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Thread: My Saiga 12 build

  1. #1
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    Lexington, SC

    My Saiga 12 build

    For about a year, I've been working up a Saiga 12. They are a fairly easy and nice gun to work up, have a lot of possibilities, and are totally functional and practical for many things. Despite the association with the "mall ninja" crowd, they aren't merely "tacticool" nightmares. I wasted a good amount of time and money on this build, so hopefully some folks will learn from my mistakes if they choose to go down a similar path!

    First, the background... it was about a year ago when I bought a shotgun for the skeet range, a semi auto Weatherby (for the record, I like it a lot, it's a licensed Beretta A390 action put together in Turkey, for $427 at WalMart, it's a super-smooth, reliable autoloader for less than many pump actions). With a child in the house and another on the way, using it for HD purposes was not really something I felt comfortable with, all of the solutions I found for securing a loaded shotgun (like the boxes that surround the breech) involve a key to open them, and the idea of trying to load a shotgun up while there's an intruder in the house sounded like a really bad idea. A friend of mine mentioned in passing the Saiga 12, and when I looked into it, it was exactly what I was looking for. With the ability to be fed from a detachable box magazine, the unloaded shotgun could be stored in the bedroom closet and a magazine stored separately, including a night stand safe, allowing you to go from "inert piece of metal and plastic" to "10+ rounds of 12 gauge" in a few moments. And with high capacity stick mags or drums, you would be able to hold off a good number of intruders in a home invasion scenario; while that isn't a huge concern in my current neighborhood, I plan on living in a much more secluded area in a few years. That sounded ideal to me.

    When I was going through this decision, it was around March 2011, and the ATF had been doing some writing about the applicability of certain guns for "sporting purposes", and had a big picture of a Saiga 12 with a 20 round drum in it. The gun buying public got into a panic, and within a month or two, prices of the Saiga 12 had gone from $500 - $600 to $700+. To make matters worse, the manufacturer makes them in batches, and there were concerns around the financial stability of that company... shipments were slow, late, and Saiga 12's had gone from "available" to "unobtainable" within weeks. Having some extra cash in my pocket, I didn't mind paying $750 for mine when they came in. I should have known this project was going to cost me a fortune, when I was paying for it, my wife walked into the room, saw my credit card out (and it was an actual credit card, not my debit card), she knew something was up, and gave me a rough time for a WHILE for spending so much money on this. She got me at the usual 2:1 ratio a few weeks later... After a rough wait (one of those "I have a tracking number but it doesn't show any status for three weeks" routines all too common in the gun universe...), my FFL called me up to tell me that it arrived. Here's what I got in the box, other than the basic "sporter" configuration (you can look that up to see an example):

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    The first thing I did, was install a Polychoke, the "Gasfixers" gas knob (no longer sold, it looks like), and a CSS gas tappet, all from Carolina Shooter Supply. I also ordered a pair of SGM 5 round magazines. Incidentally, they are GREAT to order from, every order I've placed from them was shipped out the next morning.

    The Polychoke is a most amazing contraption. It attaches to the outside threads (the S12's barrel is threaded on the outside like a rifle, not on the inside like most shotguns). While a lot of folks like adding a variety of muzzle brakes, flash hiders, and really sharp things that seemingly double as a clumsy bayonet, the Polychoke is really what you want. For $100, it can go from the tightest choke to a spread +3, without tools (though I suggest using a rag or gloves if you've been shooting it, or the wrench that comes with it). Well worth the money!

    I took it as-is to the skeet range, and put a variety of birdshot through. What I learned is that the really cheap stuff (Federal bulk pack, Winchester White Box) would fail to cycle, or if it cycled, it would actually fail to cock the hammer back (which could theoretically result in a slam fire, I suppose, depending on the timing of events...). With this configuration, I could either get a lighter recoil spring, try to open up the gas ports a little bit (the factory will put between 2 - 4 gas ports in, of varying sizes, depending on how drunk the workers were that day), or do some work. Reading the forums at Saiga12.com, I decided a bolt polish was in order. Not only would it look nice, but folks report that it helps the cycling quite a bit. I decided to send it off to "Pauly's Steelin'" to have his "glass bolt" mod done. Pauly was great to work with, though he was so swamped with orders that it took a bit longer than he had hoped for (only a week or two longer). At the same time, I ordered one of Ironwood Design's Saiga 12 furniture sets, in walnut (the set that looks like a basic AK). I also ordered a bunch more parts from Carolina Shooting Supply (I actually put this order in first, because Pauly needed the trigger stuff for his work):

    * New mainspring
    * Tapco G2 trigger, modded for the S12
    * Recoil buffer
    * Pistol grip screw & bushing
    * Tromix trigger guard
    * Lower handgaurd bracket from Dinzag (incidentally, Dinzag really does take up to 2 weeks to ship, which is a bit of an annoyance)

    When everything came in, I was bloody impatient, and that was dumb. doing the conversion itself was easy. The biggest hassle was the bolt hold open (it is NOT a last round bolt hold open, it is manual). It is difficult to install. You need to take a lot of material out of the BHO to let the safety be installed, and I found myself doing it over and over and over again to take a little more out then putting it all back together. The first time I did it, I must have spent 45 minutes on it. Ten tries later, and I could do it in 2 minutes. The REALLY big mistakes I made, though:

    * When the wood furniture came in, I sanded, oiled it in a night, and waxed it the next day, and felt good about it. While it had a nice color, the finish wasn't good. Walnut has open pores, and so the finish just looks dull unless you fill them in.
    * The Ironwood stuff is slightly oversized, and the customer sands/files to fit. Because I was in a hurry, I was taking down the wrong areas of wood, and when I did figure it out, I had taken too much off, so things were loose.
    * The factory paints the gun after assembly, so doing the conversion leaves a bare patch on the receiver where the old trigger guard was; I tried lightly sanding the receiver, giving it a few coats of engine primer, then a few coats of engine enamel... all in the same night! While the color was fine, even the slightest bang or scratch would take the paint right off.

    With the furniture, I had them add the recoil pad, lightening cuts, and left the side mount for the sling (since the Dinzag handgaurd has a sling loop on the side). One thing I didn't like, is that the recoil pad's screws were flush with the surface of the pad, and therefore would get shoved into my shoulder when the pad compressed. I'm happy I noticed this ahead of time, I just took the screws out, counter sunk the pad a bit, and problem solved (they also looked better being hidden in the pad).

    After all of this was done, I took it back out to the skeet range. Lo and behold, the "Glass Bolt" work was astounding! Federal bulk pack and Winchester White Box were now cycling and cocking 100%. This was far better, IMHO, than a recoil spring swap. Who wants to swap a spring to go from birdshot to HD loads? With it now working right, the worst that would happen is I'd forget to turn the gas down, and my shoulder would be howling. I shoot skeet just as badly with the S12 as I do with my 28" Weatherby.

    Somewhere along the line, I broke down and ordered an axis pin retaining plate, which is worth it! Next time around, I'd save a few bucks and order it in the trigger kit from CSS. For all the times I broke this thing down and put it back together again, that plate paid for itself in saved time.

    At this point, I was happy with the functionality. It cycled great, it was a bit easier to load a mag on a closed bolt (still not a joy, though), the ergonomics were outstanding, and it looked great... except for that awful engine enamel job! I'm not one to throw good money after bad, so I took it over to Lexington Firearms and Gun Works right down the road, for a Duracoat job in H&K semi-gloss black. Unfortunately for me, they had just gotten a ton of work right before me, so it took a while, but the results were well worth it. If you are in the Columbia SC area, Hans Miller does an outstanding job; he media blasts everything, totally degreases it, and then does the DC job. For his price (I paid $235, but I know he changes rates right after I put mine in), it is unbeatable, especially if the base coat is junk like the S12 has. If I were doing this at home, I could have earned $500 in the time it would take to get it as clean as Hans did...

    Here was the result:

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    When I got it back, I took it to the range to put some slugs and 00 buck through it. With a HD gun it would be good to verify functionality with HD loads and get used to the feel, right? Well, after 15 rounds of slugs, 30 rounds of 00 buck, and 25 rounds of birdshot, I saw something heartbreaking when I put it back away:

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    What had happened was simple. The original stock comes with some coarse threaded screws, and that's what you are "supposed" to use to put the wood stuff on. The screws do not COMPLETELY fill the hole in the tang, and they have a beveled edge around the head. Well, running 00 buck and slugs through it put a lot of pressure on the screw's beveled edge, levering it a bit out of the hole, giving the stock more play, and the receiver slammed the wood until it cracked off. Let me tell you, for what the Ironwood stocks cost, this was an expensive break!

    I went to order a new stock from Ironwood, and discovered that they had a new "Sporter" set. The only problem was that it was for UNCONVERTED S12's, with a Monte Carlo style stock. While that would probably be a bit more friendly to the folks at the gun range, 1) I wasn't going to unconvert my gun 2) the ergos on the converted setup are great, not so much the "sporter" style, and 3) the trigger in "sporter" is AWFUL. I also was really unhappy with the handgaurds. My only option to get the upper HG on was a $300 gas tube from Dinzag (or a lot of cautious hacksaw and Dremel work). Neither one appealed to me. Plus, if I just ordered a new buttstock, it wouldn't match the rest of the furniture, being from a different piece of wood (yes, I am selectively anal, I totally rushed those items above, but I sweated the wood being a bit different). Again, I had a bit of extra cash in my pocket, so I did a mix 'n match order from Ironwood: the "sporter" handguard and a new pistol grip and buttstock. The Ironwood sporter HG puts the slingloop on the bottom, so I ordered the stock with the bottom cut for the sling swivel, as well as the recoil pad and the lightening cuts again.

    This was the best thing I could have done, and here's why:

    * The "sporter" handgaurd setup puts the front sling loop (if I choose to have it at all, I can just use the screw) an inch ahead of where the Dinzag HG retainer does, giving my long arms more room to work with.
    * The Dinzag HG retainer has its sling loop to the side, you don't think your hand is near it until it bites your finger during recoil, OUCH! First few rounds of skeet left a nasty bruise on my support hand...
    * The Ironwood sporter HG looks SHARP and covers up much of the gas tube; having no upper HG on, I kept finding my support hand/fingers grazing that gas tube, especially during administrative manipulations.
    * I was forced to finish the wood RIGHT.
    * I got a smooth pistol grip instead of the "fat checkered"; I loved the feel of the "fat checkered grip" (regular is just fine too, I may add), but the oil absorbs so much more on the cut wood, the part ends up much darker than the rest of the wood and looks out of place.

    When the parts came in (FYI, Matt from Ironwood is a great guy, but he gets a ton of emails and sometimes doesn't respond, and production times are were a few weeks after the promised date for me), they were outstanding. Apparently, I was the 5th or so person that got the new sporter style HG. This time, I took my bloody TIME. Two weeks, to be exact. First, I test fitted everything, and cautiously took off material to make it fit *just right*. I sanded, and sanded, and sanded some more. I oiled with the "Danish Oil" for a few days (I like it because it dries quickly, you can do 4 coats in an hour, let sit for 4 - 8 hours, and do it again, and it is indoor/outdoor), then I switched to boiled Linseed oil (BLO), which is thicker, takes 24 hours to "cure" between coats, but feels a but harder to me and was filling the pores better. After 10 days of oiling every day (2 - 4 times a day with the Danish oil at first, then once a day with BLO), I got some 800 grit wet/dry sandpaper, soaked it in BLO, and sanded again. This creates a "slurry" of oil and fine sawdust, which fills in the pores. I let this sit 24 hours, did it again, and while they were completely filled, it did in 48 hours what the 10 days before it had done. I did a few more days of BLO, until the pores were almost invisible. I then use the Birchwood Casey "Stock Sheen and Conditioner" on it, which filled in the pores completely, except a few very minor ones that were still left (they were practically canyons when I started...). I put my original recoil pad back on, since the new one also needed to have the screws countersunk. After all was said and done, I had a very nice, satin (not "high gloss", but DEFINITELY "high quality"!) finish. A few coats of Howard's "Feed 'n Wax" later, and I put it back together.

    The biggest change I made, was the stock retention system. Instead of drilling holes and using the bad screws again, I drilled much bigger holes, put in some inner threaded brass inserts (Hillman part #880548 from Lowe's, listen as "Wood Insert Nuts Brass 10-24"), and on the top hole I used a button head cap screen (Hillman part #883345, described as "Button Hd Cap Screw 10-24 x 3/4") and on the bottom of the receiver I used a flat head screw (Hillman part #883353, "Flat Head Cap Screw Stainless 10-24 3/4"). Again, I had Hans Miller at Lexington Firearms Duracoat them for me, he turned them around in a week or two and only charged me a couple of bucks. With this set up, the insert nuts had a lot more meat to gain purchase, and they weren't going anywhere. I used blue Loctite on the screws, so no vibration will back them out. I also positioned the stock about 1/8" out from flush, so even if they do back out, they won't be slamming the stock. Here's the setup (you can also see the satin finish on the wood):

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    I omitted the second top receiver screw (under the dust cover), if something can budge this I'll be shocked!

    This time, I took it to the 60 yard range with Al T. from the P-F.com forums, with a mix of 00 3" buck (that's a hot load...), 2 3/4" slugs, and some birdshot. With the slugs I got 5/5 on a 12" target at 60 yards with iron sights. Al, never having handled it before, rang his 12" gong 5/5 times (though when a 1 oz slug hits it, it's a bit more bass than 5.56 pinging it ). For a shotgun with a 19" barrel, that's far beyond "acceptable" in my book. It is not a hunting gun by any means, but if I found myself wanted to hunt in the 10 - 50 yard range, I would certainly feel comfortable doing that. Also, this time I finally put in the recoil buffer (I never bothered to put it in). It didn't perceptibly impact recoil, and it interfered with birdshot from cycling right. I could have gassed up, but it cycled fine on that setting with the exact same loads previous. It also made dealing with the BHO painful because the bolt barely went back far enough.

    So, what's next? A few minor tweaks:

    * Tromix extended bolt-on bold handle (not 100% sure)
    * Either get a pair of 10 or 12 round stick mags a jungle-clip them for HD, or a 20 round drum for HD... this is tough call, the drums seem to be hit or miss on reliability, and they are pretty big, but I really dislike loading on a closed bolt with this gun, so I'd rather have 20 rounds in a drum than 24 in two sticks if I ever find myself holding off a home invasion or similar situation when have a lot of 00 or #1 buck in the pipe would come in handy.
    * MD Arms V-Plug; the "Gasfixers" plug doesn't let me get to the lowest two settings because of thread alignment, so I'm overgassed on buckshot and slugs, the V-Plug is designed to take care of that.
    * I am considering my sight options; the current leaf + bead isn't bad (better than a basic bead only), but I could see myself utilizing the AK-style sidemount (or the Dog Leg) to put on a red dot for skeet/hunting, and also figuring out a way to mount a fiber bead in the front.
    * Get a barrel clamp and light for HD, remove at the skeet range.

    Lessons learned:

    * DO NOT RUSH THE FINISHING ON THE WOOD.
    * Getting a wood other than walnut will shave weeks off the project since it will only take a few coats of oil to get the job done, no pores to fill in!
    * Do not get the checkered grip on the wood if you plan to oil finish it.
    * Get the "sporter" HG, pistol grip, and buttstock for the best combination of ergos.
    * If you don't like the wood, stick with a sporter style/length HG, a PG and BS combo anyways, for ergos.
    * Bottom cut sling swivel if using the sporter HG, side sling swivel with the Dinzag retainer.
    * Get the recoil pad, countersink the screws (or do a custom Limbsaver pad).
    * POLYCHOKE, not Norwegian Death Metal Breacher Brake up front.
    * Get the axis pin retaining plate
    * Get a BHO pre-modified for the conversion
    * MD Arms V-Plug.
    * Pauly's "Glass Bolt" is worth every penny... looks incredible, cycles like Lance Armstrong, and he does a trigger polish too which feels silky smooth.
    * Give Ironwood some leeway on delivery time, my first order I hounded him a bit, my second order I knew to cool my jets.
    * Do the mounting for the stock RIGHT as I've described (no one else seems to have done this, from what I can tell...).
    * Either be prepared to refinish the receiver, have a bit that stands out (I hear Aluma Hyde from Brownell's is the better choice than engine enamel, by the way) and just refinish a small part of it, or expect to pay a pro to Duracoat (or equivalent).
    * The Saiga 12, despite being beloved by the mall ninja/zombie cowboy crowd, happens to make an outstanding HD firearm with a pile of options, and can definitely be pressed into service throwing slugs or birdshot at targets and most likely deer and ducks.
    * It handles like a champ.
    * Reloading the S12, even when accounting for the AK "rock 'n lock" mags and the hassle of trying to load on closed bolt or pulling it open still beats trying to reload a 12 gauge tube mag.
    * I hear that the ATF still has an interest in these, if you want one, prices are currently low ($550) so now might be a good time to buy.
    * I would love to do another one with the maple furniture and just a coat of light poly on it.
    * If you don't care about looks, get a set of cheap Tapco or Intrafuse furniture from K-Var, mount stuff on the rails as-needed, and call it a day.
    * Carolina Shooter Supply is an AWESOME place to shop from, and sets a standard for customer service in an industry that disappoints me often.

    I will GLADLY answer any questions, and if anyone is my area, I'd love to assist with a build for fun.

    J.Ja
    Owner/President of Titanium Crowbar, LLC

  2. #2
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    Pictures of the final product (as it currently stands) - yes, I know that the trigger lock is in the wrong place, I was adjusting it when I took the pics:

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    Owner/President of Titanium Crowbar, LLC

  3. #3
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    The greenish stuff in the action is just some lube, it's not a trick of the lighting.

    J.Ja
    Owner/President of Titanium Crowbar, LLC

  4. #4
    Member Al T.'s Avatar
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    Great write up! You are so NOT helping me quit scheming to get one!

    I was impressed with that puppy.

  5. #5
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    Thanks for the time you spent doing this detailed writeup. And also for sharing the "lessons" learned.
    All of the "don't rush" advice carries over to any project (not just firearms).

    Beautiful result.

  6. #6
    Licorice Bootlegger JDM's Avatar
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    Good write up!
    Nobody is impressed by what you can't do. -THJ

  7. #7
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    Thanks guys! Happy to contribute some content back to the P-F.com community.

    Al, whenever you're ready to do it, you've got my number...

    The worst part apart this project, is that it went so well, I ended up sinking money into a PSL/FPK instead of a better high powered rifle. One day I'll give the world insight into my attempts to fashion an adjustable length-of-pull system for that AK-style wood stock. It probably would have worked if I had a drill press. Once I get one, I'll be putting my design out there, so AK and variants can finally have a stock that fits different shooters and provides a good cheek weld for optics.

    J.Ja
    Owner/President of Titanium Crowbar, LLC

  8. #8
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    Great write up
    Phillipians 4:13
    Go Gators/Wildcats!!!
    Glock Cert. Armorer

  9. #9
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    Thanks, glad you like it! There will be more in the next few weeks, I replaced the gas plug with a more adjustable one, I just got a rail on it (you know you bought a Russian-made gun part, when its "packaging" is a scrap of greasy brown paper) and if the guy who said he was going to buy my 1911 actually does so, I'll be putting an Aimpoint H1 on it and zero that for either 25 or 50 yards with slugs. I also picked up some Federal LE #00 to pattern with it. So my next trip to the range will be fun, and leave me a bit beat up... I may also pick up a 20 round drum for it while I am at it.

    J.Ja
    Owner/President of Titanium Crowbar, LLC

  10. #10
    Member LHS's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by jmjames View Post
    So my next trip to the range will be fun, and leave me a bit beat up...
    Push-pull is your friend It will prevent you from getting beat up by the shotty.

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