Bartronnic Plague
Member
- Joined
- May 15, 2005
- Messages
- 15
A week ago, several friends and I took my new Saiga out back to light up some pop cans. At a previous gun show I purchased a case of Wolf for some plinking and couldn't wait to get a feel for the AK.
Things were going great through-out the first five mags.(loaded half way) Lot's of holes and smoking crevaces. I loaded a mag with 5 shots and stepped to our impromptu firing line. BANG... let me emphasize... !! BANG!!
After the smoke settled and the ringing stopped, I did a finger check and took a damage report.
Action / not in action
Magazine / instant disassembly
Dust cover/ dusted
So much for my new toy. The slide was not about to slide. The dust cover was completely distorted and can only be described as "off its tracks," The magazine's side blew out, the spring (in receiver) was visible from non-taken down stance and appeared to also be distorted.(making it a female dog to eventually take down)
{I had a similar situation with a friend's bull-pup mini-14. Had a "hot" load, thanks to buddy-boy, which resulted in an expanded casing and locked action.}
Anyhow, a friend helped me take down the Saiga to start trouble-shooting. At this point I had no idea if the casing had ejected or not. After hammering the bolt, it turned out to be an expanded cartridge. I wasn't about to trash the gun, so we got a proffesional point of view. 15 minutes later, the local gun shop owner (an AK enthusiast) was shaking his head. He'd never seen an AK so distorted from an event such as I had explained. His proffesional opinion was that the gun was trashed, and the ammo was to blame. Already preparing for the gun/ammo fight between Saiga/Wolf, we contacted the one which appeared to cause the fault first.
To my surprise, Wolf agreed to pay 100% for the weapon and substitute the bad batch of ammo I had, for a "fresh" batch. They are even sending a postage paid box for the ammo. No damage pics or need of the scrap metal Saiga. All they were told was that a Gunsmith had inspected it, and verified the ammo was the culprit.
I am lucky for walking away unscathed (a testiment to AK safety/dependability) I guess Wolf was even more lucky. $400 dollars compared to multi-million injury/ wrongfull death lawsuit.
Wolf will always carry a stigma to me, but have heard this was an honest fluke. The customer service helped alot, and I won't complain.
btw- Has anyone else had ammo problems like this with Wolf? It was just surprising how quick they were to cut the check with little question.
Things were going great through-out the first five mags.(loaded half way) Lot's of holes and smoking crevaces. I loaded a mag with 5 shots and stepped to our impromptu firing line. BANG... let me emphasize... !! BANG!!
After the smoke settled and the ringing stopped, I did a finger check and took a damage report.
Action / not in action
Magazine / instant disassembly
Dust cover/ dusted
So much for my new toy. The slide was not about to slide. The dust cover was completely distorted and can only be described as "off its tracks," The magazine's side blew out, the spring (in receiver) was visible from non-taken down stance and appeared to also be distorted.(making it a female dog to eventually take down)
{I had a similar situation with a friend's bull-pup mini-14. Had a "hot" load, thanks to buddy-boy, which resulted in an expanded casing and locked action.}
Anyhow, a friend helped me take down the Saiga to start trouble-shooting. At this point I had no idea if the casing had ejected or not. After hammering the bolt, it turned out to be an expanded cartridge. I wasn't about to trash the gun, so we got a proffesional point of view. 15 minutes later, the local gun shop owner (an AK enthusiast) was shaking his head. He'd never seen an AK so distorted from an event such as I had explained. His proffesional opinion was that the gun was trashed, and the ammo was to blame. Already preparing for the gun/ammo fight between Saiga/Wolf, we contacted the one which appeared to cause the fault first.
To my surprise, Wolf agreed to pay 100% for the weapon and substitute the bad batch of ammo I had, for a "fresh" batch. They are even sending a postage paid box for the ammo. No damage pics or need of the scrap metal Saiga. All they were told was that a Gunsmith had inspected it, and verified the ammo was the culprit.
I am lucky for walking away unscathed (a testiment to AK safety/dependability) I guess Wolf was even more lucky. $400 dollars compared to multi-million injury/ wrongfull death lawsuit.
Wolf will always carry a stigma to me, but have heard this was an honest fluke. The customer service helped alot, and I won't complain.
btw- Has anyone else had ammo problems like this with Wolf? It was just surprising how quick they were to cut the check with little question.
