Hi-Cap mag mod

[glennb 0]

Never had experience with welding anything, so what exactly is gas welding? MIG, TIG or otherwise? I would imagine the initial cost would be high just to get into it, right?

[Smiley_Guy 2]

Gas welding=Old Skool welding Acetylene and oxygen, a lovely blue 6000 degree flame.

 

I don't have a TIG welder but one would have worked. I have a MIG (wire) welder but it would have been too messy for such a small job, I guess. I like using gas for stuff like this because you can really control where the metal flows.

 

You can get welding gear at pawn shops and gas at a welders supply. It would be expensive for this one project but it's a fun hobby. Odorless and explosive acetylene needs to be handled carefully but training is readily available.

[saul 0]

Edited January 14, 2005 by saul

[cvasqu03 21]

Once again, we run into the Saiga owner's dilemma. Only the gas piston and hammer are currently available US made. The US AK disconnectors may work (I haven't had a chance to compare the two). The US made trigger would not work without major modifications, and nobody is making US made stocks.

[dart451 0]

So what is the verdict on the welding the mag. Trying to decide if I want to put guide in or weld mag.

[Bvamp 604]

get someone to make floorplates, like tonyrumore or someone like that, theres another US part. find a US gas tube/upper handguard, like an ultimak rail, theres another US part. get a US made pistol grip, theres another, although some guys are saying that that part doesnt count some how. put a US issue AR stock on the thing, theres another part. there are also some US made 7.62 followers floating around, havent searched for them in a long time, but they made them for a while, theres another part.

[pistonring8 1]

Yep, I have US made followers in both of my 30 round, and my 10 round Saiga mags. I needed these to be my final part. They come shortened so the 30's are now 35's and the 10 is now a 15. I got them from a link someone posted to my question about the mags counting as 3 parts. They are VERY inexpensive and shipped very fast. I have heard much discussion about floor plates but so far, nobody has been able to make them fit the wide lip at the bottom of the stock Saiga mag. I would not recommend sanding the lip down to be thinner, because the poly may not hold up to prolonged spring pressure.

[vulcan762 0]

Once again, we run into the Saiga owner's dilemma. Only the gas piston and hammer are currently available US made. The US AK disconnectors may work (I haven't had a chance to compare the two). The US made trigger would not work without major modifications, and nobody is making US made stocks.

Of course there are U.S. made stock sets. K-VAR sells plenty of them. They are just in the original pistol grip configuration.

 

You can replace your...

1. Buttstock

2. Pistol grip

3. Top and bottom handguards

4. Hammer

5. Trigger

6. Sear

8. Gas piston

9. Muzzle break

all with U.S. made parts.

 

And can we stop using the term "hi-capacity mag". Its not high capacity, its STANDARD capacity. Standard as in the capacity the rifle was predominantly designed for. The 10 and 8 rounders are LOW-capacity mags designed specifically to conform with, at the time, U.S. law.

[Bvamp 604]

the thing is, once you clip a magazine to a firearm, it becomes part of the firearm, and thus part of the imported parts count, so far as I understand.

[stokstad 4]

I believe tapco sells the followers for the mags and i think they are around $2.50. Very inexpensive.

 

Yup here they are:

 

 

http://www.tapco.com/product_information.a...dept=40&last=40

[pistonring8 1]

Thank you Stokey, You are the one who guided me to them! Vulcan, there are a few parts on your list that do not count toward 922 ®. The Saiga doesent come with a pistol grip, so if you add a US made pg it is void. However, if you add an inport pg, it counts against you. Same with the muzzle device.

I also have to agree with the terminology used with magazine capacity. A high capacity mag would be greater than the rifle was designed for. The ten rounders are "sporting pupose" magazines. Even though I would have to have a 3 round mag to hunt with it in Pennsylvania. If the rifle laws in my state were strictly conformative to hunters only, then the 10 round magazine would be also incorrectly called a "high capacity" magazine. Thank God for the few gun loving politicians we have running this joint!

[vulcan762 0]

[jon elia 0]

the way i see it...the saiga has 14 parts add the p grip and its 15...so you dont have to worry about the mag....get a stock set from kvar...thats 1. buttstock 2. p grip 3. handguards...so now your count is down to 12...then a us fcg and now you have 9 imported parts so you can use any mag you want since the floorplates and followers are on the list get the parts count down to 10 or below on the rifle not using the mag so you wont have to worry about that...seems like the easiest way to me

[saul 0]

I honestly think we need to admit that the term "hi-capacity" or "hi-cap" is here to stay. The genie is out of the bottle. This post began with the term "hi-cap". Why? Because everybody knows what you are talking about when you say it. All the english teachers in the world can't stop the "ain't". As much as we would like to we gun owners can't stop "hi-cap".

 

"Hi-capacity" was always a slang term anyway. The legal term in the 1994 AWB was "large capacity feeding device" or "LCFD". The legal term that current federal import regulation uses is "large capacity military magazine" or "LCMM". For those terms 10 rounds is the cut-off, no matter what the standard capacity as it related to a specific rifle. That raises the question, specifically with Saiga, wouldn't 10 rounds be the standard capacity? What is the standard equipement Izhmash sells to its russian customers? Does Izhmash modify the mag for overseas customers? Those mods are what began this thread anyway.

Edited January 13, 2005 by saul

[saul 0]

the way i see it...the saiga has 14 parts add the p grip and its 15...so you dont have to worry about the mag....get a stock set from kvar...thats 1. buttstock 2. p grip 3. handguards...so now your count is down to 12...then a us fcg and now you have 9 imported parts so you can use any mag you want since the floorplates and followers are on the list get the parts count down to 10 or below on the rifle not using the mag so you wont have to worry about that...seems like the easiest way to me

FCG is three parts; hammer, trigger, sear. Right? Are all those parts able to drop in a Saiga if you don't move the trigger position for a PG? If that works then drop a U.S. made mag follower into a mag with Smiley Guy's original mod for this thread and that sounds like the easiest mod to me. That depends on the answer to they above questions of course.

Edited January 13, 2005 by saul

[Bvamp 604]

saul: I think capacity in a saiga is what it can be legally imported with.

[Doerdie 0]

pistonring8 Posted on Jan 12 2005, 11:02 PM

They come shortened so the 30's are now 35's and the 10 is now a 15.

 

pistonring8, your saying that it is possible to fit 15rds in a Saiga 10 round mag? I know the mags are big for 10, but had not heard of anyone stuffing them. I was thinking about messing with them to up the capacity.

Edited January 14, 2005 by Doerdie

[pistonring8 1]

All I did was replaced my factory Saiga followers with the US made ones. They are already shorter. I had to mess with the ones in the 30 rounders a little bit (light sanding and a little gun oil). But they allow you to fit an extra 5 rounds in the mags. OK, 4 extra fit perfectly, the 5th extra is a little tight. They function and feed perfectly so far. Ofcourse I am keeping my old ones just in case.

Edited January 14, 2005 by pistonring8

[Bvamp 604]

you really shouldnt put oil INSIDE the magazine body. it will catch dust, and also impede free movement of the follower......

[pistonring8 1]

Your right, I think I've heard that before. Thanks, mabey I'll dry em out and take a little more off the followers. For some reason these followers had a hard line of matierial down the side sticking out. I had to trim and smooth them a little bit to get them to glide smoothly up and down the body. I think it was the way they were casted. Or I got the last three that were made on a Friday. Oh well, whadaya want for $3.00 a piece?

[Bvamp 604]

they were probably moulded for a specific magazine make. AK parts of any kind are very tolerant, so you might get away with light oiling inside the magazine body, but I just wouldnt do it. also, dont trim TOO much off your followers....you will overcompress the spring and take some life out of it....and get jams....if you want to oil anything in there, give the spring a wipe down with oil, is my suggestion. you can try them for a while with the oil coating inside of them and see if it works or not. im sure it will work for a while, but you might run into problems later....

 

I think your followers might be for 7.62 ar15 promags....maybe...

[AK-treO8 0]

Is modifying the mag still a no no? There's plenty of talk about somebody producing 20 round mags, maybe we'll eventually see factory mags from Izhmash, maybe somebody else will have an aftermarket hi-cap, who knows?

 

If they can legally be produced (or can they?) now why can't you just bond top and bottom halfs of the 8 round mags together, that way you have that factory fit in the well? I've heard from local gunstore owners in central Texas, that they can't see why it would be an issue now.

 

Are there clear cut rules/laws POST AWB sunset that define what can and can't be done to a gun or magezine to achieve higher capcity than 10 rounds...or has nothing changed on that topic?

[saul 0]

AK-tre08

The is a law that covers imported semi-automatic rifles passed in 1989, the common short hand when refering to this law is section 922r. Basically this law requires that imported semi-auto rifles must pass a sporting purposes test. The details of the sporting purposes test can change according to regulations decreed by the Secretary of the Treasury.(the boss of the ATF). As far as I can tell the sporting purposes test bans import of ak types with separate pistol grips, folding stocks, bayonet mounts, threaded muzzles, flash suppressors, grenade launchers, night sights or bipod mounts.

 

In 1998 they added Large Capacity Military Magazines (LCMM). See link.

 

http://www.atf.gov/firearms/assault/report.htm

 

The language is very specific to the Military Magazine so moifying a factory saiga mag with a u.s. made follower should be allowed. Modifying a surplus military ak mag is however a no-no unless you turn the rifle into an american semi-auto. This is where the less than 10 foreign parts definition comes in. See the earlier posts in this thread for details on that.

Edited January 14, 2005 by saul

[saul 0]

I there a place on this forum we can permanently place the legal resources we find as they apply to the Saiga? If we could provide links to the primary resources on these subjects we could save a lot of rumor and misinformation.

[AK-treO8 0]

saul

Thanks for the reply. I shall read on. Seems that the law(s), as written, are open to a lot of varying interpretation and are probably that way becuase of the variables involved.

Hooray for gray areas...I can get away with (blank) becuase the law doesn't specifically tell me I can't do (blank) and the flip side to that is that the ATF/powers-that-be can bust you because the law doesn't specfically say you can.

[Bvamp 604]

you got it AK-treO8