First rifle? Help

[Zyler92 0]

I just graduated high school and I leave for army basic training in august, I wanted to get a good rifle to Learn to shoot with before I left. My stepmom found a .308 saiga with a wooden thumbhole stock and a tactedge red/green dot sight side mounted. I'd like to know if this is indeed A good choice for a first gun, and the ins/ outs of the rifle. My dad has an SKS and I shoot it all the time. Much appreciated

[gunnysmith 4]

Appleseed

Check these out, It'll help.

 

And check this out

Smith & Wesson M&P 15-22

Edited May 2, 2010 by gunnysmith

[Rhodes1968 1,638]

Yeah Appleseed hands down! Use irons is that is what they will likely have you use in training. The stoner rifle is an aperture and post sight pic which is also what you will be seeing.

[Zyler92 0]

Thanks for the info, it helped alot! Love the rifle, it's amazing

[loki0629 55]

You're going to hit some obstacles in making incremental sight adjustments to your weapon with the Saiga. If you can swing the cash, get something with adjustable sights. The Ruger 10/22 with Tech Sights installed and a good sling will do you fine. If you can get the hang of making windage and elevation corrections with iron sights, the theory translates to scopes and red dots. You can also get the 25m military zeroing targets and practice on those.

 

Best of luck.

[Sir5 1]

You're going to hit some obstacles in making incremental sight adjustments to your weapon with the Saiga. If you can swing the cash, get something with adjustable sights. The Ruger 10/22 with Tech Sights installed and a good sling will do you fine. If you can get the hang of making windage and elevation corrections with iron sights, the theory translates to scopes and red dots. You can also get the 25m military zeroing targets and practice on those.

 

Best of luck.

 

Alternatively, you can, instead of buying a whole new (overrated) rifle and THEN installing an aftermarket product (tech sights), skip straight to step 2 with the AK style tech sights available on their site.

 

Seems like you already have a saiga, so perhaps that will be a good option for you, OP.

 

Also, for practicing general marksmanship I'd go for a .22lr of some kind. It's not going to be the same as .308 or .223 (probably a better choice of cartridge if you're getting a rifle for the sole purpose of 'pre training' for the US military since that's what they use), but it's going to be very, VERY cheap ammo wise, and ammo will end up being your primary expense relatively quickly. And you can get tech sights on a marlin rifle, too.

Edited May 3, 2010 by Sir5