Won a Saiga-12, need some advice

[Trigerhppy 2]

Ok, I won a Saiga-12 in a *raffle* last month and am planning on doing some work to it, but these guns are new to me. I'm mechanically inclined and can do the labor, but short on cash. Eventually I'd like to use this as a 3 gun shotgun, and will be working towards that goal. My question to you wise men (and a few women I've seen while lurking) is what order should I really start making changes and tuning the gun.

 

Thanks, I've already learned a bunch from reading the prior posts, but know I'm still a rank amateur when it comes to these rather interesting weapons.

[JAldrich2008 28]

Shoot it and see what it does. Welcome to the club!

[YOT 3,743]

Lucky! The best advice is keep reading here.

[lbsrdi 1,078]

I need some of that luck.

[StealthyBlagga 4]

On important suggestion: these guns can be hit or miss out of the box, so make sure you thoroughly test fire and debug the gun before doing any modifications. If necessary, you will be able to send it back to the importer for repairs.

 

For 3-gun, the first question is which rules you want to shoot under. If you are shooting under USPSA rules, you are limited to 10 rounds in the magazine even in Open division, so you will want to invest in Surefire or AGP box magazines, an aftermarket "push-to-load" magazine well and an extended magazine release for faster reloads. If you are shooting under the more common IMA rules, then in my opinion you are better off leaving it in the original "rock-n-lock" format and investing in 20-round MD Arms drums.

 

As for the pistol grip conversion, definitely do it, and do it yourself. I did mine in only a few hours with simple tools following the instructions on this site. The total cost on top of the gun was under $200. On top of the basic PG conversion, the biggest expense for you will be a red dot optic and mount, but you can be competitive in 3-gun Open division with the original bead sight until the budget permits an optic purchase. At some point you will want to port the barrel and/or install a mid-barrel brake, but this is again more expensive and can cause gas deficiencies that require some tweaking of the gas ports, so leave it until you have some experience under your belt. Oh, and get a PolyChoke - the factory barrels have no choke and it shows in the patterns they throw. Do NOT bother with any muzzle "compensators" or "brakes"... they don't work on shotguns, so are a big waste of $$$ IMHO.

 

I'd wish you good luck, but it does not sound like you need it. Welcome to 3-gun

[Trigerhppy 2]

Thanks for the tips so far, I will be spending a lot of time here picking up knowledge hopefully. I'll definitely go through the extended break in and testing prior to doing any conversion work. I actually did pickup a MD arms drum and some surefire mags, so i'll give those a try, and I understand there is likely to be some fitting done to with the drum. I'm normally crazy about polishing and deburring internals, so am planning on spending some time doing that as well.

 

As far as luck, I'll still take all I can get, because it's been a long time since I've shot competition, and that was long range. Was nice to win though, had gotten some accessories prior to this, but this was the first gun I won. Now to see if I can win another rifle and pistol to dedicate to competition too

Edited January 27, 2011 by Trigerhppy