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Saiga 12 and birdshot, what's the deal?


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I have heard some things about issues with Wally World bulk pack low-brass birdshot and Saiga 12s in general.

 

Took mine out today for the first time and blew through 2 bulk packs. 200 rounds and nary a hiccup.

 

Is Izhmash's QC getting better, or is the birdshot thing only an issue after conversion (I don't see how that could be), or am I just lucky?

 

Will I start to encounter problems later, after the gun is more-or-less broken in?

 

No pics, the gun is in the bone-stock boring sporter config. :P

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Both of mine ran federal bulk pack bird shot just fine right out of the box. The 2008 gun has 4 gas ports and the '09 has 3.

 

Honestly I believe the number of guns that run fine outnumber the guns that have problems, we just hear about the problems rather than the ones that work fine.

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I have heard some things about issues with Wally World bulk pack low-brass birdshot and Saiga 12s in general.

 

Took mine out today for the first time and blew through 2 bulk packs. 200 rounds and nary a hiccup.

 

Is Izhmash's QC getting better, or is the birdshot thing only an issue after conversion (I don't see how that could be), or am I just lucky?

 

Will I start to encounter problems later, after the gun is more-or-less broken in?

 

No pics, the gun is in the bone-stock boring sporter config. :P

 

WINCHESTER bulk ammo is the problem...Federal & Remington work just fine from what ive been told from numerous sources.

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I shot 100 rounds of Federal and 100 rounds of Remington on Friday...Federal cycled fine with very few FTE, the Remington cycled as bad as Winchester, the only thing added to my gun was the gunfixer plug, standard Twister puck, and low power recoil spring #1, had the gunfixer setting on 3, I switched between Saiga puck,spring, and stock plug, but could never get a perfect mix without a few FTE's from the Federals, Remington failed everytime.

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Mine cycles Fed. bulk pack out of the factory set MD-20 drum with the gunfixer plug on setting #2 with no problem.

Haven't tried the Win or Rem stuff since I converted, but those used to cycle just fine with the gun in factory configuration. It is a 2008, 4port gun.

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I shot 100 rounds of Federal and 100 rounds of Remington on Friday...Federal cycled fine with very few FTE, the Remington cycled as bad as Winchester, the only thing added to my gun was the gunfixer plug, standard Twister puck, and low power recoil spring #1, had the gunfixer setting on 3, I switched between Saiga puck,spring, and stock plug, but could never get a perfect mix without a few FTE's from the Federals, Remington failed everytime.

 

My gun runs federal but not remington also (ever since I ported the barrel for a brake). I believe the federal has a slower burning powder which allows more energy (still burning) into the gas system against the puck.

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I am aware that Winchester Universal is widely known as shitty ammo. What are two other 12 ga ammos that are horrible? Remmington? I want to do a 300 round dump video with the shittiest ammo out there. Just because :smoke:

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I am aware that Winchester Universal is widely known as shitty ammo. What are two other 12 ga ammos that are horrible? Remmington? I want to do a 300 round dump video with the shittiest ammo out there. Just because :smoke:

evl, the last vid you did was that Winchester Universal?

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When I first got my gun the other day... went straight to Walmart and picked up a 100 rounds of bulk. On the same shelf, they had the Winchester and the Federal. Randomly, I just picked up the Winchester. Shot through it all and the gun never cycled one round. I went scrounging in the bottom of the gun cabinet and found one box of old Federal (at least 15 years old). It failed to cycle either, though, it had noticeably more recoil and muzzle blast than the Winchester and it actually managed to reset the hammer. By the end of the shoot, the last box of Winchester started resetting the hammer at least, though it never fully ejected anything... so hopefully it's at least halfway broken in, now. I doubt it'll ever shoot the Winchester, but I think the Federal will cycle okay in another hundred rounds or so.

 

Come to think of it... last time I shot my old 1147 a year ago I had about half the rounds FTE. I wrote it off to needing some lube but that batch of Federal that I had sitting around might have just been bad/out dated. I don't imagine 15 years wouldn't take that much of a toll on shotshells but I don't know... Anyone have much experience with shells performance with age?

 

On a side note... I was checking dates to see exactly when my gun was manufactured. According to the docs' that came with it, it was inspected and stamped on October 30th 2008. My birthday is October 30th! This gun was meant to be mine (so I hope it doesn't turn out to be a lemon later on, says a lot about how fate feels about me)!

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I am aware that Winchester Universal is widely known as shitty ammo. What are two other 12 ga ammos that are horrible? Remmington? I want to do a 300 round dump video with the shittiest ammo out there. Just because :smoke:

evl, the last vid you did was that Winchester Universal?

No. It was Federal Multi-purpose. Federal and Winchester were $20.97 at Walmart, so I went with the Federal. That was the first time I ever fired it and it was much better than I expected. There was a noticeable difference in power and the hulls are really hard compared to Winchester Universal. After my last extractor slot mod, I think the Winchester should function well with the drums too and I will be firing 100 rounds of it in the next video. I want to use 2 other notoriously shitty ammos while I'm at it. It will be a slight torture and reliability test.

 

So....

1- Winchester Universal

2- Remmington (bulk pack)?

3- (Insert shitty ammo here)

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sometimes the ammo manufactures try to scrimp on cost by creating 1 oz loads, these are notoriously unreliable in most autoloaders (unless they've jacked up the speed to compensate, and sometimes even that is bad). These are usually sold as hunting loads (dove?) IIRC. This could be independent of manufacture.

 

Don't remember much more, I just avoid the 1 oz stuff. I did buy some (all that was available and cheap) years ago, and it ran ok in my shotty. I think it was labeled super speed or something like that, seems like the box was mostly white. I believe the speed was over 1300 fps, and maybe even 1400 ish? I believe the extra speed helped compensate for reliability, but I never bought enough to study it much.

 

Oh yea, forgot that used to have issues with blue/PMC field loads (normal speed, normal load). I used to get ~10% fte rate, but had alliance armament work my gun over (I was an early adopter of their drum, they talked me into a free service). Gun came back 100% reliable even with PMC. Actually haven't had any ammo related failures from that time forward

 

I pick up abandoned shells 3 gun matches that include a mixture of all ammo types. That's the only time my gun sees winchester bulk packed ammo, but it doesn't mind.

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