i'm liking the buttstock. I want one of those for me wasr-10 but i'm not sure how to get it on if i do. very nice work so far.

It gives a little higher cheek wield for using higher sights, such as the ghost rings, or a red-dot, so nice for this. All that is required to get it on should be to remove the pistol grip and buttstock, this one, which I believe is Romanian, has cuttouts for standard tangs, but you might need different screws to tighten it in.

what's in the moscow box, out of curiosity.

I got a nice 8x42 POSP scope in there. It's a nice box, so I kept it.

Nice conversion so far, I'm considering a saiga 308 and have it converted..just need the money

I snagged one of the 16" .308s and have that mostly converted, too, and it's a fun little rifle. Really turns into a fire-breathing beast with some of the Bear ammo, haven't tried it with Wolf yet. Now, with the high capacity U.S. made magazines available for it, I'd highly recommend such a little carbine.

Only tricky part about it is finding a lower handguard retainer if you're going to go that route, though it looks like Dinzag Arms is making their own bolt-together retainer.

yeah, thats what I like about it.. but sadly have to wait till after Anthrocon..

Well, then you can tell people that you have an AK in 7.62 NATO, and they'll think you're full of shit, but you're really not.

I've been wanting to do a conversion on mine for ever, how hard is it to get the rivets out?

I don't have a minimill or anything but I can usually figure stuff out. It's just without any machining tools I'd think it'd be a total bastard to drill rivets.


One place now makes a conversion kit piece that keeps you from having to drill a hole for the PG nut so that simplifies things a bit. It also includes a trigger guard.


Also, how much modifying of the parts does it really take to get it working? Once you drop in the new FCG are you ready to roll or does stuff need filing and adjustments?

I got the rivets out with nothing more than a Dremel, just took off the top and punched them right out.

Other than that, there wasn't much metal work to be done on this one, except if you want to keep the bolt hold open, you'll have to take off a little material from the side of the hammer to allow it to fit on the same pin. The trigger didn't quite fit in mine, so a little bit of grinding was required to keep it from hanging up.

The stock and pistol grip that replace the buttstock on a normal Saiga neglects to replace any of the FCG parts, and if you add a feed ramp for use with high-capacity magazines, it'd be in violation of 922r. You might want to check that out here. Also keep in mind that some of the Saigas use a separate trigger and sear, so that may count as two imported parts. Those are the ones that, like this one, have two holes over where the pistol grip normally goes. The FCGs with the long cantilever trigger attached to the sear count as one import part, and do not have the extra holes. They're also easier to convert in that manner.

I've always wanted a Saiga but never knew where to get one

Well, they're getting more and more popular, and unfortunately the price is going up to match.

I'd say keep your eyes open for one at a local gun show, or see if a dealer near you can order one.

Yea, Long gone as the days of getting them cheap.

I paid $219 out the door for mine at the time.

Heh, yeah. My .308 was about $250, my 12 was almost $500. For how good of a shotgun it is, that's honestly worth it, though.

The only thing that gripes me about the saiga are the things that make it unique.

Being fed by magazine is just a headache. Magazines are extremely expensive and you can't top it off.

The gas system blows because it won't cycle light loads very well. And if you leave it on the light load setting and fire a heavy load, you'll damage the gun.


They're fun range toys but if I was in a war-time situation or needing a duty gun, I wouldn't have a saiga. Mine has been deadly reliable but I know what I want to mess with and what I wouldn't want to in desperate times.

Well, the magazine does give them an advantage of being able to reload much quicker, so long as you have some extra loaded magazines. After I broke mine in, it had no problem cycling low-recoil loads, even the 1140fps buckshot loads I have. The gas settings seem pretty forgiving, some ball loads I made, which have a bit more kick than those buckshot loads, will cycle fine on high power, and didn't do any damage on low power, though they had a bit more recoil that way. Then again, I'm using a thinned down recoil buffer just for that reason.

Well yea with a buffer you're going to protect your gun, but buffers don't run well in everyone's gun.

It didn't work well at first, it was causing some FTFs with the original magazine, but I thinned it out and took a little material out of the center to soften it up, and it's working quite a bit better now.

I almost put a wood stock on mine but I'm not sure I like the way it looks with the plastic fore end. I just went with a black AK stock, myself.

I'd have rather put on the black plastic, but unfortunately this is New York, and I can't have a pistol grip and detachable magazine on a semi-auto shotgun.

You will shoot through two cop cars and kill a puppy if you had that.

With some of the hard ball slugs I've made, I just might do that anyways.

Cool project.

I M SO DISAPPOINT U PUT ON GUN STUF THAT IS RUINED IT CUZ ITS NOT THE SAME AS IT CAME WITH UR DUM IT LOOKS BETR THE OTHER WAY /sarcasm.

Looks great. Can't wait to see it finished. Speaking of shotties:
My rear swivel stud on my mossberg snapped off, or it came like that. I think I need to get a new rear buttstock. Where can I find a good selection? I -might- be interested in the AR type rear ends, and since I live in soviet wisconsin I can have them, but with a mossberg 500 like mine, it's an ergonomics issue with the tang safety.

I've had people tell me that before, actually.

On your Mossberg, I want to say that Mesa tactical has solved that problem by using a receiver rail, and I've seen another one, but unfortunately I forget, that gets around that by putting wings on the safety, so that it can be used with a rail going over it. Of course, I'd recomend staying away from any ATI stuff, especially their top-folding stock and forends.

Well, my SKS stock is ATI, I think.

The fixed ones seem ok. I don't know about the adjustable or folding ones though. Honestly, I'm not too interested in the adjustable or folding stocks. A fixed pistol grip stock would be great. Even better would be one with a removable pistol grip so I can switch back and forth easily.

Though just a replacement for my existing rear buttstock would be just as good, since the only thing wrong with my current setup is the rear swivel stud. Ironically I don't even have a carrying strap/rifle strap yet so it isn't a high priority for me.

Well, if that's the case, I'd suggest that you don't overlook Hogue overmolded stocks. I have one on my 500, and the forend on my 590, and it's quite nice. It provides for some extra grip, even if wet, and the recoil pad's certainly nice.

I heard you need a new stock bolt on hogue buttstocks as the old/original ones won't fit.

Is that true?

Different Mossberg stocks use a variety of different length bolts, so it may be true. I believe that the full-length bolt from a regular stock should fit, though. For the forend, you'll probably need their adapter nut.

Now that I think about it again, and I'm not sure how I forgot this, but Speedfeed makes some nice stocks, they'll let you carry 4 extra shells inside a a tube in the stock, and they have some pistol grip models if you're after one of those. Choate makes a nice, light skeletonized stock, and side-folder that's sturdier than the ATI, yet more comfortable than the Butler Creek.

smexy

OH MY GOD, thats a wicked idea mate!

SVT STOCK + SAIGA SHOTTY = ULTIMATE BONER.

Thanks. Some people have been complaining about how it looks like that, but it's the only way to get a better trigger in there, meet 922r requirements, and not break the NYS AWB laws.

Nice, are you putting a guard on there?
Smoulder some shit together

Yeah, I still do need to come up with some sort of trigger guard, and a safety stop, as it goes far past where it's supposed to now.

Thought so, you can get barrel drums for the saiga cant you?

The big drum magazines? I can't, but they are available in most other states. There's a 20 round MD Arms drum, the MD-20, and an Alliance Armament drum, the Wraithmaker. There's a 30 round Wraithmaker, but neither of them are particularly reliable from what I've seen. The MD-20 is also a little over a pound, while the 20 round Wraithmaker is almost four pounds, empty, and far too open.

There's another thing.

More than 7 rounds in a shotgun is too damned much weight to haul around. I wish I could find the factory 5 rounders cheap and buy a ton of them. They're a perfect compromise of weight and capacity. The 10 rounder weighs too much for me to comfortable haul around all day.

oh... shizzle.

Well, there's two settings, and once I replaced the piston and broke mine in, it'll fire just about anything on the magnum setting.
Apparently http://www.warfieldarmory.com/ is working on a few things to improve the Saiga 12, including a last-round bolt hold open, magazine well, and a self-regulating gas system.

I'm thinking about getting a Saiga shotgun someday as a home defense gun, along with at least two ten round mags.

I have a Mossberg for home defense, but should I need it to, this one's certainly up to the task. It's only ever jammed once, and that was from a soft shotgun hull bending while it was feeding. It hasn't had a single failure using the AGP magazines yet, but I've only put about a hundred rounds or so through it with those. It has failed to cycle when using the wrong gas setting, but that's more user error than anything.

The main thing that I like about the Saiga is the detachable ten round mag. I'd like to get at least two, so I can keep one mag loaded for home defense and each month, I can just transfer the shells to another mag and alternate between the two mags at the beginning of each month so I don't wear out the mag springs.

Did you put a PSL stock on your Saiga-12?

It's not quite the same stock as the one on my PSL, but it's very similar. Picked it up at a gun show, just for this project, for $15. It's cut for a straight receiver, not the rounded PSL recevier, so I can only assume it's for a thumbhole AK or something. It gets me around New York State AWB laws, since the detachable magazine is a feature for semi-auto shotguns.

I really didn't like it on there, so it was replaced with a more appropriate synthetic Choate soon after.

Noice

When I move out of California this will be the first gun I'll buy. I adore Saiga 12s!
Nice work too!