I was curious as to what mods people run for reliability and how well they worked- so I started up a spreadsheet to see if others have interest in adding information to it to help others choose which mods they pick.  In my case this is complicated by the desire to do an SBS without shortening the gas system.

So - here it is:


Spreadsheet


Ground rules -

   If you change your gun config please add another line to the spreadsheet
   Don't put anything in the blank columns as I may do an analytics run if we get enough people to show up to this party
   You will see notes and links to the ammo in the ammo list - please make sure you are marking the correct ammo on the sheet
   Feel free to add mods and ammo to this list - but please put a note as to exactly what you mean on the mod or ammo

If this works out well maybe we can sticky it.

my SAIGA 12, never ran with low brass, just 00 buck and slugs, when it was in the original 19 inch barrel and when I cut down the barrel to 13 inches.  I wasn't about to go through all that nut roll of monkeying around replace this and that and opening up the gas port to try to make it run on target loads.

this past weekend I was wandering around before the gun show opened and  met up with a dealer I knew  who had  VEPR 12s. got to talking and he suggested on just replacing the original front spring with a lighter spring. he stated that in 90 percent of the cases that is all that would be needed to run target loads, I said that doesn't sound too expensive, he said he would bring in the next day. next day he brought it in, and just gave it to me.


well today, I went to the range with a couple boxes of REMINGTON target loads (1325 fps). loaded up some  stick mag, and hey they all ejected just like the 00 buck, except with a lot less recoil

for some reason, when I used a drum,  it wouldn't kick the empty shells completely out of the gun. it got hung up in the ejection port.  but works great with stick mag.

now, what I did notice that I hadn't  before, is that when I got home and took  out the gas plug,  the bottom part where the angled bevel is,  looks like it might be covering half the gas port. could be that  little   bit  there cover up the opening might have something to do with restricting all of the gas. might have to look at it more harder and  do a bit of modifying on the gas plug so that the port opening is completely free of any restrictions

in any event, for me that is all it took,  replacing the original front spring with a lighter spring. don't remember  where he got it from, probably from one of  sites that sell SAIGA stuff