THE FINAL TOUCHES

Saturday the rest of my parts arrived, and I completed the installation of the new iron sights, the quad rail, and the recoil reducing stock and tube. I also took the vertical forward grip with integrated flashlight mount off of my AR-15 (I ordered another for it) and placed it on my Saiga 12. Here’s a photo of the finished produced (que in AC/DC’s BACK IN BLACK…):

Here’s a close up of the Israeli made Mako recoil reducing tube and stock:

I’m positively ecstatic at this point – if my converted Saiga 12 shoots half as good as it looks, it will be a quantum improvement which I’ll be more than happy with as a result. Stay tuned for some video footage of the first shoot!

UPDATE:  11/13/2011

On Sunday, I took the shotgun out and test fired it at the Miamisburg Sportsmen’s Club – here’s some video footage from the shoot:

In short I was astounded at how well the gun shot.  I shot about 50 rounds of slugs with my V-Plug on setting 3, and experienced no failures whatsoever, and no discomfort of any kind.  I can tell you that when I first took the Saiga 12 out to fire it before I did the conversion work, I put 30 rounds of slugs through it, and was hurting pretty badly afterward – my arm was bruised for a couple of weeks.  But now I can shoot the gun all day long with no fatigue or bruising.

Note in the video how little muzzle rise there is which each shot.  The JTE muzzle break and Mako recoil reducing stock components performed exactly as advertised and have completely changed the shooting experience with this shot gun.  I was also dubious that the polymer cheek rest on the Mako stock would be comfortable, but much to my surprise it was perfectly fine in use.  I absolutely could not be any happier with how the test shoot went.  I have to confess I was more than a little nervous taking that first shot.  One of my LEO friends warned me to expect that the gun wouldn’t fire correctly for the first 100 rounds and chided me that I really shouldn’t have done the work that I did by myself, and that it was best left to a trained gun smith.  So I was half-expected for the gun to blow up in my face when I fired it the first time.  But I fired it 50 times and lived to tell the tale.  🙂

At this point, the only thing I think I’d like to change about the gun is I’m going to go ahead and get a red dot optic.  I’ve got Aimpoint P.R.O optics on both my rifles, and will likely get one for my Saiga too, but I’ll check around with some other models.  I had initially thought that with the relatively short engagement distance I planned to use the shotgun (under 50 yards) I didn’t see a need to go beyond iron sites.  But I’m so spoiled by red dot optics, I found myself missing not having one when I test fired it.

Check back for more Saiga 12 updates!