Talk to me about uncoverted Saiga's...

[PatrioticDisorder]

Thinking about possibly picking 1 or 2 up, what is the going rate for a gunsmith to convert these things? Anything else I should know?

[Devildawg2531]

Thinking about possibly picking 1 or 2 up, what is the going rate for a gunsmith to convert these things? Anything else I should know?

I owned 2 of the .308 Saiga's unconverted. Mine were about a 3 MOA gun with match ammo. If I recall it would be about $400-$500 to have these converted. I sold both of mine as I found them clunky with bad ergonomics. Also my SureFire mags were supposed to be BHO but rarely did.

[caelumatra]

I recently started looking at this for my brother. I found a few videos that make it seem doable at home. It looks more complicated than an AR assembly but not too tricky at all. My brother lives in Memphis and said the conversion is around $150 somewhere local to him.

Series of 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waj8aLz-xY4

Store he mentions in the video
http://www.carolinashooterssupply.com/category_s/1864.htm

If you get this kit (http://www.carolinashooterssupply.com/product_p/css-rifle-basickit1-3pc.htm) it excludes the plastic tapco RE and you can get a Vltor RE. The Vltor RE does say however that "Will fit sheet metal AKM variants only"
http://dsgarms.com/ProductInfo/VLRE-47.aspx
Being a complete noob in the AK world I don't know what the Saigas are.

I was hoping my brother would go ahead with the purchase so I could try this mod but he ended up going with a 74 instead due to ammo price differences.

Hope this helps, or is even what you're talking about lol