I have a couple of things to say about this gun. While I do not own it myself, many of my friends do. In Russia this gun - as Saiga 9 - has been extensively used by IPSC shooters for PCC matches. In fact for a long time this was the only gun available on the russian market that suited the purpose. We have very few 9mm ARs and Kurbatov 9mm have only recently become available (I suppose you haven't yet heard of Kurbatov 9mm) and those at a high price. So russian IPSC shooters went the familiar path of customizing and fine-tuning one more AK for their purposes. This time - Saiga 9. What came to light was a major problem with the gun. As you can imagine sport shooters are capable of putting in an enormous roundcount and fast. In less then a year some of the first Saigas had many thousands of rounds put through them. It turned out that somewhere around 5000 rounds on average a nasty thing happens. The top right rail in the reciever on which the bolt carrier rides on gets cracked and then torn up. The ammount of speculations as to why it happens has been overwhelming. The Izhmash factory has never been known to be user friendly and too eager to help civilian shooters with their warranty claims. They tend to blame the user for anything that happens. But the common theory in the sports shooting community is that the bolt carrier has too much weight on top, making it unbalanced and when the gun cycles it doesn't ride directly back but also a little bit up, which applies torque to the rails. With time this force cracks the top right rail in the reciever. The gun will keep cycling even with this part of the rail cracked and torn but it is obviously unsafe. The factory at first said improper installation of aftermarket modifications such as custom handguards are to blame. Supposedly, users pressed out the trunion pin to do this and that led to improper headspacing. But then they themselves introduced a version of Saiga 9 with the same most popular sporting handguard from one of the leading local manufacturers installed from the factory. And the gun still had the same problem even when they did this themselves. For the army and police 5000 rounds is all they will ever shoot out of a gun in a lifetime. For an IPSC shooter this is a year of active training and the gun goes out the window. To cut it short. The solution has been finally introduced from both ends. On front end of the dust cover you can see three rivets. The middle one protrudes on the inside of the gun. The role of this rivet protruding on the inside of the gun is to be in contact with the bolt carrier preventing it from shifting upwards and tearing the reciever rail. Sports shooters started laser welding metal to the downside of the rivet until the contact with the bolt carrier was positive. A friend of mine @ivanrom did this to his gun which already has the reciever rail broken and the gun keeps working no problem. Some people drilled and tapped a hole in the dust cover and put a screw in instead of the pin so that they can adjust the downward pressure on the bolt carrier. The factory basically did the same thing adjusting the rivet. This will probably make the gun run a little longer. But it is still a so-so solution. So basically what I want you to check out if you own this gun is - does your dust cover have this rivet and does the bolt carrier positively contacts the rivet when the dust cover is closed? The rivet has to leave a scratch mark on the bolt carrier. Otherwise you're likely to run into the same problem after a few thousands of rounds. If you want to see how it looks check this video and on 5:08 you can clearly see what I am talking about - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-5DOKOJFASHE.html Here Saiga 9 is the cheapest option so many people just bought a new gun and didn't bother fixing it. I don't think this gun is so cheap in US. I hope Kalashnikov USA has properly introduced the same fix to their guns and I hope their quality control and warranty service are better than those of their russian colleagues. Good luck to you with this gun =).
With all the kinks ironed out, I can see this SMG as a good competitor to the MP5. Yes, the MP5 is a Rolls-Royce, but Rolls-Royces are expensive with lower tolerances. In addition, a lot of countries cannot afford thousands of H&Ks. I am impressed with this SMG. I would feel comfortable to go on duty with it. No question about it.
This very useful information is also very well presented. I'm impressed by your writing skills. Your grammar is better that many Americans, and your overall writing is exceptionally clear. From your name I assume English is a second language. I wish my fellow Americans would pay as much attention to their language as you do.
This was super interesting. Idk if you yourself shoot ipsc in Russia, but what would Russian ipsc shooters generally choose if they could pick between the Saiga 9 or an Ar9?
@@civilianuseonly I shoot shotgun IPSC as my primary sport but I have friends who shoot PCC. I believe they would ofcourse choose AR. We have an AR9 available. Problem is its very new on the market here and it costs six times as much as a saiga. So only very rich people can afford it. Most shoot a tuned Saiga 9 because of the price. We also have a locally produced 9 mm carbine Kurbatov. Its about 4 times more expensive than Saiga and its a pretty nice original design using AR trigger group and ergonomics.
Russian government: "We need a compact submachine gun that we can use for police work." Izmash: "So you want tiny AK, yes Comrade? Very well, we make tiny AK for tiny boolet."
@@wraithwyvern528 Even if the Soviets did have internationally recognized patents, the 1947 patent for Kalashnikov-pattern actions would have expired long ago. That's if they would have been able to patent in the first place, because John Garand would have had a few words about the bolt and gas operation.
Fun factor stops when you got to load that bitch. Used a 75 drum for AKM, damn, it takes a ton of time to load, it weighs a kilo empty, and when you putting a drum where it belongs, it feels like you holding a PKM instead of a rifle after 5 minutes in CQB training.
Keter I was just regular line Infantry and my platoon sergeant at Fort Drum had a Beta C Mag. Saw some guys that had their own 60 round SureFire mags too. I’d rather stick with the 30 round STANAGs, as long as it has a tan anti-tilt follower
im using Norinco drum so reloading is a matter of 2min max... when you know how to do it :) only problem is firing all 75rounds can result in smoking upper handguard on my vz58 but i dont care i have like 20spares
One time I got to try a thompson with a drum mag. I thought it was going to be SO cool. It was not cool. I used the stick mags for the rest of the day.
ian your camera work has improved so much over the years that old men like me can really see the internals thx so much, hope y'all are safe my day starts with you
@@JohnSmith-xv2ob 'Rytsar' is used in Russian only for central and west European knights (German, French, English etc.). Russian knights are usually called 'vityaz' or 'bogatyr'.
I will take a good look when you shoot this Ian. Looks like it would be a load of fun with some hot 9mm rounds. You just need Jerry Miculek's trigger finger for full auto mode..
@@DoitForTheLolz1 what, using your offhand's finger and moving the arm back and forth rapidly? You need to usually apply more force to pull a firearm's trigger compared to a revved up Stryfe, but anything chambered for a cartridge with low kick shouldn't be too bad, albeit maybe quite inaccurate with that method.
I was able to buy a Saiga-9 back in January this year, was one of the first here in Switzerland that got one. It makes so much fun to shoot with it, specially after I installed an ALG trigger
@@josephnotforyoutoknow1676 On the 12th of May the gun-ranges here can open again and I already made a reservation for the 16th of May. I will made a video then and post it on YT ;-)
@@josephnotforyoutoknow1676 I've just uploaded a short video of my Saiga-9. It's just a short video, cause I didnt have much time left to do something detailed...
Fun Fact: The Vityaz Magazines have stripper clip guide cutouts on the feed lips to allow 5.45 stripper clips and spoons to feed 10 rounds of 9mm into the mag. It actually works on the K USA mags too.
@@WynEvans exactly. Mags are expensive, clips less so. So if you want to carry more ammo then you have mags for, this isn't a bad way to do it. Very clever on their part.
@Josh Ayala I wish I was aware of 7n6 during that time, I would have went broke but I would have been able to build a house with the amount of cases I would have bought so it would have been a win win.
Fun-fact: The are actually only 2 differences between the Vityaz and the semi-auto Saiga-9: 1. The notch for full-auto mode is missing 2. Saiga 9 has no full-auto trigger installed Here comes the interesting part. Execpt for the full-auto trigger the Saiga-9 has all the other necessary internals to be a full-auto SMG. 3rd pin is there and also the reset. So you just have to install a full-auto trigger and you have a full-auto SMG :D
I love mine, I'm waiting to do my form 1 so I can SBR mine. These things are so well cloned they actually had a manufacturing defect on the top covers that the original did before it was fixed. Just thought that was neat.
In those areas where it is legal, you can easily convert this pistol back into full auto SMG. No gunsmith required, only parts replacement, if you know AK platform well.
I love the built in elevation adjustment for the iron sights out to a whole 200m. That's such a first-half-of-the-20th-century touch, and having walked rounds onto a target at 200 yards from a .40 cal carbine, I can appreciate the design mentality that says, "this is as much like artillery as you're gonna get with 9mm," but still puts the damn thing on anyway.
@Rory 543 There are a couple of special overpressure armor-piercing rounds, but the special light bullets they require means that long-range performance is not supposed to be great.
200m with a pistol is doable. Not practical, but fun to do at the range. With a stock and longer sight radius, it becomes more practical. Real world, you may never do it, but most rifles have sight settings to 600 or more, and that doesn’t happen often either. First half of 20th century had pistol sights to 500
@Rory 543 You know, I was definitely aware of 9mm +P+ rounds, but I didn't think the difference would be *that* extreme, (plus, for the US market that the KP-9 is being made for, you probably wouldn't have access to the Russian rounds anyway,) but I looked it up and apparently the the Russians make a 7H31 round that's 600m/s at the muzzle. That might actually have a comparatively flat trajectory out to 200m. The normal drop for a .40 S&W out of a carbine at 200 yards is nearly 50", and it's even worse for 9mm, but some of the overpressure 9mm options might actually be sensible even at those ranges.
@@RamadaArtist It's a 64 grain 9mm bullet though, so velocity would drop off pretty fast to the point where 200m wouldn't be all that flat of a trajectory. Anyways the weird part is that they kept the super old school tangent sight with v-grooves like it's 1891 instead of moving into the 20th century with rear-mounted aperture sights.
Really cool that you came to SA to look at our forgotten weapons.... Thank you for always producing such high quality content. Look forward to your next instalment.
So glad to have fine replicas on the market. I chased this one from day one as it leaked out of Russia. I wish more historical patterns would be reproduced with modern materials and manufacturing.
Oh how I wish there was a way to show some of the rare russian spec ops hardware, especially the compact smgs like PP-2000, PP-91 KEDR, OTs-02 Kiparis etc. :)
I've actually seen some fat cop in their typical black uniform once, who was wielding pp2000 in the street. He didn't seem particularly spec ops to me, looks like it's pretty common gun in Russian police force.
Thats a nice looking gun and I am assuming they are well made. It does look like a tiny AK as one commentator pointed out. They did good with making it look like the AK and with the parts compatibility it makes it cheap to produce. All together it is a pretty cool gun.
Great piece to shoot. A bonus is that the magazines work with the same stripper clip system as the AK-74. (Some of the clips may need tinkering but most work well as is.) Thanks Ian for another great video!
I wonder if KP9 had an issue when the bolt tilted backwards when shooting and thus breaking the receiver. Saiga-9 basically became a meme for this in Russia.
@@joseramirez9599 So the RU version is technically a civ converted Vityaz? Or a Vityaz fresh from the plant that lost most of its auto parts but not all of them?
@@borisslyt I'm just impressed that the American factory didn't make a lot of these "improvements." But I'm sure if the U.S. military ordered this gun they'd "improve" the hell out of it. 10x more complex and expensive, 5x less useful.
I find this video a very good companion piece to Mr. Rob Ski's 5000 round test of the VP-9. You have "filled in the blanks" as far as history and development of this weapon is concerned, and makes the design make more sense to me. Good video, Sir.
Hell yeah. Bullet "Privet" or "Howdy" in English, is kinda awesome. Or a bullet "Volna", "Wave"(eng). However it's on our civil market as hunting shotgun. Downed to 12 gauge of course. There are no aliens left to hunt with 4 gauge, 23mm.
@@reedman0780 yeah, tons of fun, when your buddies with benellies and MPs just laughing their asses of when you trying to find a leg from a bird. One leg is here, and the other is 30 meters west. And yeah, one wing is on a tree 10 meters above.
This is a great direction to take your channel when the opportunity presents itself. While I love the history of older guns, shooting them can be a gamble. Please keep us up to date on new guns that have many characteristics of classic ones.
A nice thing about those magazines is that they can be quickly loaded with standard ak74 5.45mm stripper clips ( those vertical grooves on the top part of the mag are there to accept the loading tool).
Thanks for doing a video on this, I saw one at my LGS and was interested and unfortunately my friend at the store told me up front he didn’t know much about it and didn’t want to steer me wrong, thanks for taking the time to make your videos
@@@ForgottenWeapons Thank you, Ian. I did the ATF paper chase for my MP40. The time and effort was worth it (with the perspective of hindsight). I will consider these options mentioned. What you presented is what I want, though. Stay healthy.
I had one of these go full auto on me when a guy let me shoot one at the range in exchange for some shots from my DE. We think the firing pin stuck forward. Quite fun lol, but scared my girlfriend half to death as that was her first time shooting. 11/10 would try again
I'm really considering one of these as home defense since my PS90 has been out of commission for half a year. It's a hell of a lot easier to replace standard AK parts if something goes wrong than a very bespoke firing pin that is not available anywhere
I sometimes run my PP-19 Bizon replica at airsoft events, and people can never seem to understand how the magazine works, or what it is. I've been thinking of getting somebody to 3D print a Vityaz magwell for it, though. As finding additional mag pouches for helical magazines is a giant asspain. The two I do have will fit 4 real-steel AK mags each, though. Good to see the Vityaz get some spotlight though.
Perfect timing, ordered this with my Trump bucks last Wednesday just waiting on mine to get shipped to my local FFL. I was hoping forgotten weapons would do something on the Vityaz thank you.
One thing that never seems to get mentioned is the fact that you can load the mags with an ak74 spoon and clip. Which I really like. Except that it's harder to find a really good deal on bulk ak74 stripper clips now.
Thanks for this video Ian, I knew nothing of the Vityaz or the KP-9. This seems to be the idea PSA had with their AK-V. Any major differences that immediately stand out?
It always amazes me how videos about gun design and function are so deeply rooted in geography, politics, and society. Ian's delivery is always high quality, patient, and comprehensive. I'm always apologetic I can't support this work- as it's so much more than 'how gun is constructed'.
Sweet looking gun Ian! I’m curious to hear your thoughts on it’s performance compared to the other sub guns you have experience with. Maybe a Russian police 2-gun match is in order?
Exactly. It is speculated that those mags are just for show, especially when watching footage of how light those rifles appear to be and may even be plastic "show pieces."
@Мармеладов ТВ Well, yeah, obviously. I'm just repeating what I've seen/heard from multiple blogs and such. But also guards that have been seen with them seem to be holding inoperable firearms and they swing them around as if they have no weight to them. Not saying it is 100% true one way or the other, but it definitely falls in line with other weapons that NK has shown that are believed to be inoperable models made for show.
too bad I can't have this gun in Thailand because our law isn't allow pistol/semi-auto rifle that has barrels longer than 6.5 inch unless it's bolt actions/lever-action rifle or rimfire cartridge.
If you look at the magazines for these rifles, they have slits to attach stripper clips. Same stripper clips designed originally for the AK 74. Those clips also work well with these 9mm magazines. It makes reloading at the range WAY faster.
For pistol cartridge distances works just fine, tested it myself. Up to 100 meters you 100% OK. If you shooting 200m headshots, you should really ask yourself why the fuck are you doing this instead of using a standard rifle in 5,45 or hell, even 7,62.
In the AK upper cover has played becouse there are some space between upper cover and lower box. This is weird, but in PP-19 bolt actualy slides over the upper lid during movement. So, thats why you have no playd of the rail first couple thausends shots. Sorry for my english.
Besides changing out at least the lower hand guard for a picatiny grip and swapping out the safety lever for one with a bolt hold open this gun is damn near perfect out of the box. I hope one day someone does make a drum mag for it still.
8:29 staring at the trigger group spacing out, I thought that was one single gun and my sight was getting kinda blurry, I'm tired. Then he moved the KP-9 away and *blew my mind* !
I wonder how this compares to PSA's version that is also based on the Vityaz but takes CZ Scorpion mags. It's about the same price and looking at pictures of both, other than the mag block, folding stock catch, and muzzle brake, they look externally identical.
Can you identify this weapon, Ian? From Red Square by Martin Cruz Smith, depicting events surrounding the Russian Revolution of 1991: Rudy Rosen’s Audi was in a choice central location near a truck unloading radios and VCRs. A well-behaved line had formed outside the car under the gaze of Kim, who stood, one foot on his helmet, about ten meters away. He had long hair that he pushed away from small, Korean features. His jacket was padded like armor and open to *a compact model of the Kalashnikov called Malysh, Little Boy.* I can't find anything about a Malysh, but that's why I'm me and you're you.
Ian, I love these videos and learn alot from them. The only thing that irritates the crap out of me is the banner asking "did you learn anything today?" at the beginning. That really should show itself towards the end, after we glean info, not before.