Newbie with first Saiga 12 range report.

[lksyotas 4]

Hello everyone, I am new here and wanted to give my initial feedback on my first range trip with my new Saiga 12. It is a standard 19" shotty that so far is unconverted or worked on at all. Its inspection booklet shows it was approved for shipment on 2-18-09.

 

 

Some of you have probably checked out my first post here regarding my magazine issues I had. Well I fixed that, and proceeded to take my new Saiga 12 to the range this afternoon. I decided to brave my cracked factory mag locking lug and proceed on to see how my gun cycles.

 

My link

 

 

Prior to heading out I removed the gas stopper to see how many and what size my gas holes were. It has three holes that are centered below the gas block hole. I could fit .055" diameter solid wire in each hole but not .087". So right away I figured I would have issues with the low dram Federal and Winchester loads. (I bought this shotgun to use in three gun and steel shooting and want to make sure this gun in the end eats everything I feed it...)

 

I headed to the range with a box of value pack Walmart Winchester shells, a box of Remington Premier Nitro Sporting Clays, and a box of Remington 2 3/4" Buck Hammer slugs.

 

 

 

 

At the range I loaded up five Remington Clays and proceeded to shoot them slow fire off hand. Each cycled and fired fine ejecting the spent shells six to ten feet away from 1-3 o'clock position. I fired the remaining 20 shells with no issues.

 

Next I decided to see how bad the gun would run with the cheap Winchester loads. The first mag of five all cycled, fired, and ejected with no issues! They only made it 2-4 feet away in a 1 o'clock position. I continued to fire the remaining 20 shells with two stove pipes at random times. All cycled and fired fine with the stove pipe exception. But I didn't have any issues with short stroking.

 

Finally, I turned the gas stopper to setting 1 and fired five Buck Hammers. WOW these things kick!!! I couldn't find the empty shells as they flew over the berm I was shooting in! LOL. But again, each fed and shot fine.

 

All in all, I am very happy with my first range trip. I am shocked that the gun "somewhat" cycled reliably each Winchester load. My M1 Benelli doesn't do any better than this with the light loads...

 

I want to get the gun running 100 % before I do a conversion. What do you all recommend for getting the gun to 100% eject the shells of the Winchester loads to prevent the stove pipes?

Thanks again to everyone who contributes to this forum. I've been reading for a month now prior to buying the shot gun to learn its pros and cons.

 

 

[Heath_h49008 442]

Clean up the internal contact points, don't touch the gas system. There are a few threads about bolt polishing in the stickies. "Start to finish" is one of the best.

 

When you convert her, test again with only the new trigger group and grip/stock... test with a known good factory mag (Your is probably fine) and make certain you don't proceed with the next mod before you verify the last was successful. You'll see a whole lot of people here trying to fix guns they broke by getting to ambitious with the mods, and then they can't figure out which one was the failure point.

 

Just my 2cents..

[lksyotas 4]

Clean up the internal contact points, don't touch the gas system. There are a few threads about bolt polishing in the stickies. "Start to finish" is one of the best.

 

When you convert her, test again with only the new trigger group and grip/stock... test with a known good factory mag (Your is probably fine) and make certain you don't proceed with the next mod before you verify the last was successful. You'll see a whole lot of people here trying to fix guns they broke by getting to ambitious with the mods, and then they can't figure out which one was the failure point.

 

Just my 2cents..

 

 

Great advice! I have it all apart right now on my reloading bench and have begun to polish and lightly file the contacting sharp edges where wear has shown up on the bolt lugs and rails. I'll take her out tomorrow and run a few more boxes of the light loads and take it step by step. It will give me something to do while I'm waiting for my conversion parts to arrive...

 

The more I think about it, it seems I do have a bit of short stroking going on - that is why the spent shells stove piped as the action did not cycle to the rear far enough right? So polishing may aid in smoothing out the action during recoil to eliminate some of the inefficiencies of the friction between the components. At least that makes sense in my head. LOL. I'm open to the experts thoughts though...

 

 

[secretkeeper 0]

Thanks for the range report. It's very encouraging for me as I found mine is about the same as yours.

I.e. Gas ports to gas block alignment good, 19" with 3 holes but they definitely smaller than spec 0.093".

 

I've been polishing rough spots & hand cycling several hundred times so far. I will get to shoot it for the 1st time tomorrow but won't be able to do any bird/buck shots... Stupid public range rules. So I'm taking 25 rounds of 1 oz slug. Oh, I'm taking magnum recoil shield. Shooting slug with Rem 870 hurt so much before.

[lksyotas 4]

Thanks for the range report. It's very encouraging for me as I found mine is about the same as yours.

I.e. Gas ports to gas block alignment good, 19" with 3 holes but they definitely smaller than spec 0.093".

 

I've been polishing rough spots & hand cycling several hundred times so far. I will get to shoot it for the 1st time tomorrow but won't be able to do any bird/buck shots... Stupid public range rules. So I'm taking 25 rounds of 1 oz slug. Oh, I'm taking magnum recoil shield. Shooting slug with Rem 870 hurt so much before.

 

Good luck at the range. Hopefully you have similar results with yours. Although, shooting 1oz. slugs probably will cycle fine - just make sure you have the gas plug on setting 1. I remember bench resting my 870 deer gun a few years back - I shot ten Remington Buck Hammers and thought I was going to die...The recoil from those slugs is greater than any other I've ever felt!

[Heath_h49008 442]

You might think this sounds funny, but try putting valve grinding/lapping compound on the bolt in the same places you would lubricate. The lug inside the bolt is a good spot as well... the one that locks the head into the carrier. Work it for a few minutes, then clean it out with brakeparts cleaner and wipe with a dry cloth to make sure the grit is gone, lube and feel for improvement. The lapping abrasive can also be replaced by rubbing/polishing compound.

 

Oh, and if you want a great lube, use a few drops of ATF. It is as good, or better than any of the expensive gun oils.

[lksyotas 4]

Quick update...After my original range trip, I studied up on the polishing posts and took a close look at my shotgun and the bolt, carrier wear points. I polished them up with lapping compound and radius-ed the edges that ride on the rails. The next day I took the gun out and ran a box of Federal target loads through it. These loads are an even lighter target load than the cheap Winchester stuff. I ended up with five FTE's out of the box.

 

After a day of hard thinking and studying up on even more threads here I decided to open up my gas holes to 3/32". Reason I went with opening up the holes over adding an additional one is the gun worked almost 100% with the stock hole diameters (.088"). If I was to add an additional hole the combined area of the holes for gas transfer would equal .024 in^2. opening the holes to .093" yielded a combined area of .021in² over the original .018 in². Sorry for the math but thats how my engineering mind works. I didn't want to over gas the system. I figured if this wasn't enough then I would move to add a fourth hole.

 

I also went ahead and opened the gas block hole to accommodate the additional hole size.

 

Well, after the work I took the shotgun back to the range and put another 100 Federal shells down range. I had zero failures! I think I'm finally there with the reliability. I'll be working on the conversion this coming week but I wanted to have the gun working 100% before I do it.

 

On a side note, this is really fun to shoot light stuff and watch all five shells sail through the air after a quick fire group!

 

 

 

Edited October 25, 2010 by lksyotas

[lksyotas 4]

Hello everyone, just wanted to do a quick update to my original post here. Its been just over a month since I last posted. I have since done a restoration and added Cobra's Custom Winckoke adapter to improve my shot pattern for shooting steel in matches.

 

After I got the shotgun running smoothly on all loads including the bulk Federal and Winchester loads I decided it was time to do a "restoration".

 

Thanks to the plethora of do it yourself posts here I found it very easy to do the change over. I wanted to make my Saiga as close to the original spec as possible but I live in NY so I was stuck with putting a thumb hole on it to keep it legal. I tried and "am still trying" to find a Bulgarian thumb hole stock similar to Nailbomb's but with no luck I ended up going with a Choate.

 

The Choate stock took the most time and effort out of anything I did on this project to get to fit correctly. The stock was so tight it wouldn't even start to fit on the back of the receiver (must be due to the thicker 1.5mm receiver.) I had to mill a lot of material out of it to finally get it to match up.

 

Prior to fitting the stock I wanted to replicate the trigger guard as close as I could to the original. I wasn't totally happy with the several styles offered so I ended up buying a demilled Bulgarian trigger guard / selector stop and modified it to resemble the original style as best I could. After it was modified I riveted it to my receiver and filled the remaining holes with JB weld.

 

 

 

 

 

Once I was satisfied with the fit and finish I coated the entire shotgun with Flat Black Gunkote.

 

So here it is in its NY compliant finish:

 

 

 

On a side note, Cobra's Winchoke adapter works awesome! Here is a picture of an IDPA target shot at 15 yards. I put ten rounds in the head and ten rounds in the chest with cheap bulk pack Federal #7.5. This stuff is a powder puff load for sure but it is still pretty devastating on the target! With the full choke installed it knocks steel down at 25 yards with authority! Without the choke installed it won't drop steel past 10 yards...

 

 

 

I really liked how the shotgun turned out. But the damn stock really kills the project. My parents live in PA just over the boarder so I decided to keep the shotgun at their residence and change the stock out to a Bulgarian standard Warsaw stock. It is finally just the way I wanted it. True to original form (for the most part) and a blast to shoot. When I want to bring it back to NY all I have to do is pop the stock off and screw the Choate back on.

 

 

And one more close up of the trigger guard and patched holes. I think it turned out pretty good for a first time job.

 

 

 

So all in all, I'm very happy with my purchase. It functions great and feels good while shooting. This platform will "rock" in the steel shoots if I get my reloads down to a science.

 

Now I am going to sit on it and hold my breath for the last round bolt hold open devices to hit the market. Thanks to all of you that make these projects a breeze to do! Your many hours of information and posts really help us newbies out!

[TYBOY 33]

Looks Great!!!!!

 

And that paint seems to be a good match to the original.

 

TYBOY

[Bvamp 604]

If you are going to shoot in competition, consider a polychoke for it. you can change your shot patterns and set for slugs on the fly.

[lksyotas 4]

If you are going to shoot in competition, consider a polychoke for it. you can change your shot patterns and set for slugs on the fly.

 

For now, the competitions I shoot in are IDPA related and the rules only allow #6 shot and higher with no slugs. For this, I'll be sticking with the full choke for the distances that range from 10 - 25 yd shots. But thanks for the idea, if I was going to be transitioning as in three gun - I might have to go that route.

[Cobra 76 two 2,677]

Great job man! Turned out really nice, and I agree, it looks much better without the thumbhole. The TG tuned out great too. Looks just like an original Russian S-12 TG. Wish I had known you were looking for one like that. I sell one exactly like that with the selector stop and rivets too....or screws for those who don't do rivets.

On the choke adapter vs. the poly choke....the winchoke full choke has a tighter pattern than the poly set on extra full. Then you can also get an extended extra full turkey choke for it if you want even more knock down power on steel....or big birds. You also have the option of a rifled slug choke. Can't do that with a poly.

 

[lksyotas 4]

Great job man! Turned out really nice, and I agree, it looks much better without the thumbhole. The TG tuned out great too. Looks just like an original Russian S-12 TG. Wish I had known you were looking for one like that. I sell one exactly like that with the selector stop and rivets too....or screws for those who don't do rivets.

On the choke adapter vs. the poly choke....the winchoke full choke has a tighter pattern than the poly set on extra full. Then you can also get an extended extra full turkey choke for it if you want even more knock down power on steel....or big birds. You also have the option of a rifled slug choke. Can't do that with a poly.

 

 

 

Thanks for the kind words Shannon! I did end up purchasing a rifled choke on clearance at my local Cabela's for $18. I shot a few Hornady SST's through it and a few Buckhammers. I have to get a red dot or something because the stock sights "suck" for distant shooting. The front bead is HUGE at 50-100 yards at least for me. I'll probably go with a Russian optic to keep the gun as true to original form as possible. I'm kinda a nut when it comes to authenticity and using original parts...

 

 

[Cobra 76 two 2,677]

Great deal on that rifled choke. I paid $30 for mine at CDNN.

Good choice on the Russian optics too. I love my Kobras. High quality, sturdy as tanks, and hold zero if removed and replaced.