Problems cycling low brass with my VEPR12

[arringdd 0]

Hey guys,

 

I don't post too often on these sites, but I have had such horrible problems with my VEPR-12 and such subsequent fantastic results with it that I felt compelled to leave a post.

 

I received my VEPR-12 shortly after the ban on Russian imports began and probably paid a little too much for it, but what the heck! After receiving the gun, I put a new Chaos quad rail on, got a CSS muzzle brake, new Hogue grip, Mako GL-SHOCK stock, Molot factory AR buffer tube hinge adaptor and magazine release button extension. I put all this on before even firing a single shot and then took her to the range. To my dismay, she would only cycle high brass, buckshot, and slug rounds. When running low brass and target loads, every single round would essentially "stovepipe" and the next round would not cycle. I tried the new performance springs from CSS with no luck.

 

After surfing the net and reading through this very forum, I discovered that many other people were having the same exact problem. Finally, I came across an outfit named Cobra's Custom based in North Carolina and run by a gunsmith named Shannon Neely. This guy's specialty is with Saiga 12 and VEPR 12 shotguns, specifically with making them run smoothly and efficiently. I sent my bolt carrier group, piston, and fire control group to Shannon who began work on polishing the parts immediately. I received the parts back within a few weeks and they looked beautiful. However, I was still a bit skeptical seeing as how nothing else I had done had helped even a little. Shannon also sent me a bottle of break-in lubrication and a set of cleaning tools back with my parts. I headed out to the range after re-installing everything and took three boxes of shells with me. All were low brass including Winchester Super Target, Federal Game Loads, and Remington Game Loads. All had a velocity of approximately 1200 fps. The first thing I noticed was that the action cycled incredibly smoothly....I'm talking way more smoothly than what I remembered before sending it off. I charged the gun with a factory 5-round magazine and fired away. Eureka!! Finally I had a gun that cycled smoothly and fired effortlessly! My long saga was over.

 

With all of this said, I realize that there can be many reasons why a gun will not run as advertised. Often guns need to be "broken in" before they function properly. In reality, when you think about it, these guns were made for the Russian military and I doubt they are running any "low brass" through them since they are designed to kill. For that reason, why would they go to the trouble of polishing and beautifully machining their internals when they don't need to. Makes sense that the cycling of the action might be a bit rough and too tight to cycle low velocity rounds.

 

I manually cycled my action over 500 times before ever shooting it and ran 100 slugs through it in an attempt to mechanically "polish" the rails and machined parts in the receiver. Others online claim that this fixed their cycling issues, but it did nothing for me. Other's claimed that replacing the recoil spring did the trick for them and for many, that might be enough to get their rigs running normally.....every gun will be a bit different. I'm not saying that Shannon's custom polishing job is the answer for everyone, but it definitely worked for me when all the cheaper options were exhausted and may be just the fix for you. I also found another guy in Texas who ran a business with similar services although after trying to get in touch with him, it appears that he is currently experiencing medical issues and could not help me. That's when I discovered Cobra's Custom.

 

I do not know Shannon at Cobra's personally nor is he paying me to endorse him, but I feel strongly about giving credit where credit is due and he definitely delivered what he promised. The price for the basic package is about $210 which honestly seemed a little pricey at first, but I was at my wits end with this gun and decided to pull the trigger as it were. I would do it again and again for the results that I got. Shannon seems like a straight shooting guy who is honest and easy to work with. He is responsive to inquiries on the progress of your build and will even post pics of it on his Facebook account for you to see.

 

I hope that some of this information will help those of you out there who are having problems similar to mine. Ultimately, you will have to go through the trouble shooting process yourself, but if you run out of options with no luck, consider Cobra's Custom and their professional polishing job. It worked for me and now I have a smooth running gun that I'm proud to own.

 

Check it out at www.cobras-custom.com if you need help! I have also posted the same message over at vepr.org as some folks may not know about you guys here at saiga-12.com

 

Regards,

David

[Steve2112 1]

Sounds like a good service.

 

From what I understand, you are not supposed to use low brass ammo in the VEPR12 - it's in the manual somewhere.  Stay away from bird shot, and low FPS loads.  I am new and just learning, but certain brands of ammo do not work well, and there is a brand sold at Walmart called Suprema that is inexpensive and works well from what I have read, while certain loads of Winchester have issues.

[Skoodge 22]

Sounds like a good service.

 

From what I understand, you are not supposed to use low brass ammo in the VEPR12 - it's in the manual somewhere.  Stay away from bird shot, and low FPS loads.  I am new and just learning, but certain brands of ammo do not work well, and there is a brand sold at Walmart called Suprema that is inexpensive and works well from what I have read, while certain loads of Winchester have issues.

I second the Wally world suprema ammo. No problems for me as of yet. Plus, the ones at my WalMart are 1315fps.

[DresNightfire 39]

I've been running low brass with no problems (of course I did swap the trigger because the factory one was unreliable for me and I also polished the bolt face and the hammer), just stay within these ammo specs:

 

http://doitdarith.com/temp/vepr12/wolfammo12gaugevepr12.html