considering trading an AK rifle for a Saiga 12...

[AcceptableUserName]

what are your thoughts? Values probably about equal or a bit more than a brand new Saiga (550 or so around here)...my main concern is the Saiga 12 not being as robust and dependable a weapon as the rifle, my motivation is that I prefer a shotgun overall and find defensive shotgun ammo easier to obtain overall...

I guess I'm asking your thoughts on the situation, and what the Saiga can and can NOT do right out of the box...it already is fairly short (19" barrel), can it accept the 8 and 10 rd mags out of the box or does it require conversion? I plan on converting anyway but it'll be in the future. I'd like to have a concept of what it can do RIGHT NOW...

 

[nalioth]

can it accept the 8 and 10 rd mags out of the box or does it require conversion?

It can accept the 8 and 10 rd mags out of the box, but doing may convert you into a felon.

To use those mags, 922r compliance (aka "a conversion") may be required.

 

[AcceptableUserName]

I forgot about that. Standards are 5 correct? I'd feel pretty comfy with that in my house in the meantime. The 8, 10 and a 20 rd drum would be ideal depending on how they feed. I just wish I knew someone who owned a Saiga so I could put it through it's paces hands on before I part with the rifle. The rifle is probably the nicest AK I've personally shot, very accurate, no malfunctions and still with no wear marks. Just a great rifle all around.

Just nags at me a bit that I'm more comfortable and suited to the shotgun and that good useable ammo is more available at least where I'm at.

 

[WardenWolf]

Keep the AK, buy a Saiga. They're built similarly, but they're different animals. That's my thoughts. A Saiga 12 runs great out of the box with #00 Buck, but needs to be broken in with about 250 rounds before it will reliably cycle birdshot. You can also pay $100 for a tuning service and get it tuned immediately so it will fire anything. A Saiga can fit any mag out of the box, but needs to be brought into 922(r) compliance to legally fit magazines over 5 rounds. You also should buy a Poly Choke for it if you plan to use it for hunting. Also, you cannot store a Saiga with a loaded magazine and the bolt closed, or the shells will eventually deform and fail to feed. If it's stored loaded, it needs to have the bolt locked open.

 

[Shadow 7D]

siaga 12 .com entire forum to the wonders of 12 gauge

Oh, and what makes you think that a 12 is harder on a locking action than centerfire?

 

[WardenWolf]

By the way, in my opinion, a Saiga 12 NEEDS the Saiga skeleton stock. The default stock tends to slap you in the ear when you bring the gun up quickly. The skeleton stock improves it dramatically.

 

[Shadow 7D]

Why pay 70 to 100 for the skeleton stock, unless you like that, then buy a AK Drugonov (SVD) stock and do the conversion, really if you want to do it right Troymax or whatever make a graduated gas control, US marked cylinder, and a really mean Flash hider (I think he even has a chokes version) then with US mags you are legal, S12 forum has entire pages devoted to this, It's an really cool shotgun, made because Russia has even stupider gun laws than the US, and there are HUGE amounts of parts for them.

FINALLY, why would you pay for maybe parts when you can buy everything you need (15-20 for unfinished AK wood) except top handgaurd and gasblock that is specific and there are aftermarket for them too.

when you can get cheap new parts that make it everything it should / would be before it got SPORTINGLY neutered.

OH and S12 forum also has a webstore

 

[Girodin]

I love the S12 platform. I've owned/own a bunch of them. My go to shotgun is a S12. I shoot it more than any of my other guns. First I advice you take any definitive statement about reliability, the need to break them in, quality, etc with a grain of salt. These guns are not built with super tight tolerances or with the greatest of quality control. I've seen a bunch that will run fine with lighter bird shot right out of the box and I've seen others that wouldn't even after 250 or what ever people want to say the magic number of rounds is. I've seen S12s with canted sights, and a bunch more that were fine. I've seen varying quality of finishes. Simply put they vary.

Honestly I think I would take a number of tube fed guns over a stock S12 out of the box. You need to spend money immediately on an S12 IMO. First and most obvious is the fact the gun only comes with one 5 round mag. If you only have one 5 round box mag I'd rather have a tube gun I can top off. This is obviously easily fixed by buying more mags. As stated you will have 922r problems if you get mags that hold more rounds than that without modifying the gun by removing another countable foreign part. Another consideration is that mags aren't particularly cheap.

To me there are bunch of things I don't like about the stock gun that are pretty easily remedied but it costs money to do it.

The stock gun has bad balance and bad ergos. Reloads on a closed bolt are a difficult and from what I have seen in real life present shooters more problems that what most on the internet claim. At a minimum they take practice to get down. The stock trigger is crappy.

I've always said that I think the S12 is a crappy $500 shotgun but it can make a pretty sweet $1K shotgun.

Here is a thread of one of my project saigas. In it I think there are some of my musings about the stock S12 and why I modiffied things. Maybe it will be of interest to you. http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=

It should perhaps be noted as well that Guabe Suarez ranks even the stock S12 very highly. I don't recall exactly but I think it was top five on his list of fighting shotguns. I could mistaken about that and I'm sure someone will set the record straight if I am.

 

[zhyla]

my main concern is the Saiga 12 not being as robust and dependable a weapon as the rifle

It never will be. But you've got plenty of shotguns to fight with, and that's not what this is about anyways. You're bored with the AK, the S12 looks fun - why not? It will give you something to tinker with (something AK's are terrible for - they just work too well).