Ok... was at the range today... took BOTH my Saiga 7.62X39's
One is a 20" barrel conversion that I did, manufacture date '99, with the Kalashnikov USA import stamping...
The other is a 16" Conversion I did, Manufacture date of '03, with the EAA markings.

I was shooting Olympic ammo, brass cased, boxer primed, 124 grain FMJ.

I noticed the accuracy of the Olympic was *NOT AS GOOD* as Wolf 122g. FMJ. The best groups I was getting with open sights at 100M was about 4 inches.
I have gotten 2" groups with the irons using Wolf ammo...

Now... as I posted in the other thread of "What ammo you guys using", to go with the current yacking about case mouth swelling being a trademarked Saiga thing... Well, maybe IT IS on the NEWER rifles... but I think the older ones didnt have that feature. Either THAT, or some do, some dont, as many of us have seen with the many Saigas around, that many of them are a little different in some aspect or another... Like whichever bin they felt like grabbing parts out of and build them was the whim of the worker that particular day...

As Crosshair mentioned, his '02 Saiga DOES NOT put the step in the case neck...

SO... heres an image of the spent brass... the 4 on the left have the neck tweak, those were shot out of the 16" '03 rifle... the ones on the right, were out of the 20" '99 rifle. ALL of them have the ding in the side from hitting the receiver cover after extraction.

I bet the EAA marked recent production are the ones that have this feature.

The pic I posted elsewhere was with "marked" cases fired in a EAA Saiga carbine.

BTW, those dings in the cases are getting a bit excessive, maybe time for a buffer?

Lollygagger

brass cases ding up deeper than the steel ones... LOL

Yeah, prolly time for a buffer... one of these days, I suppose...

Could it mabee be that someone just got sloppy with the chamber reamer? The guns passed all the Quality control because they fired just fine and get exported to the US.

Just throwing ideas around.

/Tried out my new POSP 6x42 scope on my Saiga today. Results: the scope. Need to adjust the mount, it's shooting to the left too much, ran out of adjustment travel.

If you can't find a buffer, can always get a extra receiver cover and use duct tape, or get some sheet rubber and glue, neither will look good but might save the brass for reloading. Have you tried to resize any of the bulged cases, will they hold a bullet or do the cases want to collapse when you try to seat one?

For the price of wolf ammo... less than 10 cents a round.. theres NO POINT in reloading...

so its really not anything I plan to worry about...

The Olympic, at just shy of 10 cents a round... $3.97 for 40 rounds... no point in THAT either... let em get dinged and dented... screw em! LOL

I have been shy to even buy any olympic ammo, after hearing of the problems the .223 shooter have had with some of it. Ya with the wolf( or any of the others barnal etc) I just keep buying the steel cased stuff. Atleast the ejected caseings hitting the cover dont do much dammage, compared to the the ejections on a CETME/G-3, they actually remove finish on the receiver or have seen one with the Aluminum receiver leave little gouges thru the finish, good case for a bufffer there.

I have a rubber band wraped around the recoil spring on my SKS. It works fine and I plan on trying it with my Saiga soon. $.99 for a pack of 20, can't beat that.

I understand that the 'step' in the Saiga chamber is a Russian gun controll measure. This was done to differentiate between spent rounds from civilian and military weapons.

G O B

Whew!

I thought all of our head spacings were off!

How does that "step" help anything for Russian gun control? At the crime scene the beat up cases will point to a semi-auto (That are illegal in Russia) and you won't fire 60 rounds from a bolt action 7.62x39 during a crime, murder, assasination, etc.

its to show if its a CIVVE semi or a MILITARY ak lol, nothing to do with bolt actions.

I never had dinged cases from my Saiga. I only used Remington ammo once and the rest of the time I used Russian ammo. I don't reload anyway with the price of ammo it isn't worth the effort.

It is actually stated in the manual of my RAA Saiga that I just purchased. It says that this in compliance with the current Russian Civilian and Sporting Ministry guidelines? and it should not effect the rifle performance at all. IIRC they call it a step? in the chamber. I'll let you know if it effects reloading the cases once I get time to take it to the range. I use commercial brass and tailor specific loads for hunting.

Just as an update, like I promised. I reloaded about 50 rounds of "stepped" case neck ammo the other night. My set of Lee dies took the step out during the resizing process. Best I can tell, there were no adverse effects. Cases came out as smooth as a babies behind. Now the dents from the cover left a scratch mark in the case but nothing else.

Hi

GOB is spot on, the swelling in the case neck is done to diffrentiate between a civillian and military weapon, my saiga 7.62x39 does not have this but my newer svd does have the swelling, in my manual it states that it does not effect the ballistics or anything else at all and is purely a Russian export (civillian gun) thing. as posted above reloading takes the step out and i have reloaded my cases many times with no problems of weakening of the brass due to this swell.

all the best

assassin

Not for the case swelling, but for the Olympic, I bought two boxes of Oly for my 7.62X 39, as they were out of Wolf, but it didn't print for shit. Easily twice my Wolf groups. At that rate, the brass is just shiny. (and dented)
I found my best groups with TMC(Tula) 122 JHP, and collected a button-buck with it this year.
Drilled fmj or not, it expands. I don't have a captured bullet, just a 1" exit wound. And a fair amount of speed-veal.

Cheers,
Ben

I have a Saiga 7.62 x 39 MK which is the Kalashnikov 104. Was a bit worried when I saw the neck expansion. However here in UK at my range we are not allowed to fire above a certain muzzle velocity, so had reduced the charge to give 1300 ft/sec, so knew it was not an overcharge. Measured at 12 thou. Saw in the manual that this was a requirement to identify civilian versus military AK's.

Fine, I can remove the expansion but do not choose to do so. The power required to expand the neck portion is wasted power. I leave the expansion and neck only so far. Hence it will fit the chamber exactly and give more power to the bullet than wasting power on the neck expansion.

The rounds chamber perfectly. I would only remove the ring if I was using the case in a different rifle, but I only have one 7.62.

I intend to check the velocity difference between an unexpanded case and an expanded case using my chronometer, will report later.

In the UK 7.62 is expensive $60+ per 100, so reloading costs about 40 cents per shot plus case, which reduces the more you reload, a single shot from the case will cost about 60c so if you throw away your ammo it costs about $1 a shot, so don't chuck your brass cases, send them to UK!

Cheers all


John

Does anyone know it the .223s also have this step?

Believe it's only the 7.62x39's.

my 7.62x39 does both the neck stepping and the bend from hitting the dust cover...

PHEW! you guys don't know how worried I was when i collected my spent casings and saw this!



I have waited 2 and a half months for my new saiga 7.62 to arrive from backorder. got it yesterday, shot it today, saw this, jaw dropped, got really pissed, went to my ffl, showed him the casings, said it looks like either a headspacing issue, overreamed chamber, printed out the phone number for RAA and said let me know what they have to say about it. I was like #$%#^%$... boy am I really really relieved. Thank You Saiga-12.com, you have saved me from yet another headache!

Hey, GOB, I noticed your SeaLeopard patch. I served on the USS Charr and USS Diodon, out of San Diego, in the early 60's.

I'm a newbie here on the Forum. Bought a Saiga 7.62x39 yesterday at a gun show in San Antonio. The Saiga was NIB. I cleaned it up, took it to the range this morning, and when I noticed the stepped cases I ended the range session and hustled back here to find out what was going on. Here's pics of what I'm experiencing, with an "unstepped" case from my SKS as comparison.



Is this the problem folks are talking about on this thread? If so, am I reading it right that there is no problem with the firearm?

Thanks,

Mike

I've never heard that before, that is interesting.

Mikein... yes, that is exactly what we are talking about in this thread.

no worries, you are all good to go!!

That step in the chamber doesn't help with accuracy at all. A properly supported chamber that holds the case neck for the entire length is how it should be. As you see you can still fire the gun. Another thing you will find if your reloading those fired cases is the case life will be shorter than normal too. On the plus side, it will be harder to jam your gun with all that extra room in the chamber.

My Saiga M gets th case neck swelling and is still pretty accurate!
also a good sized ding too,...

that's a bunch of crap for people considering reloading. Not to mention the wasted power charge and reduced velocity from 'expanding' the case. If I'm wrong correct me, but I just found a good reason not to buy a Saiga AK, not that I was ever very interested in one anyway.

ok, have a nice one.....maybe these people are more your "speed" http://www.ar15.com/
I remember seeing someone here saying all you need to do is tune it up a bit, and problem solved, one of the older threads about this problem here, i don't have any issues with it and it wouldn't matter anyways b/c i only shoot steel cased ammo, no need to expensive brass in these guns...

If you were never interested in one. Why are you in here?