The Atchisson Assault Shotgun, or AA-12 was called, “the most outrageously devastating hand-held anti-personnel murder machine in existence” by Gizmo magazine, but few will ever need fear it, because even living where full-auto is legal, you can’t buy or own one and even if you could, there aren’t enough in existence.
While slagusmc, a senior member of calguns.net forums posted; “Could the Saiga-12 be the greatest shotgun of all time?” with plenty of others praising the merits of the Saiga, Nick Leghorn, who like me also lives in San Antonio, Texas, and who writes for popular website thetruthaboutguns.com, wrote in “Protip: Saiga 12-Gauge Shotguns Suck“:
“If you buy a Saiga shotgun, be aware that you’re buying a project gun that even the best shooters of our day have tried — and failed — to make work in a competition setting. One of my friends who’s a gunsmith has run through 10 different Saiga shotguns so far. Out of that bunch, he’s only been able to salvage one into a working firearm and even then it was with much sweat and tears on his part. Oh, and if it doesn’t run when the guns have been carefully maintained and fired in a controlled setting like a 3-gun competition, imagine how terrible they’d be in a life-or-death situation.”
That being said, probably because of the Saiga 12’s good looks, there are literally millions of Saiga 12’s in existence and you can buy them fairly cheap almost anywhere, so the Saiga wins by default if nothing else. Just don’t expect the same kind of reliability you’ve been used to firing your AK47.
If you had your pick, which would you choose?
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