Another frustrating trip to the range with my Saiga 7.62x39

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Saiga39

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Alright I need some help or advice on what to do with my Saiga 7.62x39. Let me start off with some background. I’m still fairly new to guns since escaping the liberal North East. I’ve had my Saiga for about 2-1/2 years now. I’m one of those people who thinks every American ought to have a capable firearm (stored securely) in their homes. The Saiga was intended to be an all purpose SHTF rifle.

Well now that I’ve gotten more into shooting and I like putting little holes pieces of paper!! Up to now I’ve been only able to get it sighted in at 25 yards. I discovered a very nice public rifle range that goes out to 100 yards. So I spent a few hours there today trying to get sighted to 100 yards. Now I’ve read a number of different things about sighting AK’s. Most say to just sight for 25 yards and you’ll be good for 100 yards. I guess I need a definition of what ‘good’ means because I was about 5” high a 100 yards. I have a PK-01 Russian red dot scope and a new 400m scope with the draganov range finder. I was intending to try and get these all sighted today but spent most time messing with the iron sights. I tried then to be 2” low at 25 yards and then see where I was as I got further out. I’m sighted now at 50 yards.

I’ve read about the 7.62x39’s ‘rainbow’ trajectory. I have a Stag AR lower that I picked up. Would I have the same issues with an AR and .223? I guess I could live with knowing that I’ll be 2” high or low at certain distances but my nephew who was in the Army and served in Afghanistan thinks I’ll have less frustration with an AR and that they were trained to make headshots at 300 meters (not that I’m planning at doing that). So the flatter trajectory of the .223 is very appealing.

So I guess I could use some AK sighting advice, some comments on if this type of high/low thing happens with AR’s.

I’ve also had the chance to go deer hunting recently so I’m thinking now of selling off the Saiga as a package with the optics and some ammo and finishing my AR build and picking up a dedicated deer rifle.

I also one day would like to attend an Appleseed Shooting event.

Thanks for any advice\comments!!
 
If you want the gun to be zeroed at 100 yards, there is no substitute for actually zeroing at that distance. Zeroing it at 25 or 50 will get you on paper. Then fine tune the zero at 100.
 
I’ll have less frustration with an AR and that they were trained to make headshots at 300 meters
Click to expand...

An AK with a good trigger and irons can do the same thing.
 
I've seen well built AK style rifles (arsenal) that shoot very well, and poorly built ones that don't. At 100 yards max, the 'rainbow trajectory' probably isn't your problem. How is the rifle grouping? If it's consistently putting rounds in a reasonable sized group, but in the wrong place, it's probably the sights. If it's not, it's either the rifle, or more likely 'operator error' :) I've not had a lot of experience with Saiga rifles. My friend has one in .308 that shoots pretty well, it seems like a good solid rifle.

The AR is a totally different animal. Go ahead and get it completed and see for yourself which you like better (I know my choice, but it's a personal thing)

On the Appleseed event... Just go. Bring whatever you have available. A 10/22 with peep sights, a good sling, and an extra mag is what I'd recommend, but regardless what rifle you bring, just get there. Best cheap rifle training you'll ever get, and an all around great bunch of guys.
 
Get yourself on paper at 25, then fine-tune at 100. That's how I did my Saiga, and it shoots wonderfully.
 
I've got three Saiga's now and I've been impressed with all of them. With my 7.62x39, it shoots really well with Golden Tiger and it shoots patterns with Wolf. As far as your sights go, sight in at 25 yards with the rounds hitting about an inch low and then go out to 100 and adjust your sights until you're on target.

I would strongly suggest a scope if you're going to use it for hunting past 100 yards. AK's aren't tackdrivers, however they can be reasonably accurate, and it's a lot harder to achieve that level of reasonable accuracy with the stock iron sights.
 
An AK with a good trigger and irons can do the same thing.
Click to expand...

At 300m?

Not nearly as accurately or consistently. That isn't the fault of the rifle quite as much as it is the fault of the round itself. Now, a 5.45 would be a different story...
 
Were ya using bags and a bench to sight in? what setting did you have the sight on?

With military kit built AKs I get spot on at 25 METERS not yards and am consistently dead on at 100 and 150 the AK sight is calibrated in meters not yards and if your going by yardage you will actually be off a lil bit.

And Wolf ammo is the biggest curse there is for AK accuracy I use it for test targets we ship with every rifle, 10 rnds with hand loads, 10 rounds with Golden tiger, 10 rounds with Wolf, handloads are always dead tight the golden tiger is also tight but usually high an inch or two but still grouped tight the wolf at best is 4" at worst its a shotgun patern
 
i think the Saiga is an excellent deer rifle, out to 200 yds. I have the same model you do, that is about 2 moa, or smaller, at 100 yds. You have to try different ammo as well. make sure you get a variety of milsurp ammo, as they are made to fire the foreign stuff. Also Monarch or Barnaul ammo from Academy is the same thing. So is Wolf ammo. i would site in a 762, to be 2 inches high at 100 yds, this sould put you in a kill shot on any deer, out to 200 yds.
 
remember the Ak round , as were all the origional designed mid power select fire carts, were designed to not be used at longer than 300 yds., going all the way back to the Avtomat of the early 1900's, even the japanese Arisaka, though it was used in every rifle, was meant to be a 300 yd round.
 
oh yeah, most centerfires, should be about 1.1 to 1.4 inches low at 25 yds, and will be very close at 100 yds, but i still say to be 2 inches high with the 762 at 100 yards. Also , i don't know which state you are in, but a lot of states won't let you deer hunt with a 223, they require a larger calibre.
 
If you're on paper at 100 yards, and you're five inches high at 100 yards, I don't see the importance of where it shoots at 25 yards.
The only purpose in sighting in at 25 is to get your gun making holes somewhere on paper at the desired end-goal distance you want the gun to shoot to. Once hits start showing up on the 100-yard paper, you forget about the 25-yard sighting and fine tune to 100 yards.
If your goal is to print a group at a specific point of impact relative to your point of aim, and you're hitting five inches high, just adjust your sights down till the holes show up where you want them when you aim at the 100-yard target.
Or, am I missing something here? Shouldn't be too hard to figure out. :)
Denis
 
You are correct the flatter trajectory of 223 takes part of that
rainbow away. Even though the 7.62x39 will shoot some distance. it
is a carbine type cartridge that is difficult even with known distances
to dope sights for point on shots Your Dot sight is a 5 inch dot, covers
that at 100 yds and 10" at 200, and 15" at 300. Precise sighting would
be difficult, and very little bullet energy is left from that 124gr, .312,
bullet.
 
Dick, I got a bunch of 1/2" thick steel plates that would disagree with the 7.62x39 having "very little bullet energy" at 300 yards cept these plates are from the 400 yard line out on my personal range........ a .223 ya gotta be watching real hard to tell if it hit the plate at 400 the 7.62x39 will spin that plate every time, at 300 it'll still make a very healthy dent in the plate while the 55 grain 5.56 turns into a flat piece of copper/lead it'll move the plate at 300 on its spinner but nothing like the 7.62x39 will that 124 grn slug spins it completally these are 16" x 16" x1/2" made from boiler plate, I always pull the red dot off if shooting past 150 and go to either glass or irons as the dots fixed range loses most usefullness past that point with its 3 MOA dot (Aimpoint M2) as the dot obscures to much target.
 
Like I said this was my first time out at a 100 yard range. I was going off all the comments I've read on this and other forums that say 'sight in at 25 and you'll be good for 100' type of comments. I am aware that the Russians sighted for meters.

I probably need to run to the eye doctor and get me eyes checked. I was using targets that were labeled as std 100 yrd rifle targets with targets in the center and corners with orange centers, but frankly all I saw was a blurred white rectangle that I tried to keep the sight in the middle of.

For ammo I was using Golden Tiger. I was satisfied with the groups at 50 yards. They were even better with the red dot.

I was using sand bags that the range has at each station.

So, I'll get it sighted in at 100yds and then go back to 25 yds just to see how low I can expect to be for in-between ranges.
 
Get large black round bull's-eye targets (usually labeled for rifle, pistol, or .22 rimfire) that are big enough for you to see at 100 yards. That ONE big black round bull per paper sheet. Sounds like you're trying to use the smaller multiple targets that are intended for scope use, if I understand what you're saying correctly. Those are no good for iron sights at that distance, or for un-magnified glass red dot types.

Use the rifle bulls, put the black circle right on top of your front sight at 100 yards (if you can see it). If you can't, get some glasses. Think about it- if you can't see the target, you can't expect to hit the target, and if you don't have a precise aiming point to line up your sights on, you can't sight your rifle in precisely. Forget about sighting in at 25 yards. Fire 3-5 shots at the target, check your impacts wherever they are on the paper, and if they're grouping consistently then adjust your sights to move the group's impact average down to where you want them. With a red dot, center the red dot in the middle of the bull, adjust as necessary to correlate the point of impact with the point of aim, and you're off & running.

I generally sight in most of my rifles, depending on caliber, to hit two inches above point of aim at 100 yards. That way, again depending on caliber, I can shoot what's called "point blank" with the same sight picture on a target anywhere out to 200+ yards.
But, that's just me.
Obviously that would work better with a flat shooting .223 than with a looping .45-70, and you have to determine where & how you intend to be shooting any given rifle.

The whole "sight-in-at-25-thing" is a starting point in getting a rifle set up, it's not the end goal. Depending on the gun & caliber, you can come close at 100 if you're sighted in at 25, but guns have their own individual personalities, there is no substitute for actually sighting the gun in at 100, and merely sighting the thing dead on at 25 yards & leaving it at that is a mistake without confirming what it does at 100. You may luck out, you may not. :)
Denis
 
go have fun and burn some boxes of ammo (without wincing at the cost)....

observe what's going on and make adjustments that make sense to you.

to much internet analysis will lead you to over think the problem and get frustrated.

ultimately, there's no substitute for personal experience and practice.

pay attention to you breathing and how your are pulling the trigger.

have someone watch you (not the target) and observe wether your trigger pull is jerking the rifle.

your a newb.....welcome to the club.....

one of the first realizations is that "this isn't as easy as it sounds on the internet"

real marksmanship (as opposed to that achieved on a computer game) is a worthy goal to invest your time and money in pursuing.

I think you'll need to put a couple hundred rounds through your Saiga, before you can credibly question whether your results are related to the rifles performance. Heck, it doesn't sound like the rifle is really even broken in yet.
 
Saiga39:

If I were you, I would not sell the AK for several reasons. The foremost being that you might regret it, especially if it is your first rifle or first "larger" caliber rifle. The reason you are shooting 5" high at 100 with a 25yd 0 is probably because the bullet's trajectory is still rising. For example, if your sights were higher than they are now from the boreline, a 25 yard zero would require the barrel to be pointed up further to get a zero at 25 yards, thus making you rifle shoot even higher at 100. I suggest you sight in your rifle at 100 yds unless you are planning on using your Saiga for CQC (close quarters combat).

As far as energy and killing power, I suggest you shy away from a forum-goer's opinion and check some ballistic/energy tables. Try this site for some calculators to get you started http://www.eskimo.com/~jbm/calculations/calculations.html

.223 vs 7.62x39 is a 15 page thread with no definite resolution. Each has its strengths and weaknesses for different applications. I will add that .223 is sufficient to kill deer-sized game at a range where the bullet you are shooting still has plenty of poop (energy) left. I've been told that 7.62x39 has a similar trajectory to a .30-30. Please don't quote that, I haven't researched it.
 
Try to figure out how high the center of your scope is above the center of the bore. Like maybe assemble scope onto rifle that is stripped and measure.

Half that distance and sight in for that low at 25 meters.

wonder of wonders you should be dead on at 50 meters and only a few inches high at 100 meters.

For that matter why couldn't you make your corrections if you were only five inches high at 100 meters? For zeroing at 100 meters five inches is a great starting point. It allows you to make bold sight changes which is the best way to get started. I have no idea what a single click or notch on that Russian red dot moves a strike at 100 meters, but even full minute of angle (call it 1 inch at 100 yards and be done with it) zeroing a weapon that produces 3 inch or larger groups at that range can be a pain when trying to do a little bit of change.

Notice folks have been talking about trajectory.

when zeroed for 100 ( or 200 or 250 or 600 or whatever) most folks want the bullet to "drop" into that zero. You see at whatever range you select the bullet will only actually intersect the line of sight twice, once on the way up and once on the way down. The path of the bullet is like an arch. go outside ans set a garden house to flood and try to hit something a ways off with it. Notice you can "shoot" a lot further when you actually raise the hose to allow the stream to drop on your target than not. Same-same with a rifle.

Forinstance yea olde M-16A1 with M193 ball when battle sight zeroed for 250 meters would shoot to exact point of aim at a bit under 75 meters and again at 250 meters. Before 73 meters it was low, between 75 and 250 meters it was high and beyound 250 meters it was low. One had to understand that to shoot "expert" though following the range NCO's instruction to always aim center of mass at the kneeling man targets or head &shoulders targets could give you a qualifying "marksman" score if you did everything perfect and the targets functioned properly.

Even the newer M-16A2 with the M855 green tip when properly zeroed for 20 meter battle sight with the large aperature only hits true line of sight twice, just over 90 meters and 200 meters

Most of the worlds SKS and AK rifles feature a tangent rear sight that features markins that read from nearest the shooter D (or P or some other non numerical indicator) 1, 2, 3, whatever up to what they decided on that model.

That first D mark is actually the same as the 3 mark and is the battle sight 300 meter setting. If it is properly zeroed for the D or 300 meter marks then moving the tangent slde bar to the range of the target will give a "zero" ( no hold over and no hold over, zero) for that range.

Placing a scope on a rifle generally means placing your aiming point high above the line of the bore ( and perhaps depending on the model of scope and mount notin verticle alignment with the bore. Thus all bets are off with the scope.

That said you might try a modified bore sight on the scope. If ther iron sights of the rifle are visable when the scope is mounted AND they are already properly zeroed then sand bag the gun in on the bench or shoot from the box (another time as I gotta go) so that the irons are dead on your zero (say the 1 mark on your AK sights and a target at 100 meters) with out moving the rifle adjust the aiming point of your scope to the same target. Check the alignment of the iron sights and redo as necesarry until both the irons and the glass are pointed at the same thing.

Now shoot ammo for that range and make whatever further adjustments are needed.

Of course changing types of ammo (brand, bullet type, nation of origin or even lot number) may require obtaining a new zero.

Good luck.

-Bob Hollingsworth
 
Just a word of note.

The AK platform isn't meant for MOA accuracy, nor is it a fine instrument. I recently took an Appleseed shoot and used my Saiga. Frankly it took the better part of 3 hours to get it sighted in at the 1" squares at 25 yards, and even then I had a heck of a time hitting them. TechSights is supposed to come out with peeps for the AK, I can hardly wait.

The gun was designed to be 'minute of man' at 1-200 yards. I consider myself lucky if it hits a 4x9" piece of steel at 100 yards.

I wouldn't sell the Saiga, personally. It's a GREAT gun, much lighter than an SKS and great for HD or 'SHTF' use...whatever that entails.:scrutiny:

If you're looking for absolute accuracy, try a hunting rifle.
 
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