Had to put my friend on a stool and out of my way but at least my dreaded bolt hold open spring went in easier this time. He now owes me.

So wasn't it ABC that tried to furnish a house with nothing but American made items and couldn't. I think they found a rug and a bowl. All things considered, China does a pretty good job at knock offs. I bought a knock off 150cc Honda scooter some years back for $900 out the door. Three years later and 13,000 miles, I sold it for $700 and it was still running. I then bought a Japanese bike. Better quality and not as many parts fell off.

Cruising Gun Broker tonight and saw a few of these things for sale. Advertised as the new China Saiga 12 that is not listed on the gun ban.

RWC Group is still showing a list price of $799.99 for the 109 S12. So if dealers are jacking the prices up, then it's them and not the importer.

Noticed you didn't fill the holes for the old FCG in the receiver. Was there a reason not to?

Did some reading on the Duracoat site last night and they did recommend alum oxide but did not warn against using other media. On blued or parkerized guns, they did not recommend anything other than degreasing. But said any uncured silicone in the area, even still in the tube, will affect the process. They only recommend heating to 125 degrees for speeding the curing process. Don't think my oven will go that low.

http://i523.photobucket.com/albums/w355/thecaptken/carrier_zps5f4f0bc9.jpg OK, I can take the link off the end and post the link but if I leave the on it, the site says I can not use it. This is what I get: You are not allowed to use that image extension on this community.

I found out when cleaning mine the other week that carb cleaner will wash the paint off.

That's what I did, copy and pasted the URL from the picture like I do on other sites. I was at my office computer at the time.

Tried to use Photobucket to post a picture of my bolt carrier and the site said that I couldn't use that media source. What media does it accept?

Getting where I can disassembe and assemble this thing in the dark. Almost!! Removed the carrier and bolt yesterday and did some modifying and polishing. Got the carrier to the point I think I could use it as a mirror to shave. Works slick as owl shit but one thing baffles me. Pulling the carrier back fully, there is a hitch in it and as I looked, its where the carrier slides past the rails then slides back on them as it moves forward. Now I realize I'm working on an AK and precision isn't a quality but can't really see any solution. I took a small jeweler's file and made sure there was no

Gun fun, I like that idea of dimpling a indent halfway up on the safety. I'll have to look at adding the extra lever next time I break it down.

Iraqiveteran888 isn't all bad. He has some good tricks and then some I wouldn't do like drilling out the front sight to repair the gas ports. I like the way he reused the original trigger guard and how to knock out the rear rivets without drilling. I watched several different people's video conversions and took a little information from each.

Not going to to go to all the trouble to change out the media since it would take a different gun also. We use it on aluminum, brass, stainless and anything else that we can get in the cabinet and it sure doesn't look like it polishes to me. I just see several other gun builders use glass shot in the blast cabinet to refinish their guns and thought, why not a Saiga.

Did the muscle car thing years ago and playing with guns is a heck of a lot cheaper. Did a 69 GTO convertable back to orginal factory specs and that is a job. Crawling around old junk yards looking for orginal OEM parts so when you drive up to the car shows they don't laugh at you. Anyone can piece one together where it looks and drives good but to build one right, takes a chunk of change that you will never recover. Glad that's over with and I have moved on to easier things like guns.

After the conversion and deciding that I was going to make my S-12 a hobby and Duracoat it. Kinda want to paint it like the picture by my name. Anyway when I learned how crappy the paint is on the Saiga and reading the instructions for Duracoat, they have you scrubbing the metal with a pad to clean and rough things up. So I'm thinking of maybe something better. Being I have a big blast cabinet and we use glass shot, what would be the problem of blasting the parts to be painted? Sure would give a good base to hold the Duracoat. Of course everything would be stripped down to nothing and reass

Ran across a Youtube video that showed the economy conversion and in the video the guy showed how to take the tension out of the safety lever if it was too tight. So my question is, does the dimple on the back of the safety actually serves any function or is it there to make the scratch in the paint? If the lever was adjusted to the point where the dimple didn't ride the receiver, would it hurt anything?

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but with the conversion, nothing changes in regard to the safety lever. In fact, I just checked mine and it looks like the lower picture of the AK. I used the original trigger guard and left the stop in the original position. Trying to figure where the problem discussed is?