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Saiga 12
- Thread starter Lip
- Start date
my buddy-shotgunner swears by it.
Saigas run high-brass perfectly out of the box. If you want to shoot birdshot or low powered ammo, you will need the 6 position gas port. If you want it to run 100% reliably with bird shot you will need to do more including polishing some internals and possibly opening up the gas ports on the barrel itself unless you happen to get a lucky one.
You can also buy a kit with lighter springs to run birdshot more reliably...all depends on what you want to do with it.
You can also buy a kit with lighter springs to run birdshot more reliably...all depends on what you want to do with it.
They work well for running various ammo but they protect the gun from over gassing. It's still just a sheet metal receiver that takes a lot of abuse when gas pressure is dumping full force. The adjustable plug helps limit some of that for less wear and tear on the gun while still allowing it to function properly.
this, if your setup is undergassed for light loads, no amount of gadgets will improve that.
Big issue is that people want to shoot mouse farts loads as well as 3" shells. The difference is huge and gun need to be tuned to each range, otherwise it won't cycle or the rear trunnion will be beat up to hell like someone was whaling with a hammer on it. You can see those on GB.
Ditto....well....until one day when the disconnect broke in half....lol.
What would be a good adjustable block to install? Ray told me of one to try but the last time I looked, I couldn't find any....not even from the manufacturer. Offhand, I can't remember what the name was......Ray?
- Joined
- Nov 5, 2010
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Ok, This is a subject that can not be easily solved in some cases because these guns all a bit different. What I can tell you from EXTENSIVE research as well as experimentation with these guns is that as stated, there is almost never an issue running good, high brass ammo. The problem comes in when people want to practice with the cheap, low brass birdshot loads. Unfortunately, just adding a gas plug with more adjustments on it will not solve this problem! Neither will installing one of those so-called "low brass reliability kits" that several vendors sell. If you install those crappy weak springs and gas plug with more adjustments, you may see a bit of improvement, but it will just beat the crap out of the trunnion like Boris mentioned. My suggestion to you, or anyone who truly wants to make these guns run well is to spend some time reading over on the Saiga12 forum. There are stickied threads as well as hundreds of others to sift through discussing the various mods and procedures to make these guns really run like they should, even with crap ammo. Once you get it tuned properly, THEN add something like an Autoplug, which is an adjustable gas regulator that will allow you to run almost any ammo without needing to play with the gas plug adjustment every time you switch from low to high brass. I have done extensive re-profiling and polishing to all of the internals, as well as fixing the gas ports, which were improperly drilled, and sized from the factory on my gun. I also fully converted it so it doesn't have that stupid trigger linkage, which I think just adds to the problem. Of course being in MA, I had to run a thumbhole stock to keep the conversion legal, since we can't have the extra, evil feature of a pistol grip.![[rolleyes]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/042.gif "Roll Eyes [rolleyes]")
When I move to a free state, the first thing I'm going to do is chop it into an SBS, and put an evil side folding stock on it! This is probably one of the few guns in my collection that I would never part with now that I have it perfected, but like some of you, I was extremely frustrated at having an essentially single-shot semi-auto when running cheap ammo. I have yet to try any ammo that doesn't work in it now.
When I move to a free state, the first thing I'm going to do is chop it into an SBS, and put an evil side folding stock on it! This is probably one of the few guns in my collection that I would never part with now that I have it perfected, but like some of you, I was extremely frustrated at having an essentially single-shot semi-auto when running cheap ammo. I have yet to try any ammo that doesn't work in it now.
Like I said the beating comes from too much gas. That was my reason for buying an adjustable plug. I only shoot slugs and buckshot through mine and didn't want to keep beating up the intetnals.
Thanks again, Ray.
