Failure rate of your S-12

[Lone Star Arms 2,047]

Thanks for the suggestions.

 

Forgive my ignorance, but what does "3 hole" refer to? I know it has something to do with the gas system, but could you clarify? How would I know it is a 3 hole gun?

 

Jim, unscrew the gas plug, and just behind the threads in the gas chamber you should see a hole about 1/4" in diameter between the barrel and the gas chamber. Looking through that hole, you should be able to make out three smaller holes drilled into the barrel. Those are the gas vents. If you can't see three, hook the end of a paper clip and poke around the edges of the larger hole. Sometimes, even when you can't see them, you'll be able to find them by poking around.

 

Your gun should have three vents. If it doesn't, or it does have three holes but still doesn't cycle, call Cadiz Gun Works (in the business member section of the forum) to find out if your gun qualifies for warranty work.

 

If you haven't purchased yet, have the clerk at the store unscrew the gas plug so that you can check to make sure the gun has three gas vents. Also be sure to check the action. S12's can be a little clunky compared to other AK's, but the action should operate relatively smoothly.

 

It's important to make sure the gun has a smooth action from the factory, because when you install the US made FCG, the hammer will be sitting higher in the receiver, and at a more extreme angle to the bolt and bolt carrier. This causes additional resistance to the bolt assembly as it moves back and forth, and can affect cycling -- especially if the factory action has a little "hang" in it to begin with.

 

This is one of the big reasons that converted guns sometimes don't cycle as smoothly after conversion as they did before conversion. The hammer profile can be taken down and flattened out a bit once everything is together. This will help your action cycle as it did before a conversion. If you do this, just be careful not to take off too much, or the hammer won't catch on the disconnector as it should.

 

I hope this has been helpful. Once again, good luck!

 

WS

[thehopping1 105]

The only mods I have done to my S12 is a basic conversion and I've only had 4 or 5 FTE. And those where out of a 100 round Winchester value pack. It eat Federal and Remington all day with no problems. Remington 00 is great and Winchester slugs are too. It's also a newer 3 hole.

[Zambidis 90]

S12 failures for me have come almost exclusively from one of three things:

 

Crappy Winchester Ammo

a couple of particular AGP mags that needed to be sanded down internally because the shells were getting stuck.

Gas setting 1 for light bird shot loads.

 

Discounting those three things I have had one jam from the first shot until now. Given any ammo aside from the winchester crap, a functional mag, and the proper gas setting I would say it is pretty near flawless.

[HOWARD COSELL 155]

Mine is unstoppable when it comes to Buckshot and Sluggers.

Now the birdshot is a different story. FTE

Still haven't found the birdshot that my S12 likes.

Any recommendations for good birdshot?

[Nailbomb 10,221]

Mine is unstoppable when it comes to Buckshot and Sluggers.

Now the birdshot is a different story. FTE

Still haven't found the birdshot that my S12 likes.

Any recommendations for good birdshot?

Mine finds federal acceptable, and enjoys remington.

[Lone Star Arms 2,047]

Mine is unstoppable when it comes to Buckshot and Sluggers.

Now the birdshot is a different story. FTE

Still haven't found the birdshot that my S12 likes.

Any recommendations for good birdshot?

 

Try Estate low base heavy game loads #6. Lots of punch for low base ammo!

 

WS

[HOWARD COSELL 155]

Thanks!

 

Now I know what I'm doing first thing tomorrow morning.

 

 

[Juggernaut 11,054]

Forgive the graphic description.... but it applies....

 

I ride mine harder Po-hang Hooker after the 1st and 15th...

Shove anything in 'er I want too....

Then I lock that dirty bitch up in the dark!

Yank her out when ever I want and shes always ready for more!!!!

Edit: just needs a squirt of lube from time to time....

Never misses a beat!!!

[shades_of_grey 1,092]

Estate is great ammo, (especially for the price), but a lot of stores don't carry it. Going by "the Wal-mart standard", (everybody's got a Wal-mart), I recommend trying some Federal 7 1/2 birdshot. That's generally regarded as the cheapest birdshot that should reliably cycle in the S-12. Now, if your gun won't reliably eat that, some mods to reduce friction in your receiver may be in order.

 

As for my S-12.. since returning from Lone Star Arms, (WS's company), she'll eat anything, even the shit Winchester "Universal" that "isn't supposed to work in S-12's". WS did some significant, (also insightful and unique), work to get her to this point, and the results are truly amazing.

Edited February 3, 2010 by post-apocalyptic

[Lone Star Arms 2,047]

Forgive the graphic description.... but it applies....

 

I ride mine harder Po-hang Hooker after the 1st and 15th...

Shove anything in 'er I want too....

Then I lock that dirty bitch up in the dark!

Yank her out when ever I want and shes always ready for more!!!!

Never misses a beat!!!

 

LMAO Juggs! I was going to give you plus points for that one, but there's no buttons. Plus ten anyway!

[jack mace 18]

slugs,buckshot,hi brass pheasant in 2 3/4 and 3" never fail, but walmart winchester turns my s12 into a single shot. It has a gunfixers plug and an etac twister puck equipped, im gonna try 100 rounds of federal bulk this weekend. (1 1/8 oz 8 shot)

[scoutjoe 276]

Any respectable self defense ammo through a reliable mag (Russians are at the top of that list then probably MD Arms not too far behind) will provide reliability.

 

Before I chopped my barrel and had to monkey a bit with the gas system I was easily at 5k rounds, 99% the cheapest birdshot I could find. Had 2 failures, one the guy didn't seat the mag all the way (pussy footed it in there and was afraid to smack my "expensive" Russian 8 around) and the 2nd one...well if you saw the bulge in that shell it looked like a 10 gauge wad shoved in a 12 gauge hull.

[iSaiga 4]

ZERO failures.

 

None at all with a 'combat' cartridge (00 buck/slugs). None at all in 3 gun matches with Federal Wally-World bulk packs, provided I remembered to adjust my gas system prior to starting the day

 

I had failures initially when A) I didn't know how to work the gas system, and they only occurred with the bulk pack bird shot mentioned above.

 

Out of the box, I've never had a failure with a 'combat' load.

[Wade Pruetz 103]

GerryV, the new Chaos rail will help with FTE's plus it looks so good in da pimp hand.

[GerryV 14]

GerryV, the new Chaos rail will help with FTE's plus it looks so good in da pimp hand.

 

To further illustrate the luck of the draw with these, mine took a warranty claim before it would play nice with the light target loads while NineInchRider's, I mean NinerRider's, operated perfectly from day one no matter what he fed it. To make matters worse, he picked his up a few months ago for $489. Some a'holes have all the luck

[dannyfantasy2000 68]

Slugs and buckshot never fail in my gun. I will always get a few stovepipes when shooting any kind of trap loads, no matter what the gas setting is on. Been thinking about opening up the ports for a while now.

[evlblkwpnz 3,418]

I fired 205 rounds of Winchester Universal Bulk Pack. There were 0 FTEs and 4 FTFs. So, about 2% failure. I think the culprit of the FTFs was the crimp or shell length on the Winchester Universal. All of the FTFs were while firing in rapid succession. I was actually testing for reliability to see if I had the recipe right.

 

One weapon has minimal smoothing done to the action and port work. The other weapon required about 10 hours of my time to get it running good off of the Winchester stuff. Before the shoot, one weapon had 20 rounds on it and the other had about 175 rounds on it. I only fire Winchester Universal and I am happy with 98% reliability with this ammo.

 

I plan to post a couple 100 round MD20 mag dump videos soon. Well.... as soon as the drums get here

[raidersfan_5544 57]

If on the correct gas setting I have had zero failures on my Tromix 12in SBS

[saigalupo 1]

I have an 08 3 port 12 and it has had 0 failures. Ive got

450 rounds through her so far, only full power slugs and

00 buckshot. Ive tried various mags factory, apg 10 and surefire 8 and 12,

all has run fine and Ive run her dry just to loosen her up.

[Cobra 76 two 2,677]

If on the correct gas setting I have had zero failures on my Tromix 12in SBS

 

Just say Tromix....

 

 

[Cobra 76 two 2,677]

Ok I'm admittedly late coming into this conversation, but after just reading the entire thread straight through, these are my observations....

 

First off, I voted for the last option...."nearly unheard of". That's speaking for the three 19" S-12s I consider my 'go to' guns. All are K-USA/ EAA imported guns (two are converted by me), and all came with FOUR factory gas ports....that's important to mention in this thread. I believe Juggernaut's "dirty bitch in the dark closet"...lol...is also an EAA or earlier import, and probably also has four gas ports. (If not, then it doesn't really matter because Will @ Red Jacket worked on it so he had a chance to do any necessary mods it needed to run flawlessly.) Bvamp's infamous S-12, that seems to prefer rusty corroded ammo, and never gets cleaned or maintained, is also an unconverted EAA or possibly a K-USA four holer (and also has a heavier wood stock that helps even more with good cycling). All these older guns like that were built right, and before Izhmash started cranking out "vodka specials", as they were nicknamed by Tony @ Tromix. All of these newer 3 hole guns aren't problem children, just the ones with stupid mistakes made (like missing, undersized or obstructed gas ports for one...). You can catch most of these mistakes before you make your purchase, if you are able to visually inspect the gun prior to purchase. That is why I only buy S-12s used or second hand. This way, I'm able to not only talk with the previous owner about it's habits, but I can look at it and tell if it's going to give me any problems I'll have to fix. The price is always better too. In the past year alone, I have picked up two K-USA imports, in perfect condition....built like they are supposed to be, for less than $400 each. One was $350 NIB with K-USA sling, all paperwork, 2 mags, and hard case. The other was $400 and came with 4 mags, paperwork, K-USA Cobra red dot optic and case, in a hard case). Both of these guns are 22" full choked barrels with three unobstructed gas ports and run great on any good ammo. (The 22" full choked barrel is long enough, and has more constriction, so it only requires three ports to run good, even on low brass.) I don't even waste my money on the winchester universal because it's crap, and unless it's fed to a gun that's had feed ramp and bolt mods, it's going to jam up. It's because of the shitty soft plastic, bulbous shaped, bullshit crimped hulls and shitty inconsistent powder loads that were swept up off the floor from what I've read. That said, my go to guns will run with it if somebody else brings it over and throws it away because they are tired of it jamming in their guns. That's only because my personal guns have been finely tuned and have had most of the mods done that Mike @ Lone Star mentioned on the first page. Are all these mods really necessary? No, not unless you want your gun to run as perfect as it can run. Depending on how old it is, and what's been done to it, it may run anything you feed it. If it's pre-2005, it may run on almost anything, without you, or anyone, having done anything to it at all.

But....if this poll is mainly addressing S-12s that people are buying brand new, right now, then you aren't going to find very many that will run flawlessly on low brass, unless there are certain mods done to them as soon as you open the box. They should run fine on high brass ammo, as long as you don't have major gas port issues, but don't expect them all to run low brass.

I got into these guns for two main reasons, then discovered the third after shooting them and being active on this forum.

1. They are AKs, my favorite weapon platform, hands down.

2. I like to tinker with things, and they are perfect for someone who likes to work on their own stuff.

3. They WORK, once you have them right. Once these guns are fine tuned (and some older ones right out of the box), they are the best damned shotguns on the planet IMO, and will shoot circles around any other, including Benellis and such that cost a lot more.

 

This is what I would tell my best friend if he was looking to buy an S-12.... My advice is, if you are looking for a Saiga-12 and don't want to spend a lot, or have to risk sending it in for warranty work...buy an old one used, or one that's been sitting on a shelf, in a safe, or otherwise put up for a few years. If it's been well used, then it's most likely already "broken in". If it's an old gun, it will probably not have any of the problems associated with "vodka specials". I've nothing against the current importer, or anyone selling new S-12s. Best of luck to them all and I hope one day Izhmash gets a hold on proper QC, but I've watched it go downhill ever since the first batch of guns that came in with 17 inch threaded barrels ...and were sold that way! They were all tracked down by the ATF and had to be fixed by welding a choke to the threads. Ever since then, it seems there has been one "issue" after another, whether it's screwed up gas ports, bad paint, canted gas blocks, missing parts, geez you name it....Maybe these are the only ones we hear about because people come here first to complain or try and find a fix? Maybe the majority of new guns out there are just fine and don't need warranty work....they still don't build them like they used to, with plenty of gas flow coming through four correct sized, unobstructed ports.

If you do want a new gun, get educated about everything that makes it work, and things that make it not work....then be prepared to work on it, or have it worked on some if it needs it. There are a lot of things you can do, or have done, (and I'm not talking about just buying aftermarket parts) that will vastly improve performance, even in an older gun with enough gas pressure. The people who do these mods do them for good reason. I've done everything you can do to one, to make mine run as well as it can be expected to. I would stake my life or my family's lives on it any time. That's a good feeling to have about your favorite weapon. The time I spend working on FCGs and bolts & carriers really is worth it, and it shows every time I charge the weapon and fire it. It's no "ten minute" fix, like was said by someone with an attitude once. It takes a lot of time and know how, to really get the best out of an FCG, bolt, and carrier. Like Mike said, when the bolt's even honed and polished on the inside, and on all the surfaces of it and the carrier, that engage other parts during cycling, are carefully honed and polished, it makes a difference only a few people know about. It's the ultimate in "break in"...the difference is...you get a smoother action and the parts will from then on, work much more smoothly together, without wearing each others' surfaces out, causing scarring, deformation, and unnecessary wear and tear on the weapon...not to mention unwanted friction that leads to poor performance.

 

 

[FRC64 2]

I own/have owned multiple Saiga-12s and all have been 100% reliable right out of the box shooting 00,#4 buck and slugs on gas setting 1. Occasionally will shoot as 'light' as #5 or #6 Pheasant load (Estate) on gas setting 2, also with 100% reliability. All with stock guns and factory mags.

 

On FTF, FTE, etc...with low cost , low power birdshot, reminds me of an old joke:

 

Doctor- "What seems to be the problem?"

Patient- " It hurts when I do this..."

Doctor- "Don't do that."

[saigalupo 1]

I have a question and please dont flame, if Im missing something please explain. Do most people here know what high brass low brass means? It has nothing to do with

the power of the shell or the shot used Its more of a traditional term now used more or less as a marketing term. I think a lot of people are confusing low brass with

low power ammo or birdshot ect.

 

The best ammo Ive used in the saiga 12 is the german made WOLF full power low brass 00 buck. It groups tighter than the 00 buck remington

or federal, and both of those are high brass. But all worked 100%. If you are having problems with birdshot or other light loads it has nothing to do with high brass low brass.

Edited May 5, 2010 by saigalupo

[Klassy Kalashnikov 1,393]

Mine is a 4 port, and since break in it runs everything from bulk bird to 3" magnums on setting 1.

[FRC64 2]

Mine is a 4 port, and since break in it runs everything from bulk bird to 3" magnums on setting 1.

I just picked up a few Saiga-12s from a local private seller. One is an older EAA Import 24" barrel model that he used to break clays. He ran nothing but cheap bird shot and because he wasn't sure what the settings were for, ran it on "1". He said he had a few FTE issues when new, but since, never an issue.

[Klassy Kalashnikov 1,393]

Mine is a 4 port, and since break in it runs everything from bulk bird to 3" magnums on setting 1.

I just picked up a few Saiga-12s from a local private seller. One is an older EAA Import 24" barrel model that he used to break clays. He ran nothing but cheap bird shot and because he wasn't sure what the settings were for, ran it on "1". He said he had a few FTE issues when new, but since, never an issue.

 

Very nice.

[The_Caged_Bird 474]

If I did nothing but shoot Federal 7.5 shot value pack on setting 2, then I would have no failures at all as long as I keep the gun clean. If I take care of it, then it will take care of me.

 

Does it need significantly more maintenance than a Saiga 7.62x39? I don't mind cleaning, but I don't want to have to baby it like an AR.

 

I clean my AR as often as I clean my Saiga, the AR NEVER fails, the Saiga, well, we'll just say that I've been pleased SINCE the break-in. AR's don't require break-in...

[Cobra 76 two 2,677]

If I did nothing but shoot Federal 7.5 shot value pack on setting 2, then I would have no failures at all as long as I keep the gun clean. If I take care of it, then it will take care of me.

 

Does it need significantly more maintenance than a Saiga 7.62x39? I don't mind cleaning, but I don't want to have to baby it like an AR.

 

I clean my AR as often as I clean my Saiga, the AR NEVER fails, the Saiga, well, we'll just say that I've been pleased SINCE the break-in. AR's don't require break-in...

 

Not to take the thread astray discussing ARs but on the contrary....I have a good friend who was an armorer while he was stationed in Iraq, and he just recently built a new AR. I thought he was being kind of anal but he told me it was not uncommon what he was doing with it down on my range. The first 100 rds or so he put through the heavy barrel on it, he would shoot a certain number of rounds (not many), then clean the barrel...then he would do that again, and repeat, til the barrel was "broken in". I'm not an AR guy, and I admit I didn't do anything like when I put the first 100 rds through the chrome lined barrel of my M&P 5.45 S&W, but I do trust that my buddy wasn't just doing that for no reason....

 

[BuzzNectar 35]

hello all. i am brand spankin new to the site and thought i would share my early expierence.picked up a new s-12 two weeks ago.first thing i grabed some shells(cheap winchester universal)its what i had laying around to run through my pump hk fp6.while knowing it probably wouldnt cycle well in a gas operated system(they wont run my m1 super90 combat)its all i had at the time.brand new first shot...poor little black bird was in the wrong place at the right time.wow it cycled(setting 2)next shot...wow it cycled again.but from there on every shot FTE.of course this didnt actually break my heart as i expected this.now after a little searching and educating from reading on this site i have learned that i have a "3 hole" gun and cant wait to convert and modify as i am familiar and love the kalashnikov system.100 rounds later a mix of 00,slug,3"turkey and lastly a few rounds of the cheap unversal i have had zero failers.so far i only have the factory 5rd mag.thanks for reading,mike.

[shades_of_grey 1,092]

Buzz, there's nothing wrong with a S-12 that has 3 gas ports, so long as those ports are unobstructed. 'Course, my S-12 has "extra" ports for supreme reliability with any and all 12-ga shells, but that kind of work should be done only by someone who's very familiar with the entire weapons system, (to avoid over-gassing the shotgun), such as Lone Star Arms, (Mike, the owner, does work that is truly unique).

 

Oh, and.. welcome to the forum!!