Clinton Damage Curable

I’ve been sitting here working on turning my Hillarized Saiga 12 into a functioning shotgun. It’s incredibly frustrating.

I don’t really know if the Clintons are the only ones who caused the problem. Feel free to comment.

It’s impossible to find a gunsmith whom I can trust to take off the gun-ban garbage, within an acceptable time frame. I am trying to get on a wait list, but that will cost me four months, minimum. Therefore I am doing what most Saiga 12 owners do. I am buying parts, and I am going to install them myself. I’ve confirmed that it’s not a major job. The only thing I have to be careful of is marring the gun so the pro I eventually send it to will have to repair the damage.

Here’s how it works. You have to get rid of the insane fire control group that has been put on the gun to move the trigger back and convince idiot bureaucrats that it’s a sporting weapon. That means buying a new fire control group and trigger guard. If you don’t do this, you might as well not even buy the gun. This is the keystone of a Saiga 12 conversion.

You have to remove four pins from the receiver, I believe. Plus a spot weld. Without gouging anything. Then you throw out half the gun’s guts and put the new FCG in. Then you put the new trigger guard on, with screws. And you add a pistol grip. The FCG move allows you to change the stock, which is an abomination straight from hell. You take off the stock, saw the tang off the rear of the receiver, and install something to bolt the new stock to. You can get someone to TIG-weld a back plate on, or you can get an adaptor that attaches to the receiver. The nicer ones go inside. The less-nice ones go outside.

Once you’ve done all that, you can bolt a stock to the rear of the gun. If you want it to fold, you have to add a foldy thing first. Folding is very good, not because you would ever shoot a 12 gauge from the hip, but because a folded gun is easier to store and move.

At this point, a real man would blast the gun with aluminum oxide (NOT sand or glass beads) and add a tough bake-on coating.

When all these things have been done, you have a relatively healthy AK-47 that shoots buckshot. You can add bigger magazines and various doodads.

It’s a giant pain. I wish I knew someone in Miami who could be trusted to TIG-weld the receiver when I’m done, but Miami has a very tiny skilled-labor pool. Oh, if you want something done, you can have it, but 98% of the people who eagerly volunteer won’t know what they’re doing. The conversion will leave several holes in the receiver, and you need a precision welder to fix them. And it’s better to weld on a trigger guard. But you can’t get it done here.

I figure I’ll do what other people do. I’ll put the gun together, and I’ll stick nylon plugs in the holes, and I’ll blue the bits of the gun where bare metal can be seen. Then I’ll take my time looking for a far-off gunsmith who will fix the holes and refinish the weapon. Then I’ll send it to him. It’s hard to find a Saiga rebuilder who has time to do anything, but it’s easy to find a gunsmith who can put the finishing touches on a gun you’ve already converted.

Interesting info: you can get 12-round stick magazines, but for various reasons I don’t completely understand, the 8-round jobs are better. If you’re truly nuts, you can get a drum that holds, I think, 20. There are two competing companies that make these, and they hate each other. They put up feuding videos on Youtube, trashing each other’s products. It seems like MD Arms has, far and away, the better reputation. In case you want to skip all that.

I’m pooped, and I didn’t even do anything yet.

I decided to go with 00 buck for defense purposes. I found a wonderful round that is relatively cheap and outperforms everything else. It will do great things at surprisingly long distances. I don’t care about shooting through walls. Don’t start with me. Houses in Miami are built from concrete blocks. To hit my neighbors, I’d have to go through four thicknesses of concrete.

Now I sit back and wait for UPS. Hope I can pull this off.