Last post from cobra 72 7/10/08:
To whom it may concern,
WE, the staff at saiga-12.com have endured a lot of hardships and had to deal with a lot of problems since the drums were first introduced for the Saiga 12. At first, they were taboo to even discuss here. Then after Mike Davidson talked to the owner of the site and convinced him that they were going to be made, whether we let people discuss them or not, it was decided to allow discussion of the topic.
Mike, being the enterprising and very determined man he is, went straight to work and sacrificed a lot to make them a reality.
After much other trouble that was caused by Alliance and the wraithmaker clan, that nearly tore this forum apart and almost saw it shut down altogether, due to uncontrollable trolling and backbiting / infighting that went on here, the first run of the drums were finally made and 15 Beta samples sent out to trusted, respected members here to test and evaluate. They were checked out thoroughly and found to be very high quality and almost perfect. There were a few problems encountered and those had to be addressed before the final run could be made. Among those problems were the fact that the scoop angle was wrong (too steep) and made it hard to load. Also the center post was sticking out a hair too far and made it hard to put the clip on, that retains the cover plate. The Locking lugs needed a slight adjustment to make the drum sit farther forward, to enable it to lock in better to all S-12s and feed better. The body was thickened and stronger support ribs were made. That's about all I can think of right now. I have one of these beta drums and it works perfectly as is. My only complaint is the hard loading and that it won't lock into one of my Shotguns as is. I could fix that but choose to leave it as is, until I get a new one from the final run. The hard loading I could fix too, but it's not that bad and I don't want to change it right yet.
These new fixes required the molds to be adjusted...or more like re made. A new one was ready and tested before Mike charged the second half of people's payment. He was ready to shoot the molds and soon to be shipping. The plant had an open window for him at that time. So as far as he honestly knew, things were right on schedule, taking into account the delay for upgrades. So he didn't go back on is word and charge anyone prematurely...at least not on purpose.
Then something bad happened. According to what he told me, it was user error at the plant. Someone who didn't know what they were doing apparently closed the mold too soon during use, and it got "broken". The last time I spoke with Mike, the new parts were made and things were back on schedule. He was to have a meeting the next day with the man from the plant about scheduling shooting the molds. That was over a month ago.
Mike sent an email out to his customers saying it would be late June or early July when the drums started shipping.
Tony from Tromix got Mike to call him back (after a few weeks apparently) and Mike told him things were moving forward. He did not promise an exact date because that is beyond his control. The plant that is doing the drums is the same one that makes parts for the Government, Military, NASA, GE, Boeing, etc....
Mike's drums are just a small fish to them in a big sea of more important clients and contracts.
At least Mike chose to have the work done by the BEST IN THE BUSINESS!
He told Tony things were moving forward and THAT MEANS THEY ARE, and there is no further information available at this time.
Please refrain from posting ANY more questions on this website about WHEN they will be shipping. Mike himself does not know the answer to that question, which is why he is not coming here to say anything at all. We will allow no more posting about whether or not you think it's right to have to wait. You ARE going to wait and that is all there is to it. Mike has offered to refund anyone's money who doesn't want to wait - You are welcome to take him up on his offer if you feel you need to. Everyone else, I suggest keeping an eye on his website for more drums to appear available, due to cancellations.
If you want to know something about the drums, there are a LOT of topics on the site where they are discussed in every detail. Unfortunately, due to some very impatient people here (who BTW are going to start receiving warnings today for continuing to rock the boat while criticizing the staff here for trying to keep things under control so the rest of the members could find the information they need without having to wade through pages and pages of childish whining) it has become very difficult to find pertinent information with all the excess drama here. It makes our jobs as mods extremely difficult and we are not putting up with it any more. We are volunteers here and don't get payed to babysit, in fact we don't get paid at all.
We apologize to the rest of you, patient members, for all that, and are taking steps right now to eliminate it, TODAY.
I am pinning this topic at the top of Mike's section, and it will be left open for 24 hrs. At 11:30 AM tomorrow, it will be closed and no more discussion will be had here about anything that has to do with shipping times, whether Mike is right or wrong, unprofessional or not, or anything else negative, until MIKE DAVIDSON chooses to re-open his section to posting, and makes some sort of announcement. (That is IF the decision is made by the owner of the site whether we should close Mike's section to posting...your opinion on that is welcome in this thread).
Anyone who tries to bypass this by starting topics about it in the main forum, will be warned and their threads deleted.
This is NOT censorship, it's called damage control. All this negative talk about Mike and his drums is damaging to Mike and this community. This forum was here long before Mike and his drums, and it will be here long after everyone has one of their own.
It's long past due for this bickering to stop and I'm putting a stop to it now. There are plenty of other things to talk about with these fine weapons. Lets get back to doing that and let things happen on their own with the drums. Whatever happens will happen. NOBODY is going to change it by complaining.
Thank You
COBRA OUT