What Went Wrong?

[AxlMyk]

Your buttstock is not conventional for a Saiga 12. It has little drop at its heel and a pronounced curve in its buttplate.

How does your shoulder feel after shooting it?

It is possible that the curved protrusion in your buttplate is driving the rear of the shotgun up in your shoulder, and the muzzle down, while the shot charge is still in the barrel. The small drop at heel puts the bore axis below the center of buttplate contact with your shoulder, or very close to it. Both would produce low shot placement, as well as some distress at the top of your shoulder.

I'm wondering all this also. It looks uncomfortable as all heck.



Myk

[JDeko]

it may be. I was counting on your laser boresighting to have been a little better.... but I think we've all made that mistake before - which is why yesterday I "boresighted" my new AR's BUIS by removing the upper and setting it on a table, pulling the bolt out, looking directly through the barrel at a point ~100 yards away, and aligning my sights to that point - and I did all that INSTEAD OF trying to use my laser bore sighter at the 10 yards or so I could work out in the basement. If I'm not on paper with it when I go shooting at the range, I'll be very close, and I'll adjust from there.

If that's what the issue really was, you're looking at an issue of "hold over". As skinl19 pointed out - the optic sits considerably higher than the bore, which will be true for rifles/shotguns/pistols. Scopes/rifles are often "sighted in at 100 yards" but it's not always the case - it's up to the shooter to do the mental math and say "okay, scope sits 4 inches high and is on-point at 100 yards, but i'm shooting at 50 yards right now, so I'm going to need to aim about 2 inches high to hit on target." There are other methods, and the 5.56 rd is a great example because the trajectory makes it great for people who want to sight in at 50/200 - the bullet is still going upward when it crosses the line of sight at 50 yards, peaks at around 150 yards, and then starts dropping again (rapidly) until it crosses the line of sight again at 200 yards. A lot of people are doing 50/200 for 5.56 because it's a very reasonable to expect that no matter where you shoot between 0-250 yards, you're not going to me more than a couple inches high or low.
Scopes may or may not be set to a certain distance with a particular rifle in mind, but it's still on the user to verify that it's set up for THEIR gun, and to do the math on it whenever they're not shooting at the exact distance under the same controlled conditions.

If you ever take Trek/MDFI carbine basics, you'll see that at the beginning of the class, almost everybody is shooting 3-4 inches low at 10 yards until Trek yells at everybody to work with their holdover and try to HIT the center of the target, not just put the red dot on it. After that, everybody starts aiming a couple inches high to compensate for the fact that their rifles are shooting at only 10-20% the distance they're sighted for.

I tried doing that in my basement but I probably did something wrong like I did at the range. Maybe I can Jerry rig some way to hold my Saiga up without me holding it up, put the bore laser on a target then see where the red dot is in comparison.

[JDeko]

Your buttstock is not conventional for a Saiga 12. It has little drop at its heel and a pronounced curve in its buttplate.

How does your shoulder feel after shooting it? There is a lot of recoil from most 12 gauge loads, well beyond what would be generated by 7.62x39mm cartridges. 12 gauge shot loads are also a lot slower than 7.62x39mm bullets as well. More residence time in the barrel.

It is possible that the curved protrusion in your buttplate is driving the rear of the shotgun up in your shoulder, and the muzzle down, while the shot charge is still in the barrel. The small drop at heel puts the bore axis below the center of buttplate contact with your shoulder, or very close to it. Both would produce low shot placement, as well as some distress at the top of your shoulder.

The iron sights may have been adjusted to compensate for this, while your Romeo 5 was set for a more conventional recoil movement.

It's not a stock... stock. It's a "STG47" set from Ironwood designs and it's never really bothered me. In all the time since I got it converted I never noticed a downward shift until I put the sight on it. I shoot a lot of slugs and 00 buck and once I learned to actually put the stock on my shoulder instead of my bicep and to push the stock into my shoulder I've really had no trouble. My PTR beats me up more than anything other than turkey loads in my Saiga.

[slingshot77]

I thought it would come from the factory pointing straight ahead so if it were say 3 inches above the barrel of your gun it would hit 3 inches high at any point [barring bullet drop] so that you would have a neutral point to zero it from.

If your Romeo 5 is 3"ABOVE the barrel center AND the Romeo 5 is pointed 'straight' ahead then your bullet strike would be 3" LOW.

Think about it-- If barrel is 3" below Romeo 5 dot then the bullet comes out that 3" low to start with.

[JDeko]

If your Romeo 5 is 3"ABOVE the barrel center AND the Romeo 5 is pointed 'straight' ahead then your bullet strike would be 3" LOW.

Think about it-- If barrel is 3" below Romeo 5 dot then the bullet comes out that 3" low to start with.

Herp derp, you are right.

...OR maybe I just hold my shotgun in an even more advanced version of the Taliban Pooping Squat and hold it upside down over my head... [nervous laughter]

[DrScaryGuy]

Herp derp, you are right.

...OR maybe I just hold my shotgun in an even more advanced version of the Taliban Pooping Squat and hold it upside down over my head... [nervous laughter]

Alright... here's the plan you're going to settle in for
1) Sign up to work the table at the gigantic "help 700+ women learn how to shoot in one day" event that's happening May 19. The MGO table can use more people, pretty much always. (nobody wants to look at SeeTee all the time).
2) Put on your best "social person" act and do a couple hours at the table later in the day.
3) Once things start winding down, break out your toys, but bring enough ammo to share.
4) Join the rest of us taking advantage of reserved lanes with nobody on them. (last year I surprised cocowheats with a gun that didn't shoot straight just to see if it was the gun or my fat fingers causing the problem, then I fixed the sights, and shot some more)
5) Meet a few MGO people in person and realize we're mostly okay people. mostly.

[Leader]

Alright... here's the plan you're going to settle in for
1) Sign up to work the table at the gigantic "help 700+ women learn how to shoot in one day" event that's happening May 19. The MGO table can use more people, pretty much always. (nobody wants to look at SeeTee all the time).
2) Put on your best "social person" act and do a couple hours at the table later in the day.
3) Once things start winding down, break out your toys, but bring enough ammo to share.
4) Join the rest of us taking advantage of reserved lanes with nobody on them. (last year I surprised cocowheats with a gun that didn't shoot straight just to see if it was the gun or my fat fingers causing the problem, then I fixed the sights, and shot some more)
5) Meet a few MGO people in person and realize we're mostly okay people. mostly.

Mostly?

Who are the exceptions?

[penak]

subscribed, this seems like a very interesting thread

[JDeko]

Alright... here's the plan you're going to settle in for
1) Sign up to work the table at the gigantic "help 700+ women learn how to shoot in one day" event that's happening May 19. The MGO table can use more people, pretty much always. (nobody wants to look at SeeTee all the time).
2) Put on your best "social person" act and do a couple hours at the table later in the day.
3) Once things start winding down, break out your toys, but bring enough ammo to share.
4) Join the rest of us taking advantage of reserved lanes with nobody on them. (last year I surprised cocowheats with a gun that didn't shoot straight just to see if it was the gun or my fat fingers causing the problem, then I fixed the sights, and shot some more)
5) Meet a few MGO people in person and realize we're mostly okay people. mostly.

Sadly I may have just missed the window to get that day off from my side-job so as it stands I'll be going to bed at 5am after my new job and going to work at my old job at 4pm. That does sound like a really good idea as I have SO MANY questions that would best be worked out in person. This might be just the push I need to make my "help a recovering millenial" thread I've been meaning to make since my new job is pretty rough but has also beat a lot of weakness and learned helplessness out of me...

Plus I could get my mum to go so she could get tutoring as she wants to get her CPL and go hunting but my ability to help her improve is pretty limited [as you'd expect].