It's about that time for me to do another one of my gun reviews. This time it is over the Saiga rifle chambered in .223.
First off, I picked the rifle up at a gun show here a couple months ago. I was debating about either getting this Saiga or a Mosin, and eventually
chose this Saiga. It came in a cardboard box with the Izhmash sticker on it, a cleaning rod, 1 ten round magazine, a few papers and a little
manual.
Here's how the rifle looks right out of the box.
I was pretty impressed on the look of the rifle. No scratches anywhere, and everything worked pretty smooth. The only slight problem was that the
front sight was off a slight bit to the right, but that was fixed in a few seconds.
Before I started adding parts to the rifle, I took it to the range a few times first. No jams or malfunctions of any kind. Ive put both steel cased
and brass cased ammunition through it. The most common ammo Ive put through it are Monarch 55 grain steel cased, and also American Eagle 55 grain
brass case.
Here's one of my targets (before I fixed the front sight) at roughly 75-100 feet. A mix of both steel and brass case ammo.
A couple things that really stood out to me while shooting the rifle - The flash on this thing is rediculous. I mean it is really really huge (there's
no muzzle break on my rifle).....and I think that is pretty awesome. Second, the concussion is huge to. Third, this rifle spits out the empty casing
like a beast. They get spit out with a ton of force. Ive had some get spit out and fly all the way to the other side of the range (12 lanes worth).
And lastly...Ive heard on other reviews that this rifle is extremely loud compared to others in .223 Ive personally never shot another .223 rifle, so
Im just going with what the other reviews said on the noise part.
Now, onto the "project" part.
My first addition to the rifle was a new front handguard. After firing 20 or so rounds, the front of the rifle gets very very hot, and the stock
handguard dosent seem to do much at all. I decided to get a Tapco handguard.
I also put on a Tapco vertical grip with that handguard and also had a 30 round SGM Tactical magazine come in the mail the same time.
Installing the handguard and vertical grip was extremely easy. The handguard process took only a few minutes and just a few tools. It was basically
just unscrewing the stock handguard, knocking it off with a hammer, and screwing the new Tapco handguard in.
The final part of my additions to the Saiga was a new buttstock and pistol grip. Again, I got a Tapco one.
This process took a bit longer than the handguard process. 2 of the original screws in the rifle were really tough to get out. It was quite a fight to
get them out. After that though, the rest was pretty easy. Knocked the original stock off with a hammer and everything on the Tapco stock screwed in
pretty easy.
Well, that's pretty much all for this project at the moment. Im thinking about getting a red dot sight. If I do, I would have to get on of those side
mounting sights because I would like the option of being able to revert back to iron sights if the red dot fails somehow.
I may have forgot to put some stuff into this thread, so if I do remember eventually, I'll add in into another post in here. Feel free to ask any
questions, comments, ect....
I also have reviews on a Sig 2022 and a Taurus PT 709 Slim in this forum to if anyone is interested in reading those. (The Taurus I sold awhile ago,
but the Sig is still running like a champ).
edit on 29-11-2012 by buni11687 because: (no reason given)