Saiga 12 vs. traditional tube mag shotgun for 3-gun & home defense?

F

FirstFreedom

Moderator
OK, since Saiga's will be back on the shelves soon, this question seems apropros.

Semi-auto comparison only for purposes of this thread

Saiga shottie with multiple 5-round mags vs. tube-fed 1187/benelli/winchester/whathaveyou. Assume 7-round tube mag. Assume equal reliability.

Which one will be quicker to hose multiple targets with overall, *including* considering reloading time?

Tube-mag has initial advantage in capacity (2 more). But reloading takes longer than with the Saiga/box-mag. But the Saiga could have a disadvantage when shooting prone/on the ground, because of the box-mag. Another possible disadvantage to the Saiga is that mags need to be held in pouches for quick access (vs. extra rounds just thrown in any old pocket OR sidesaddle/buttcuff for tube-mag reloads), and that means additional specialized mag pouches and more potential hangups on the reload than just grabbing rounds from the sidesaddle etc.

Assuming a lot of practice with either manual of arms, is one going to be significantly faster than the other, over a long course with several reloads? Or is it going to be basically a wash/negligible? I've never had a Saiga shottie, and although the mag reloads SEEM like they'd be faster over the long haul, I've got to question it because there is the 'rock-in' style mags loading of the kalashnikovs, which is potentially slow until practiced a lot.
 
I think detacheable mags put you in Open class which would be a disadvantage against the 10 round tubes.

The safety on the Saiga is also a little bit harder for me to engage/disengage quickly on the move.

The Saiga is a great shotgun, but in Open class I don't think it's competitive.
 
I use a Saiga in 3gun. With the 5 round mags you are at a disadvantage against anybody who can do the multiple shell loading trick. Remember that you need to manually lock the bolt back to load a new mag, so you are looking at a 2 second reload, and that is if you have practiced a lot.

Now with higher cap mags (I have several personal 8 rounders) then on any stage over 12 shots or so, I'm going to be faster with the Saiga than speed loading a tube gun. Right now there are two companies working on US made Saiga 12 mags (10 shot sheet metal or 8 shot poly box).

Now if you only single load shells, and don't have the dexterity to load multiples from your hand, then you will be quicker with the 5 shot mag. However for select slug drills you need to keep a slug mag handy. Single loading a slug to a tube is faster.

For pouches, a Vietnam era 3 mag M16 pouch will hold two 5 round Saiga mags perfectly.

I think once larger mags become comercially available then you are going to see a lot more Saigas in USPSA 3gun. My first shipment of Saigas is coming shortly (I'm a distributor) and I've already presold a bunch of them to competitors.
 
If your talking just firing out 5 or 8 rounds fast. The video I had posted a while back showed someone bumpfiring a Saiga12 fast enough to look like it was going full auto. If he was using an 8 round mag with one in the chamber,
that would have been 9 rounds in about a second.
Some company had posted on Saiga 12 forums that they were going to make a drum for law enforcement only. I think he said it was a 20 round drum.

Heres the video again. Saiga 12 gauge bumpfired. Speed is unreal.
http://www.toiminta-ampujat.net/picture_library/PJ_saiga_02.mpg

The main advantage to U.S. made 10 rounders is that they would be counted as 3 ATF listed parts for compliance. An ATF letter to soupbowl industries declared that the saiga only has 13 foreign countable parts that goes against import law compliance restrictions. Heres the link http://www.soupbowl.kalashnikov.guns.ru/page12.html
Notice the Saiga 12 has no pistol grip from the factory so only 13 parts count. By using an American made 10 rounder magazine this would drop the total countable parts to 10 thereby allowing the use of detachable magazines higher than 5 rounds which is a violation of import law to use on a shotgun that has more than 10 countable import parts.
Beneli has more than 10 listed parts and im not sure anyone makes compliance parts to reduce the count enough to be able to legally add a magazine extension past 5 rounds. Extensions exist and are sold after market but as soon as you put one on your imported shotgun your a felon according to the 1968 GCA law.
Unless your a law enforcement officer with a government owned shotgun from your dept.
 
Last I heard, you could only find 8 rounders, but if high caps are available the Saiga would find itself a home in my gunsafe pretty fast.
 
Depends almost entirely on the number and position of the targets. But I'll throw out some numbers for y'all to think about:

An average shooter, loading one shell at a time into a tube-fed shotgun, will take between 2.0 and 3.0 seconds per shell. That's between 15 and 20 seconds, give or take, to fully load your 7-round shotgun. A skilled practical shotgunner will load three or four shells at a time, which will cut his time down considerably - say 4.0 to 5.0 seconds to load four shells.

A properly set up Saiga-12 can be loaded on a closed bolt. You can change mags in 2.0-3.0 seconds with some practice. Quite a bit faster. With eight-round magazines, this may prove a decisive advantage.

- Chris
 
Competition aside - I'm thinking alond the lines of self defense...

Does the Saiga have the ability to fire 3" shells - or even 3 1/2"? If not, another advantage enjoyed by some tube feds.
 
A skilled practical shotgunner will load three or four shells at a time, which will cut his time down considerably - say 4.0 to 5.0 seconds to load four shells.
Click to expand...

But in Open class can't you use the feed tubes like the Tec Loader? You aren't loading by hand.
 
Saigas shoot: 2 and three quarter inch yes. Three inch yes. Three and a half no.

At least not currently. Keep in mind in tube mag guns the ability to have5,6,7,8 capacity may mean using only 2.75inch shells to maximize capacity . Say for instance in a remington marine magnum or remington express with a factory mag extension you can only fit 6 two and three quarter shells in the mag if you want to stuff 3 inchers you lose max capacity to 5 shells.
So you can lose a shell if you want to use 3 inchers. With 3 and a half shells
you lose even more capacity. My remigton that holds 6 ( 2.75 inch shells )
might only hold 3 maybe 4 of the 3.5 inch shells.

A saiga magazine holds 2.75 or 3 inchers in equal amounts. A 10 round mag would hold 10 of either size. No lose of capacity there. Ive read where people that were fairly fast with a benelli semiauto were even faster with a saiga. And with the Saiga they wont be legally limited to only 5 rounds in the tube which is sad.
http://www.thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=194965
 
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