To the edit: By peened I'm assuming you mean the little ***** swastikas about 3mm big under the eagles. All of the regular markings are still there (manuf, date, number, and quite a few eagles, check my earlier post for my K98 to see an example of what you'll get). So in that case what you are looking for is very, very hard to find and will likely run into the $800-1000 range since the russians stamped them out on almost all mausers they captured. I wish you the best of luck trying to find one. You can ask Allan for close up pics of the markings to see if you're ok with it, check Collector's regularly and as a last resort try GunBroker, but most of the K98's there are restamped forgeries.
The XD/XD-M series aren't my cup of tea, lol. My dad likes 'em but I'd rather stick with a 1911, Springfield Armory or if you want to save some, cash Rock Island Armory.
"Beretta Seeks Design Engineer" http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2011/01/06/beretta-seeks-design-engineer/ This is so funny because I think Beretta designs have been sucking lately and their newer guns look like toys. Now they post a very open job post looking for designers. Other news from the same site is that Kel-Tec is prepping a bullpup shotgun that has has a capacity of 14+1! If this is around $500-700, I might consider. No word on price yet, but Kel-Tec is usually pretty affordable. http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2011/01/07/kel-tec-ksg-bullpup-shotgun/
What's weird with that shotgun is that it does not alternate feeds from each magazine, rather it empties one magazine at a time and you manually have to push a switch to select the second magazine. Looks very much reverse engineered from the NEOSTEAD 2000 Bullpup.
I used a grease pencil(oil pastel) to fill in the S and F. I got crazy after I filled in the markings on the Mosin. lol Details of the above: Mosin Nagant 91/30 Izhevsk 1942 manufactured All matching serial numbers Century Arms AK-74 NoDakSpud reciever w/ Bulgarian parts kit Side rail Tapco G2 trigger group pre-installed Tapco stock and grip Bulgarian handguards Bulgarian mags Best of all, no canted sights/gas block Hoping to get an SVT-40, SKS, and AK47 to fill the gaps.
Finally got went out to the range last night to shoot those Wolf ammo I picked up a while back. Worked great, and they werent as dirty as people make them out to be. The Saiga ate them all up without a hiccup. When I get the chance I'll go get the paper target from the trunk and post it up. I've got 25yards down pretty good with just iron sights, now I just need to try 50-100 yard range, but I dont think there is one near me. I went to a gun show today to pick up some more cheap ammo, but accidently bought some hollow point .223's that were in the same stack as an FMJ...$5 for a box of 20 is my kind of deal. Bought a handful, but probably should have bought and entire case. DSC_0494 by PFULMTL, on Flickr Also, I was sad because I saw my FNP-9 for $100 cheaper than I had bought it a few months ago. I wish they made extended mags for my FNP-9. I envy the cheap 33 round mags for Glocks. In other news, Surefire is prototyping 60 and 100 round magazines. I would love to have just one of these in the future. The 100 round mag is just too long, but the 60 round one is just seems wider than the standard 30 rounder. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1f6MaUaF30&feature=player_embedded
I personally would suggest against going for the quad-stacked magazines until they are further tested. The reason the military doesn't like quad stacked magazines is it makes any failure that much more serious. If I have a problem with my 30 rounder, I can toss it and only lose 30 rounds, if I have a problem with my 60 rounder, now I lost 60 rounds instead. Also it adds a bit of weight to the weapon itself.
Out of random I started looking for places in Texas that offer a service to convert the Saiga to pistol grip like the standard AK. I found a place in Houston and they gave me a quote of about $300 and they have their own parts they use. However, turn around time is about three weeks. However, after watching a few different users video's, I think I might actually try to do this myself. I think my buddy has all the tools and the cost of parts is about -$100 (new trigger group, standard style stock, grip, grip adapter, skrews/plugs). It doesn't look that hard at all. From the video's they say it takes about an hour, so for my first time I expect plus two hours haha. I also have to repaint the frame, but thats no biggie either. Here are the video's if anyone is wondering. http://vimeo.com/2787027 Well, this is on my to do list.
Whenever changing something on the firearm, always remember to document each step and label each piece. I remember that the first modification I made to my M16 in the army (was still new, only 3 weeks in), I changed the pistol grip from a M16A1 style to the more modern M4A1 grip. Problem is, that I didn't know about the spring that controls the safety. Sure enough, I unscrew the grip and I hear a ping, never found that damn spring. Got eaten out good for that one. So learn from my mistakes and make sure you can put humpty-dumpty back together again if something goes wrong. As for the stock, why don't you get a modern folding or collapsible stock?
Check out Ebay, for a stock there should be no problems buying one used: http://shop.ebay.com/i.html?_nkw=ak...e+stock&_osacat=0&_trksid=p3286.c0.m270.l1313 http://cgi.ebay.com/TAPCO-AK-T-6-ST...aultDomain_0&hash=item335e5fb9dd#ht_513wt_905 http://cgi.ebay.com/TAPCO-INTRAFUSE...ultDomain_0&hash=item19bd03a272#ht_500wt_1156 Tapco by the way is one of the main manufacturers of the plastic stocks for the M4 series.
http://www.cross-conn.com/Saiga_Conversion/index.htm Not that hard to do by yourself, since the slot for the pistol grip should be there undeneath the trigger guard plate. Will you be going for the classic AK-74 modern synthetic look like mine? Or classic wood? Or are you going to load it up with Magpul and Tapco? uke2:
Oddly enough, I dont like function of a telescoping stocks. I think folding ones are more useful. Telescoping only shortens it about 3-4" while a folding shortens about 8", which is useful for transporting or whatever. Just the standard AK 101 stock is fine. I also plan to remove the bold hold open lever, and cut away at the safety. Not that removing the lever would save much on weight, but I never really use it.
One of these days I'm going to take my AK-74 to a gunsmith to have the folding stock installed, then it'll be an AK-74M. If you decide to add the AK-style handguards to your Saiga you'll need this: https://www.brownells.com/.aspx/pid=32501/Product/AK_47_SAIGA_LOWER_HANDGUARD_RETAINER and a new gas tube with the upper handguard retainer. BTW I can take awesome pics of my mags too. XD
