quick yet thorough Saiga 223 accuracy test...

[rangerruck 0]

Okay, let me go into as many details as possible here, I tried for as many variances as possible, to show the true capability of this rifle. Saiga in 223 cal, range is 50 m.

Today, in houston, temps 80 degrees, late afternoon, light humidity.

wind is 20 miles per hr. straight and steady , from our 6.

The saiga is totally stock 16 inch bbl; let me qualify my meaning of stock.

It has a blackjack recoil buffer inside. Also, on all my weapons , i dunk them for a few days, in a stainless trough, with sweetshooters. Then , when that is done, I totally rinse out with hi power steaming hot water, then redunk in synthetic motor oil , for a few more days, such as Castrol.

i find the two above treatments, make a weapon, super easy to clean, and run smooth as butta, also, it looks absolutely brand new, will never rust, even though I keep it in a bag, for about 2 years now. The sweetshooters acts as a total shield against microparticles, and removes like an astringent any micro pockets of carbon, water, or air molecules that may be locked up in the steel anywhere.

Lastly, and I am not sure on this one, I may have molyfusioned the bore on it, i usually do on all my weapons, but do not remember doing this to any of my Saigas.

The mags I used varied from saigas, to orlites, to weigers, 10 to 30 rounders.

The ammo I used was a bit of everything, milsurp, blackhills remandfgr'd, wolf steel, wolf classic, S&B plain milsurp blue box, plain federal red box, Barnaul, Monarch plain, Monarch green box, etc., with diff weights of the bullets as well.

The range was 50 m, and the rests were bags; they were intermittent, in that , sometimes I used a rear rest, and with the 30 round mags, it was front rest only.

The firing was done, I was going for accuracy, but I was not in my usual benchrest mode, so I was firing maybe 10 seconds per round fired.

 

What we have here is one sheet, with 9 dots on it, each dot is a 3 inch

diameter.

As you can see all are 10 shot groups, don't ask me why on the top middle

dot I had the 3 high flyers, I don't get it, I must have minutely changed my sight picture, before settling back down.

Now then, for the amazing stats, this rifle was set up about 1 yr. ago, with a 1 inch high 100m zero. I did not change anything. It is open sites, by the way.( yeah, I have extemely good longe range eyesight) With the origional crap sites, that come with these weapons. Also, in case you don't know about the stock saiga trigger, it is two stage, the first stage is like dragging a cinder block with one finger, the second stage, is about double the pull weight of the first stage, and the way the make these triggers, it feels like Colonel Kurtz, talking about..." walking down the edge.... of a ... straight

razor!" Very uncomfortable. Also , if you are not familiar with the famous AK

trigger slap, imagine everytime you pull the trigger , Moe, from the 3 stooges, slaps you across your finger!!!! Ouch.

Okay, back to amazing stats; rifle zero was never changed, also, I never check my groups between 3 or five rounds, I never changed my site picture, and fired all 10 rounds, until i was done. Then I checked the groups through binos... so no adjusting any sites, and no kentucky windage, between groups, or new dots. That is amazing.

Also, if you look carefully, you will see that in essence, all groups went basically to the middle of the dot. just some groups are a bit wider....Now that is truly amazing. Why? becuase even in top flight made rigs, when you change ammo this drastically , diff mfgrs, diff weights, diff cases, diff powders, diff speeds, diff everything, usually even a decent bolt gun will throw the diff groups, left, right , up , down, way off the dot, you name it.

NONE OF THAT, happened here, i have allways believed that Saiga put a top flight made bbl on these, and this helps to confirm this. Oh yeah, this is a 16 inch bbl rifle.

A couple of these groups, namely the center group, which i new was black hills 55 grain blu box, and the top right , I believe was the S&B, standard milsurp aqua box, and the bottom right, ammo unknown, If I really woulda buckled down, and not been firing shots every 10 seconds, I could have made these groups MOA, again, with these crap open sites.

I hope this answers many of your Saiga accuracy questions.

Now i can't guarantee what you will get off of their line, and then again, nobody I know chemically treats their rifles the way I do, but I have had many Saigas now, and they have all been pretty much like this.

Again, I tried to make as many variances as possible, to make it difficult to replicate any particular situation, so that pretty much everything was left up to the weapon, and my ability to hold it steady.

I had a stainless steel trough built for me, about 60 bucks, 36 inches long, 4 inches deep , 6 inches wide. I then strip down all the parts that are not metal, and put all metal parts in the trough. it sits covered outside, nice and warm, to soak into the metal real good. As it is a super astringent and really penetrates into the metal, it basically loosens up, disentigrates up, and floats out, anything that doesn't belong. now when you pull it out, your weapon will be bone-daddy dry, it almost looks ghostly, kinda scary!!!

So then I soak again, for a few days , in the synth lube, and let that synth lube get into all the teeneh , tineh , nooks and micro crannies all hear, there, and about. Then I take out, and let drip dry basically.

Cleaning is so easy, it is almost a joke, I have yet to put a brush down the tube, just patches, eveything else is just a wipe down. I don't even bother to wipe the outside anymore, nothing sticks to it.

My rationale is this; I don't want to clean any more than i have to; I want the weapon to be as rust resistant as possible, I want the weapon to function as smooth as possible , even when i don't clean or lube it.

I want a weapon that will have a super smooth bore, that is accurate, and easy to clean, I want a weapon that i can store in a bag, not touch for a year, and when I pull it out, still looks brand new, and is 100% reliable.

I feel I come as close to accomplishing this as possible, doing this.

I did this same thing to another rifle of mine, a 70 year old marlin mod 80 dl, that I won on a auction site. When I got it shipped in, it had absolutely no bluing, and was a complete rust bucket. did the same treatment as above.

Then put in a very old deer skinned, WOOL LINED, gunbag, then put in the trunk of my car.... which leaked... badly. i put it in during two febs. ago , while still freezing temps, and pulled it out last week of last April, nice and hot and humid and rainy by then . Not a spot of rust on it anywhere.

if you read about sweethshooters on the 'net, I do not do the shooting part

that they want you to do. Just soak it. I have written to other dudes, who have had soso luck with the bore prep they want you to do, So i just use it as a great metal prep, and astringent.

Edited April 23, 2008 by rangerruck

[IndyArms 10,186]

wow... nice write up and some fine shooting!!!

 

I would say if you were mixing and matching ammo... them three flyers were from something it didnt like...

 

I was shooting 1.5" wide X 3" high groups with mine just the other day... so I am with ya on the fact they kick major ass !!!

 

 

[rangerruck 0]

tough to say really, I think those were 3 flyers in a row, which seems unlikely, and they are close together, so I am pretty sure, my body positioning was just a bit whack right then.

[cracker 60 0]

Ok, now you've done it. I have to get .223 Saiga this weekend at the gun show. I already have a 7.62x39 and love it.

[rangerruck 0]

You know, it is a funny thing... When I first bought Saigas, seems about 5-7 years ago, their accuracy was good, so good in fact, that at the time I had a 223 and a 308. I first had them scoped, but afterwards, my thinking became, ' a shft gun, sleek , light, nothing to catch on the F.U. vines, handy, etc., whether for pigs or zombies, i really don't need these scoped or sighted, plus I am blessed to have very good long range sight. Then I sold all my old saigas, and got out of 308, and thought, I am going to straight bolt actions, faster and slicker, with no mags, just straight internal 5 round box mags. And I did that for a while. But then, about 2 yrs ago, i started rethinking , a bug out, zombie cache, and the bolties just wouldn't cut it. So I went back to the Saigas, hoping they were still as accurate as I remembered them being.... Again, don't need them scoped, and accuracy wise, I would say they are as good as ever.

[AKMIKEFMJ 0]

Great report......thanks.