McMaster

The story is hysterical as well as the replies! But definitely true! Like Malsua said... RUN!

Rather than call around to a bunch of shops looking for a Saiga 5.56 I figured I'd post this to see if anyone has seen anything out there. Has anyone seen an RAA 5.56 anywhere? I want to pick one up and get it converted. Thanks fellas...

Looks awesome! Nice Job!

Good Luck fighting it out with a State entity! You know the deal! LOL. Howell, NJ... 3 weeks... done! Additional PP's... 30 days.... done. Howell PD was great!

Thanks Glenn. I'll try your method of tight patching with a holder to see if I can break that copper up better.

BoreTech Copper remover... It's great! I may have needed to use the brush more. I'll try that next time.

Glenn, As usual... Thank you. You are definitely the resident Combloc mofo. I appreciate the help. I agree... Boresnakes... not a fan. To me... it's like cleaning your gun with a dirty patch... it doesn't seem logical. As far as the number of passes... I will say this... 2 to 3 passes... not sure about that. I was shooting Uly, which you would think would be cleaner than the corrosive stuff you are shooting but... the copper wouldn't stop coming out. I mean... it was endless amounts of copper. Thats why I was jagging so much. Hence the reason for striking the crown so many times. If I jagged 2 or 3 times yeah no problem... but I was jagging endlessly. I never saw so much copper. Hopefully, I didn't damage the gun. People say... "what do you care its an AK!" But dude... I spent so much time putting this thing together it would kill me to have messed it up... thats all. Thanks again!

Glenn, I've actually been waiting for you to chime in because I know you know a lot about AK's. Forget about the comment mgralley said regarding the diameter of the crown... that will just turn this thread into an argument. I just simply wanted to know if I'm damaging or affecting the accuracy of the rifle by striking the very end/tip of the barrel as I feed the jag through the permanently attached Brake? As you already know this style brake doesn't line up exactly even with the exit of the barrel. Basically... the hole at the end of the brake is larger than the hole at the end of the barrel, so when you feed the rod through, sometimes you strike the very end or tip of the barrel with the jag. Reading many of your posts over time I felt you should have an opinion on the subject. Any thoughts?

Very inventive! Great idea. Thank you for the idea.

Lol... good answers. I hear ya. LMMFAO! I know its an AK and I'm sure it will run just fine never cleaning it but not cleaning it at all or cleaning it half way isn't really my M.O. Thanks for the options though... they are definitely real ones! LMAO!

Here is a link to an earlier thread where I posted pics of the rifle. My link

I chatted with someone last night @ the forum and got some answers but I wanted to put this out there for more opinions. I cleaned my Saiga over the weekend after 500 rounds cycled through. It was decently dirty... but nothing crazy. The thing is… I have a permanently attached AK74 style brake on there. So my problem was… every time I ran the Jag through (which was quite a few times) I was striking the crown of the barrel with the Jag. I mean… I wasn’t hitting it hard and I was doing my best to guide it through carefully but there was almost no way to avoid it. You can’t use a muzzle guide… it won’t do anything for obvious reason. Not that this gun is a tack driver to begin with but do you think I’m killing any accuracy this rifle has by striking the crown with the jag? It was an aluminum jag and I was afraid I was damaging the rifle. Any opinions? Ideas? Thanks Fellas.

I hate that thing.

No sweat. Good Luck.

You should get the stock and fit it to the gun first before you send it for finishing. As opposed to having it sent straight to Kevin. Make sense? Kevin Teti [email protected]

You have it in your hands in about 3 weeks roughly. I got mine in 2. Call Matt Shuster directly and he will tell you how busy he is and how long it will take.

Thank you for the compliment. Kevin Teti finished the rifle… He's Matt Shuster’s guy. And it was well worth it! It came out impeccable and it was CHEAP! $50 bux with shipping. He basically charged $40 bux to finish it + shipping! And it's a top notch finish. Unless you really, really want to do it yourself how can you beat that? First off he's done hundreds of AK’s, he does red dye, oil or whatever else you want AND $40 - $50 bux???? The cost of doing it yourself and the time you will have to put in to achieve what this guy does, will cost you WAY more than $40 or $50 bux. That’s why I went with Kevin. Let me know if you need his info. He's a real stand up guy... like Matt.

I second whoever said Vickers Blue Force Tactical 2 point sling. That's a great sling... I love it! It's long enough to hang in a 1 point position and then with the pull of this little strap it shortens instantly! It's a great sling! A+

Thank you. Chris is awesome. The stock set is Walnut... the pictures aren't so great.

It really was worth every penny... I'd do it again! Wouldn't think twice.

A lot... A LOT!!! Way, way too much! You know what the rifle costs already... I think when I bought mine it was less then $800 bux but lets say roughly $800. The Walnut Ironwood stock set was $150. East German rear sight was $35 bux off eBay. The front sight block job, muzzle brake job, trigger job, zeroing and bolt carrier media blasting cost $300. Add that all together and its roughly a $1300 Saiga... give or take. CRAZY! Fortunately I had the extra cash to do it and it's a beautiful gun! It really came out top notch. It shoots great too! A lot of fun.

No... that wasn’t a typo. It's an AK74 "style" brake and yes it is chrome lined. What does it do? On a fully auto rifle I'm sure it reduces a hell of a lot of the muzzle rise as well as the pull to the right. With semi auto fire it still effectively reduces muzzle rise and pull but it's not needed as much. I wanted it on there to make it a "truer" looking AK variant. But I didn't want a K-Var brake or an even cheaper knock off. Chris Butler's brakes are probably as good if not better than the original article. They are so good the muzzle virtually doesn't rise at all... as hard as that is to believe. Even though I haven't tried them all... out of the few high quality AK74 brake options for 7.62 Chris Butler's brake has to be the best. Krebs would probably be 2nd and K-Var 3rd. But I'll tell you what though.... It makes the rifle WAY WAY LOUDER! That's not so great. But the brake is chrome lined, which is an added plus considering the SGL rifles have chrome lined Bulgarian barrels and the brake is permanently attached. It's not an absolute necessity but I wanted the chrome lining for the long haul.

Also... on the safety side of the gun both red and white Lacquer Stiks were used to fill in the "F" with Red and the "S" with white. On the opposite side of the rifle the serial number and the Izhmash symbol were filled in with white Lacquer Stik. I forgot to mention that in the above post.

Arsenal SGL-24 chambered in 7.62 with Red Dyed Ironwood Design Furniture. You can't see it but the rifle also has an East German rear sight, adjustable for windage. Also, Chris Butler from AK-USA did some wonderful upgrade work for me. He pressed off the old front sight block and pressed on a new one. Then permanently pinned and welded one of his chrome lined AK74 brakes. The pinning and welding is unimaginably CLEAN! It's unreal! If you aren't familiar with Chris Butler... the guy is probably one of the best AK builders in the country. And a real top notch, class A guy! Great guy!!!! He also did trigger work. He prefers to keep the Arsenal triggers and tweak/tune them versus replacing with aftermarket parts. I think he feels after tuning it's a superior trigger compared to what you can buy aftermarket. He also converted it from a two stage to a single stage. Whatever he did... it's lighter and way way way smoother... noticeably so! I have two bolt carriers for the gun so I sent him one and he media blasted it. It looks fantastic... I don't think I left anything out...

Are you putting the kit in the correct way? I don't have it in front of me but I think there is a sloped side and a flat side to the cleaning kit. The sloped side goes in first if I remember correctly. If you put it in backwards it will get stuck.