TL;DR crowd-Bought Saiga prepainted in ugly green, did saiga to AK conversion & stripped ugly paint off inbetween. Now glorious AK! Scroll through pics.

Hello there I got a Saiga conversion thread for you guys to enjoy. I learned a lot along the way about the rifle and enjoyed taking my Saiga apart and working on it. The project was a major success and loved the finished product that I got.

I'll also try to let you guys know what I paid and where my parts came from.

Base Saiga unconverted - $370ish - Gunsamerica listing
Tapco Trigger and FCG - $50 - Dinzag
Punch - $5 - Dinzag
RAM Triggerguard/hardware - $25 - Dinzag
Bolt on Handguard Retainer - $59 - Dinzag
Polish Beryl Folding Stock - $145 - RTG
Furniture - $130 - Ironwood Designs
Finish - $90 - Combloc Customs/Iodine Orange
Gas Tube - $38 - AA-OK
Gas Piston - $20 - Arsenal/MidwayUSA
AR15 Mag Adapter - $80 - Texas AK Designs

So a little background to start on this. I originally bought a AR15 for my first rifle & got an amazing deal on it & I love both platforms & of course wanted an AK to compliment it. I did a lot of reading on AKs to figure out exactly what I wanted. My mind was centered prepanic times, but glad I made the choice I did. I finally decided I wanted my AK in 223 since my AR uses it & I also reload & could make the same ammo for both & use same componenets instead of trying to locate separate supplies for 7.62. Another thing I had researched is that the 223 AKs can also support an adapter to use AR15 mags, such as PMAGs. I own over 50 PMAGs so that was another large reason for my decision. Spend $80 on a adapter & use all my current mags, or pay WAY more for actual AK mags.

So with that, I decided I wanted to get a Saiga 223 & do a conversion on it, since at the time most were selling for $400-$450ish new. With preconverted ones selling for more & I could learn some stuff. So I trolled gunbroker/gunsamerica & all kinds of online listings looking for one. I finally found a listing on Gunsamerica which only had one crappy picture. He said the person he bought it from had prepainted it the ugly green. I figured no big deal it would come off when I bought it. This was around last July. It has just now been finished, but god was it rough looking at that thing in that ugly ass green.




I believe with shipping & my FFL fee it costed me just under $400, it was like $370-$390. Then I took it out a few times to test fire it with handloads I use in my AR. Everything ran great, no problems of any kind at all. Then I just got lazy & said I would get the parts from Dinzag whenever. So surely my ass waited around until the panic & then next thing I know Dinzag is on a 6 week backorder & some parts they don't know when they would restock. So I finally ordered my stuff & got it pretty promptly. I also had to wait about a month for my wood to be made by Ironwood designs & another month for Combloc Customs to finish it. I also had placed an order for the MSA/Texas AK Designs AR15 Mag adapter. That took about a month or 2 to get as well. So everything started getting to me around jan of this year & then the killer.

I got all the stuff I wanted except my stock. I wanted a folder as that's one of the neat things about AKs that ARs can't do or use, are folding stocks. However I read the underfolders & MOST side folders majorly sucked for cheekweld & were hard to shoot from. I did some research & found the Polish Beryl side folders. They got very favorable reviews. Only person I saw selling them had them on gunbroker for $180+ & sold out very quick. Finally less than a month ago RTG got a new shipment in & had some excellent condition ones for $140. I ordered instantly. Been looking for 4+ months for that stock & finally they had appeared. Ordered one instantly when I saw them in stock.

The wood was made by Ironwood Designs & the pistol grip is the "fat" version, which fills my hand very nicely. The finish is Iodine Orange done by Combloc Customs. Shout outs to these 2 companies for providing a great product & service to the AK community & my project.

I had set aside some time to work on the project & it was a major success. I started by using carb cleaner on the dust cover & side of the charge handle that was painted in green. Then I began the first part of the conversion stripping out the inner FCG & drilling the rivets out. After getting all 3 internal rivets out (which were a pain in the ass without a drill press). The first one which is rounded, unlike the other 2 which are flat, aggervated me the most, but turned out the best. The 2 flat ones, actually ended up as more oblong holes, not perfectly circular, but the screws that hold trigger guard cover them up so you can't even tell.

I got the cover plate off & then carb cleaner blasted the rest of the gun to take the green paint off of everything else & let me tell you it was EVERYWHERE. Mag well wasn't properly taped off & it was up in there. I was just like WTF. I can't remember but it took 3-4 cans to get it all off, but defintely worth it.



I used some high temp engine enamael paint on the bottom to paint the bare part of the receiver under the cover plate that was removed. It would have turned out perfect but the one little 1/4" side had some tape overlap just a little too much. So when I took the tape off I sprayed a 2nd layer to hit where the tap covered but shouldn't have but if you look close, you can tell there is a height difference & where the tape was from the first coat. Again nothing serious & it's on the bottom where no one would probably notice.



I read with the Polish Beryl stock that some receivers will pinch the spring that makes the stock function & that if that spring breaks the stock is useless. I had to sand away a good bit of receiver material. I used an electric sander to do it. I took 2 pics & you can see the unaltered side is flat & the other side is rounded out pretty noticeably. I kept test fitting along the way & let me tell you the sander tool used removed material VERY slowly. I used a paper test to see if I could slip a piece of paper between the receiver & spring. If you can that means the spring isn't making contact & everything is good.





The only major fail on this project was the gas tube & gas tube retaining lever. I guess the new gas tube was slightly too long as the lever didn't want to go down for the flap to come up to secure the gas tube down. It took about 2 hours of test fitting and sanding to get the lever down. I ended up breaking off my tab for the gas tube, but it can still be tapped on or off with a hammer if need be. I didn't want to take too much material off & I know it's suppose to be snug, & after trying to push on the tab so many times it eventually just broke off.



All in all the project was a major success with the exception of the broken gas tube lever tab. I learned a bit about the inner workings of the AK FCG & got to do some fun simple gunsmithing work. A few random shots of final product & a final pic of my twins. The flash pretty accuratly shows the wood color. The non flash (darker pics) don't show the coloring as well. I will have to get some non-flash pics in daylight when I goto the range this weekend to test it out. A lot of these pics have a crappy background, my ugly carpet. However, i'll get some "tacticool" pics for you guys with it propped up with some ammo next to it & what not.

It's getting dropped off Mon to my local gunsmith who is going to replace my gas piston & install my AR mag adapter. I can technically use US mags for compliance, but I would prefer to replace the gas piston in the off chance I want to use a foreign mag for any reason. I will update with more pics once gas piston is replaced & AR mag adapter is installed.

Nicely done!   Thanks for posting.  

Those stocks are nice, but expensive as hell.   I don't know why someone can't make an affordable copy here, or import one.

you'll go far here, you know about the toes in the pics process.



Seriously though, nice conversion! Are you going to tackle the FSB and thread that barrel or make it more like a 102, or let it stand? (I admit I only read about 1/4 of your post )

Great job! IMHO, I'd get a welder to attach your broken tab on the lever or attach another piece of metal that you could file/sand to shape.

Good work, great pics and detail, thanks for posting and congrats on a really nice rifle!

I do want to add a AK style muzzle break to it. Not sure which type yet. I'll have to do some looking & figure out which I want to go with. My next thing I want to get done is some optics on this guy. I'm thinking red dot, only because my AR already has a variable power scope, so I have a scope to play with, but not a regular red dot. My AR scope is a SWFA 1-4x with the donut reticle so it can kinda act as a red dot, however that was like a $600-$700 scope & i'm not paying for another one of those for my AK. I was thinking one of the cheaper Aimpoint red dot knock offs & the MI quick detach rail meant for holding a red dot. That mount looks real nice. I saw it in the new AK products section.

I heartily recommend the Primary Arms micro-dot, both my wife's and my primary rifle wear these, and they are excellent, and co-witness nicely on an AK using an Ultimak. Primary Arms customer service is absolutely top-notch too.

https://www.primaryarms.com/Primary_Arms_Micro_Dot_With_Fixed_Base_p/md-07.htm

I'm a huge fan of the Ultimak to be honest. Everyone has their own opinion, but I use a TRS-25 with the Ultimak and get good cowitness.

And it's almost never mentioned, but another plus to me is the Ultimak as a gas tube, is solid as hell, virtually indestructible in normal use I would think.

I did look into the ultimak as I do like the design of it. However I wanted to have upper & lower handguards & pistol grip in wood. I figured I would use the side rail like they were designed to use, but yes if I wanted a more tactical AK, I would go with ultimak.

Check out the Mueller 1x4 dot scope on the MI 30mm scope mount.  You will always have a dot battery on or off.  Cost for both would be less than the Aimpoint.

Why didnt you like bonesteel arms folders?

well done!