I traded into a Saiga awhile ago. It had the neutered front end, poly furniture, sporter holes in the receiver...I knew I wanted to have an AKM clone. I used BlackBushArmory out of Oklahoma after speaking with them and looking on their website.
I got it back today and I'm very very pleased. Total bill was $712 including return shipping and insurance of $2000.
This Saiga had some issues when I got it. It originally had a long AK74 style 14x1 brake on it. Not sure how it was threaded on because when I removed it and tried to put a slant brake on it, it would barely thread on, and the barrel stuck out about 3/8" too far from the fsb. So the brake couldn't even thread down flush anyway. The threads were definitely cut wrong and not concentric.
I had some issues with the safety being real stiff, I couldn't ever get it acting right.
I changed the dust cover to a ribbed one and it didn't want to jive either. I just remember fitment issues and not playing nice with the safety.
Rear sight block was wonky. Not square. Not canted, but twisted.
This Saiga had the velcro patch on the right side of the receiver. If I have any gripes at all, you can still barely see it. I'm not complaining at all, it's fine by me. Looks worse in pics. My point is BlackBushArmory did me right and if that's the only thing I can find, then I'm golden!
They refinished the wood for me (I didn't ask them to) and now it all matches and looks OUTSTANDING! I found out my lower handguard profile is actually for a 74, I was going to change it but it looks so good now and matches so well, I'm going to live with it.
I had them cut the selector notches with the markings, remove the side rail, weld up all the sporter holes, I sent them a rear trunnion bc mine had the tang ground off.
I sent them the front conversion parts, they couldn't use my gas block so they used a Polish cast one I think they said. So it would mimic the look of the original Russian cast gas blocks. The 45° gas block meant they had to weld the original 90° port and drill the new one. Test fired the rifle when it was finished. Front had a bolt-on handguard retainer, so the barrel had to be slotted for the lever on the proper retainer.
The original triggerguard wasn't attached to the mag release, instead of changing it what they do is cut it, reprofile it, and then weld it. Looks good to me.
The whole thing was then parkerized with a black moly finish over that.
Turnaround was under 90 days.
I was shooting for a early AKM clone-ish build. I'm very happy with the overall look, it's exactly what I envisioned. Purists will say the rear trunnion rivet locations are wrong, etc, bc it was built on a AK100 series, but I knew that going in. A Russian kit is $3K, $4K...this was the best route for me to have an actual Russian built AKM.
Now for the pics!
When I got it:
I got it back today and I'm very very pleased. Total bill was $712 including return shipping and insurance of $2000.
This Saiga had some issues when I got it. It originally had a long AK74 style 14x1 brake on it. Not sure how it was threaded on because when I removed it and tried to put a slant brake on it, it would barely thread on, and the barrel stuck out about 3/8" too far from the fsb. So the brake couldn't even thread down flush anyway. The threads were definitely cut wrong and not concentric.
I had some issues with the safety being real stiff, I couldn't ever get it acting right.
I changed the dust cover to a ribbed one and it didn't want to jive either. I just remember fitment issues and not playing nice with the safety.
Rear sight block was wonky. Not square. Not canted, but twisted.
This Saiga had the velcro patch on the right side of the receiver. If I have any gripes at all, you can still barely see it. I'm not complaining at all, it's fine by me. Looks worse in pics. My point is BlackBushArmory did me right and if that's the only thing I can find, then I'm golden!
They refinished the wood for me (I didn't ask them to) and now it all matches and looks OUTSTANDING! I found out my lower handguard profile is actually for a 74, I was going to change it but it looks so good now and matches so well, I'm going to live with it.
I had them cut the selector notches with the markings, remove the side rail, weld up all the sporter holes, I sent them a rear trunnion bc mine had the tang ground off.
I sent them the front conversion parts, they couldn't use my gas block so they used a Polish cast one I think they said. So it would mimic the look of the original Russian cast gas blocks. The 45° gas block meant they had to weld the original 90° port and drill the new one. Test fired the rifle when it was finished. Front had a bolt-on handguard retainer, so the barrel had to be slotted for the lever on the proper retainer.
The original triggerguard wasn't attached to the mag release, instead of changing it what they do is cut it, reprofile it, and then weld it. Looks good to me.
The whole thing was then parkerized with a black moly finish over that.
Turnaround was under 90 days.
I was shooting for a early AKM clone-ish build. I'm very happy with the overall look, it's exactly what I envisioned. Purists will say the rear trunnion rivet locations are wrong, etc, bc it was built on a AK100 series, but I knew that going in. A Russian kit is $3K, $4K...this was the best route for me to have an actual Russian built AKM.
Now for the pics!
When I got it:
