Saiga .308

[Gadsden]

I hit the York, PA gun show today. My objective was an AK, but somehow, I came home with a .308 Saiga. I am impressed with this rifle already. On my backyard seventy yard range, it took about 40 rounds to dial it in nice and tight. I found that my SKS sight adjustment tool worked just fine on the front sight post. The only drawback, as others have noted, is the eight round mag.
I plan to order some twenty rounders from FBMG ASAP. Anybody tried any of these? Are they available? I saw a post from September, saying that they soon would be. A twenty rounder would make this gun perfect IMO.

 

[rangerruck]

if you do a conversion to it, such as a pistol grip, new piston, newtrigger group, then you can take regular ak type 308 mags, if you can find them, and dremel them, and they will work just nice! waa laa! if you wanna keep the stock look, then get the fbm guy's 20 rounders(if available). check here also.
http://forum.saiga-12.com/

 

[rangerruck]

yeah, the trigger group on those really bite , don't they? also if you cut 3 or 4 loops out of your follower spring, and then cut the bottom of the follower off, so that those little verticle bars on the sides of it are only about 1/4 inch long, you can get in 10 rounds.

 

[Onmilo]

Since I also shoot M1 Garands, I have never seen the eight round magazine on my Saiga .308 as a handicap.
I have five magazines and that gives me forty rounds of shooting pleasure and this would be about the last rifle I would grab in a situation that calls for larger magazines.

Don't try cutting up your magazines, they are expensive and that conversion suggestion only causes your rifle to start jamming.
Something I haven't ever encountered with the rifle regardless of the ammunition used until I tried that little experiment.
Waste of a good magazine.

K-Var out in Las Vegas offers a low profile scope mount for these and other AK varients, they are somewhat expensive and well worth the money if you really want to see how well one of these rifles will group.

 

[Crosshair]

I actualy like the factory trigger. I got in on the pre-order on the 20 rounders.

 

[Correia]

We're still working on the magazines.

We're having to do some modifications to the molds before the next run of beta testers. Some of the Russian followers are wider than others, and we're having a problem with them dragging in the body. So we're knocking a tiny bit off of both sides of the interior wall.

Our plastics place had a big machine go down, and one of their main guys go out for a couple of weeks with an injury, so they've been behind.

I'm hoping to have the new betas here shortly. If these are 100% with the testers, then we'll be shipping ASAP.

 

[Gadsden]

Thanks for the heads up.

I placed an order on the FBMG site yesteday. I'm willing to wait for a quality mag. Just hope they don't get banned before i get 'em.

 

[Crosshair]

Don't worry, no way they will get banned.

 

[Correia]

We're now testing the next run of magazines.

We opened them up a tiny bit, and now even the widest followers don't have any trouble sticking.

We also tweaked the plastic mix a little bit to increase the strength. I hurt my hand banging on one in the rifle. Stood on it with out cracking. (empty, and I weigh 300 lbs).

Finally broke it by smashing it into the workbench while it was in the rifle (bayonet charge style) and we had to wail on that sucker to get it to break at the lip. It was way harder to break than the previous beta mag. And we had to hit it on the table hard enough that it would also have disabled pretty much any magazine.

These are going to be sweet. Depending on reports from the beta testers, we should be in full production shortly.

 

[MD_Willington]

Mags for .223 & 7.62x39??

Any chance you'll be making .223 mags too... The wife would like a .223 rifle and the Saiga seems to fit the bill.

 

[Ben Shepherd]

MD_Willington-

I work with Correia over at FBMG. Are you talking mags for Tromix converted 223 siagas? Or are you meaning high cap for the factory siaga mag well?

For converted ones mags are availible lots of places. Non converted you're kinda stuck with the 10 rounders. A base conversion is a lot cheaper then all the R&D it would take to come up with a quality high cap for the non-converted rifle.

Contact Correia via PM for details and options.

We converted my wifes 223 siaga, she absolutely LOVES it now. We put a colapseable folding stock on it when we had it converted. Stores easier, short for her, long for me, and the stock locks up rock solid when you lock it out in the extended posistion. We had the barrel threaded for a flash hider as well.

 

[MD_Willington]

I meant the stock configuration as I like the stock configuration. Just too bad a 10 rounder is almost $30/mag. I have a bunch of .223 and the wife would like a rifle in that caliber.