SKS The Sequel

A 7.62x54r round is a true 10-cent pleasure in life.

Hmm. Add to that 8mm Mauser, 9mm Para, and 7.62x25. They're all .10.

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Much-loved as the SKS is, a Mosin or Mauser is cleaned a lot faster.


Mike
 
Ad Astra said:
Much-loved as the SKS is, a Mosin or Mauser is cleaned a lot faster.
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Dunno 'bout that... The only cheap ammo I can find for my Mosin is corrosive, so I gotta spend a while scrubbing it out good even if I only fire one shot. I haven't cleaned my SKS in like two years, and shot it plenty. :)

I've seen lots of folks say to keep the standard 10 round box mag, as the detachable mags are crap. I could never figure this out, since we have 3 or 4 detachable 30 rounders for our SKS's, and have never had a reliability problem with them. I might get a jam every 300-400 rounds or so, but I'm not even sure the mag is causing it.

Then my wife's cousin brought out his Yugo with detachable mag, and it would jam on every other round. Aha! His magazine was made totally different from the ones I bought ten years ago. His was made from thinner sheet, and the biggest problem was that the feed lips would flex and bend just from the pressure of the ammo. On mine, the metal of the feed lips is formed so that they have good support on back, but his had no metal at the back for strength. At the last gun show I attended, I looked around to find a 30 rounder for a friend, but all that I saw were these newer crappy ones. In fact, I saw some that were even worse. I could not find any of the older good style anywhere.

So, for the guy just getting his SKS, I can't recommend the newer detachable magazines either, at least not without looking at them myself. BUT, I will say that reliable ones do exist out there if you know what to look for.
 
I see individual results very.
All my SKS experience is from 10 to 20 years ago, and include all the SKS's I saw while managing the Gun shop. I've tried 20's, 30's, what not, and all kinds of different manufacturers, and I never could get them to shoot reliably, and what is more, neither could ANYONE I knew.

About the only hole I know of in my experience with this, is just as I was quitting, manufacturers were really cranking up trying to solve the problems. It seemed like different versions of duck billed mags were popping up everywhere. Maybe someone did.

I would never reccomend it.

But it does all go to show no one has seen it all.



munk
 
I once shot an honest 1.5" 5 shot group at 100 yards with my Romak, using a Kobra red dot and during minor wind. Ammo was Wolf that was several years old. It doesn't seem to want to shoot like this anymore but it did, once.

Does this mean that all AK's will do this? No. It just means that one did.

If a man tells me that his SKS mags work, I believe him. If a hundred other men (myself included) tell me that they don't, I believe them too. There may very well be some out there that function properly. However, I've never seen them, no one that I personally know has ever seen them, and my opinion of them in general is now rather low.
 
And I'm also willing to accept that I just happened to get one of the few that worked.

It seems kinda silly though. I mean, compared the rifle, the mag is such a simple contraption. The critical thing is just to have the feed lips formed correctly to guide the round home. Someone with a good eye and a solid understanding of how they work should be able to tweak them. A buddy got a crappy 30 round mag, and I offered to saw the top off it and turn his reliable 10 round mag into a reliable 30 rounder using the extended box and spring. :)

I used my SKS over the weekend to shoot 8 or 10 black birds while out cutting hay. Took me a couple shots to realize the sights were off. Never got a shot at the coyote a friend saw.
 
I have a Russian, a Yugo M59 and an Albanian.

The Albanian is the most worn and has some feeding problems. On the other hand with the long handguard it is one of the most comfortable to shoot.

They are all pretty close, but the M59 seems to be slightly the best shooter, but I'm wondering if it is because it is blued rather than black and has a silver bolt and light stock and it seems like maybe that for some reason makes the sights easier to see.
 
The critical thing is just to have the feed lips formed correctly to guide the round home.>>> possum

That sounds right, possum. I imagine you can tweak them to work. The Chinese tried fixed and detachable mags in full and semi auto and failed. They probably tried everything. The SKS has never seemed a good full auto candidate to me. I'm no engineer, but all that weight in the bolt slamming back and forth seems 'busy' and counterproductive. The AK, with the rotating bolt, feels and shoots great.

munk
 
I,m a newbie to full auto . I have only shot a couple of mags from an F:N:C:2 .
The only rifle I had shot before was a 3:0:3 converted into a 22 .

As far as the S:K:S: is concerned would short bursts of three or four rounds make a difference as to jams ? How about the old story about how the mag is loaded ?

While full auto has its attractions as far as single targets are concerned I would only want short bursts of fire anyway .
 
Kevin, the SKS's we are talking about are semi auto; the Chinese experimented with full auto and it did not work out.



munk
 
I was just wondering if the problem with the failed full auto was due to extended bursts . It might defeat the purpose of full auto but I more enjoy short bursts anyway .
 
Watch those hi-caps on a Yugo - that is highly illegal unless you remove the grenade launcher & have the right parts count (you need a certain number of US made parts). It's actually a felony so unless you do it legal, don't do it at all. Seriously.

The 10 round internal mag is just fine by me. However, the Sporter is really something else - its got a comfortable thumbhole stock that is 'Western' length. I've put maybe 500 rounds thru her with zero jams & it actually was easier to fit the mags into it than it was in the AK clone I had. Actually, the SKS was originally designed with detachable mags but Stalin nixed the idea & it was never produced with anything but the internal mag by Russia. If there are any 'issues' with the conversion I'm betting they relate to the bolt not being suitable for full auto as opposed to any problems getting the rifle to feed reliably. That really isn't that hard if you are willing to make permanent changes to the gun.

The aftermarket hi-cap mags are hamstrung by the fact that unless you want to make permanent changes to the gun, you are mating an 'apple' (detachable mag) to an 'orange' (gun designed for an internal mag). Thus you see the odd looking & unwieldly "duck bill" thingy on the AM mags...

The "D" & "Sporter" models were permanently modified by Norinco to take the AK mags & will not accept the internal variety. They work admirably with the AK mags they were re-engineered to take though. All of the ones I ever examined had the chrome lined bore too. Unfortunately due to import restrictions you aren't going to find these at Walmart though ;) - You need to look around a bit.
 
my friend had an early, read, very early import that had the long barrel and was not chrome lined. It had the tightest tolerances of any SKS I'd ever seen. Purely subjective, but it was my impression this was the rifle the Chinese worked with when they attempted full auto. Not the particular specimen, but out of the same factory at same time. I've never seen another, though the guys on the AK and SKS boards have.

Anyway- it jammed on AK mags if you pulled the trigger too fast.
I personally thought it cycled too fast. After we played with it for awhile, my friend sold it.
When they later came out with the short barrel version which took AK mags I thought the action and gas piston fit was standard. I heard it worked OK.

But the Chinese quit on AK mags for the SKS, and they quit on full auto too.

munk
 
Kevin the grey said:
I was just wondering if the problem with the failed full auto was due to extended bursts . It might defeat the purpose of full auto but I more enjoy short bursts anyway .
Click to expand...

The problem is taking a firearm designed for semiautomatic fire and converting it to fully automatic fire. The tolerances are wrong, the strength calculations are wrong, and the expected service life is wrong. Often the bore, firing pin, and weight/balance are wrong as well.

Historically, pretty much every military semiautomatic rifle (that wasn't designed for full auto in the first place) was converted to full auto at one point or another. Guess how many worked properly?

Full auto is the firearms equivalent of drag racing -- if your gear isn't designed for it, you're going to break it. Maybe not right now, maybe not tomorrow, but soon. It places a very different set of demands on a weapon system than semiautomatic fire does.
 
just imagine the poor SKS going 'Ka-thunk Ka-thunk" 450 times per minute?



munk
 
Munk said: "When they later came out with the short barrel version which took AK mags I thought the action and gas piston fit was standard."

Interesting observation. My Sporter and the 'D' models I've seen have a shorter-than-standard gas piston :thumbup:
 
It wouldn't surprise me.
The gas piston was very tight in the earlier rifle I handled. I never saw another SKS like it.


munk
 
I shoot at a privately owned rock quarry so I can bring the bigger guns out to play. We setup water bottles, cans, etc. One friend has an AR-15. My son has his trusty FN-FAL .308. I usually tote along my old SKS and my Garand. One day we were doing some fun plinking at trees growing up to one side of the edge of the quarry. My friend with the M-16 could cut one down with about 4 shots. The FN and the SKS took about two shots. The Garand only one shot.

The Sks is very comfortable to shoot. It is original with the wooden stock. the sights are bit off and I'm too lazy to adjust them. I just crank in a little Kentucky windage. I have used it for hog hunting effectively.

We have some great times with the various guns.
 
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