SKS shoots

And here's the SKS in action, now in it's original condition with a solid 100 yard zero.



One more vintage rifle saved from the unholy alliance of Bubba and Tapco. I'll call that a win.

Finally!

The SKS restoration project is finished. Took forever and a day to locate a magazine, gas tube and bayonet for it--fortunately I had a spare stock in storage--but it looks the way that it's supposed to look again and it passes it's function checks. I'm not at all unhappy with how it looks, although it cost me a fair bit more than I was expecting to get the parts needed. The market in surplus SKS parts is not what it used to be.

But it's done and just needs a range test and sight-in. I KNOW that the front post is jacked just by looking at it so I need to put a proper mechanical zero on it. Oh, and cleaning? It was in sad shape in that department. Fortunately no corrosion inside, so apparently it wasn't shot with old surplus ammo and left to sit like so many of the early SKSes were. Lucky for the surplus rifle community, that old corrosive ammo is pretty much gone these days.

Again, it's done. I'm pleased. And here it is with it's three rack mates. (New one on bottom, Chinese above, Romanian above that one, and Russiann gun on top.) Bring on the mindless zombies/antifa.

Saturday will be a great day for range time out of the city, because this week-end it's gonna get crowded around here: Southern Decadence. Sigh.

Sometimes I still outsmart myself...sigh

So the other day, I'm taking a young lady to the range for her first time out, and I happen to spot a beat-up SKS in a Tapco stock with no magazine and a dented gas tube on the consignment rack marked "for repair or parts". The price was already decent but I made a ridiculous low-ball offer and surprisingly--or not, as it turns out--the seller agreed to it and I walked out with the saddest-looking rifle I've bought in a long time.

Hey, I need to replace that Mini-14 with something, right?

Actually I bought it because I felt sorry for it and because I like to restore sporterized, neglected firearms to their proper glory...and I just so happened to have an old SKS stock just waiting for something like this to come along. and how hard could it be to snag a factory box mag and gas tube, eh? Those are the parts that every bubba rips off of their SKS to replace with Tapco crap, right? The stuff is everywhere...

Well not so much, it seems. Looks like all of the SKS parts have seriously dried up since I last paid attention to such things.


I figured that I was going to be able to restore this rifle to factory spec for hella cheap and have something to hand out to a neighbor in need come the next hurricane or liberal uprising, but I made a fatal assumption on the market and availability for SKS spare parts. Anyone out there got any SKS parts in their junk boxes that they want to sell, specifically a ten-round magazine assembly and a gas tube with handguard?

Range Day!

So yesterday, feeling better at last, I got out to the range with Proud Hillbilly on this beautiful fall day.

This was Communist Bloc day, as I took out a Russian SKS and my Maadi AK-47, both chambered in 7.62x39mm. I've had the AK since the 1980's but it was the first time out for this particular SKS. I was not disappointed by either of them at 100 yards.

Here's PH with her .22 rifle, working on her prone shooting position.

And here she is again with her new single action Uberti in .38 Special. She did quite well with it.

She did so good with it in fact that I decided to let her try a real caliber, .45 Long Colt.

I'll let her describe how that went. (At least most of the rounds hit the backstop berm.)

Then it was off for lunch for my first decent food in a few days. And after that, we stopped by a local pawn shop and this followed me home:

It's a World War Two Japanese Arisaka Type 99 rifle. It's been a bit neglected but it's in original condition for the most part and nobody's messed with it over the years.

The Imperial chrysanthemum has been ground off, as is the norm for rifles surrendered at war's end by order of General MacArthur, but it's not a messy job.

It has the old anti-aircraft rear sight, but the wings are gone now.

It also has the base for the monopod, but that's missing as well. Still has it's cleaning rod, though.

The receiver markingings indicate that this one was made at the Nagoya Arsenal.

The bore looks good, and it's chrome lined. I'm going to spend some time getting the grime and old corrosion on the metal cleaned up and then we'll see how it shoots. I didn't give much at all for it, so I'm pretty happy overall with this find. Still, if I hadn't let PH talk me into going into that shop...

SKS on the range

So since our health care system was just taken over by the government today, I felt that it would be appropriate to take a Communist made rifle out shooting today.

Behold, the Chinese SKS.I bought this little gem back in the 1990's when they first came onto the market. Back then, they were abundant but no one wanted them and I got this one for--are you ready? $64.95 shipped to my door. (I had an FFL back then.)

It was my first SKS and a rifle that I carried afield on a few camping trips before upgrading to lighter rifles such as the M1 carbine or the AR-15.

This one hasn't been fired since Bill Clinton was President; it has simply sat quietly in a gun locker or a display rack while other rifles have had all of the fun. But today, I took it out for the first time in a long time and I was pleased to see that once I made a few minor adjustments to the front sight, it would fairly consistently hold a 4" circle from sandbags at 100M and keep all but one fired on a paper plate at 200M. (And to be fair, the flyer was my fault.)

I put a fair number of rounds rounds through it before another shooter with his bench-rest rifle showed up and made me want to quit for the day, and I have to say that it brought back memories of a couple of camping trips years ago. It felt good against my shoulder, and my only complaint is that I need to learn to keep my fingers away from the forward stock metal and barrel once the rifle starts to heat up.

The SKS isn't going to be my first choice of rifle to grab if and when Obama and Company push this country over the edge, but it's good to know that it's there as a back-up or as a loaner for friends in need, and in the meantime, it's a fun plinker that shoots ammunition that's still relatively cheap and readily available.

Range day!

Having nothing better to do today, I was looking through my gun room ammo storage area when I happened across an ammo can that wasn't labeled with a description of the contents, as my cans usually are. This can was on the bottom of a stack of cans, so, being the curious type, I dug it out and popped it open. Oh joy! it was chock full of 7.62x39mm ammo, all reloads that I'd put together probably a decade ago or more.

Well that called for a trip to the range.

Looking over my rack of SKS rifles, I pulled off the one pictured here. It's a Romanian model made at the Curgir factory in 1960, and it served it's Communist masters for quite some time, doing it's part for the bad guy side of the Cold War, until we won (Thank you, President Reagan!) and the Romanian government gave up Communism and sold this rifle and many others like it on the commercial market for solid western currency. I picked it up along with a few others when Aaron of The Shekel and I both went on an SKS-buying spree a few years ago. I never actually got around to shooting this one though, and it just graced my SKS rack as a historical display piece until today. It displays the typical eastern bloc craftsmanship that I've come to expect with these guns. The varnish on the wood stock has several runs indicating the level of care and quality control that went into it, the handguard and gas tube are a tad on the loose side, and the trigger is muddy and stiff but at least breaks somewhat cleanly at about 8lbs or so. A match rifle it's not.

I set up at 100 yards and fired off a few sighters. Predictably, it was off, but I knew to bring the sight-adjustment tool and with a few minor tweaks to the front sight. I got it's windage and elevation close enough to allow me to put the rounds all in the 6" five-ring. Definitely not a competition winner, but more than good enough for it's intended job. Even backing it off to 200 yards, I had no problem making every shot a simulated chest hit on the bad guy targets.

I put about 60 rounds through it, getting miffed at it's tendency to toss the brass in any and all directions. As these were nice boxer-primed cases, I wanted them all back, and this SKS made the brass pick-up into something like an easter egg hunt. But I recovered almost all of them and by the time I cased the rifle back up, I was confident that should I want to take it out again or if for some reason I need to rely on it in an emergency, it'll hit what I aim it at.

The SKS collection

Last night at 3AM, I got home from work and found a package sitting on my deck. It was the last SKS rifle that I needed for my collection. And it was beautiful!

The SKS rifles are all ex-Communist-bloc weapons that were built and issued to fight against the freedom and democracy that America has always represented. The first one was the Model 45, designed and built in Russia around an intermediate power .30 cartridge as a direct result of lessons that Russian arms designers learned in WW2. These rifles were subsequently copied by many Soviet allies after the war, and they've popped up in practically every conflict on every continent, from Europe to Africa, Korea to Vietnam, and most recently, the Middle East. It stood for many years as the symbol of Communist military power and oppression. But times changed and history proved us right and them wrong and now thanks to heroes like President Ronald Reagan and British PM Margaret Thatcher, the Soviet Union is gone. Russia is undergoing change into a more civil place, it's former satellite territories are free and joining NATO, and even the Comminust Chinese are sampling capitalism.

And an unintended result of all of this peace breaking out in countries once held captive behind the Iron Curtain of Communism is all of these former Eastern Bloc weapons taken out of military use and sold to American civilians as collectibles and hunting tools.

I began collecting SKS rifles back when the first ones came here from China in the 1980's. As a federally-licensed firearms dealer, I acquired a Chinese military SKS for $69.00 shipped to my door. Many military surplus arms were coming into the country at fire-sale prices and me and many others just bought them as cheap guns that we could take out on camping trips without worrying about beating them up. My $69.00 SKS accompanied me on several trips to Michigan's Keewenaw Peninsula. Then President Clinton took office and importation of surplus arms were restricted while Federal Firearms Licenses like mine fell victim to new requirements that by design resulted in the termination of most of the private gun dealer licenses in America.

Time went on, I obtained better competition and defensive arms, and my Chinese SKS went into the back of the locker where it remained for many years, undisturbed but for the periodic cleanings that all of my guns get whether or not they are taken out and shot.

Over the years, other SKS rifles came onto the market every now and again as other countries put their obsolete arms onto the market to get hard currency. I'd always meant to get one from every country that made them but it wasn't a priority so I didn't really focus on it until my friend Aaron (The Shekel) and I started buying up SKS rifles together. It didn't take long before a few others wound up in my locker and his, and as of last night, I finally have one version of every military SKS put onto the market.

Here they are on the rack in my gun room and out on my deck. They are in the same order in both pictures.

The one on the left is an Albanian SKS. This one was made in 1970 at the Umgramsh factory and probably shows the most wear from use. It's also the odd duck of the collection as the Albanians made a few changes that can be seen in the length of upper handguard, AK-47 style cocking handle, different magazine shape, and the cruciform bayonet. These rifles were called the "July 10th Rifle" in Albania after Albania's Independence Day. As SKS's on the market go, these are the rarest, as only about 17,000 of them were ever made, and the Albanian government destroyed over two thirds of them before finally releasing the last 5,700 to the commercial arms market. These rifles are also known for having horrible trigger pulls even for a military arm, and this one is no exception. It also has the initials "AR" carved into it's stock, presumably by an Albanian soldier who once carried it.


The second one is my old reliable Chinese SKS, known in China as the Type 56. It was made in government factory number 26 but I do not know when. Unlike the nicely-finished commercial SKS's manufactured in China for export to America, this one has the older relatively crude varnish finish.

Center rifle is a Romanian SKS--also known as a Model 56--that was manufactured in Curgar, Romania in 1960. I just had it out on the range the other day for the first time, and it shoots well. I like it.

To the right of that one is an authentic Russian rifle, known as the Model 45. (the one with the prominent sling.)This was the one that started it all, and every other SKS is a license-built copy or knock-off of this one. This is the one that just came last night and I was very pleased when I opened the box. It has it's original finish (most imported Russian rifles have a nasty "re-arsenal" finish that's crude to say the least) and it was made in 1954 at the Tula factory outside Moscow. It appears almost pristine and I can't find any evidence that it was ever fired--no carbon or primer marks--not even wear that indicates that the action has operated.

And on the far right, is the Yugoslavian version known as the Model 59. This one came with a broken front sight post but is still has the best trigger pull of the bunch and it groups very nicely indeed at 100 yards. The Yugoslavian version is the only one made without a chrome-lined barrel, reportedly because the Yugoslavians could not obtain the chromium needed to manufacture them. But fortunately this one apparently wasn't shot much as the bore doesn't show the ravages of the corrosive ammunition that the eastern bloc has always used and the muzzle crown isn't all funneled out from the tragic over-use of steel cleaning rods that is so common to military rifles the world over.

One nice thing about these guns is that with the exception of the Albanian rifle, they are all so similar that replacement parts are interchangable between them. (And even the Albanian gun shares about 95% commonality with the others.) All take the same cheap and effective 7.62x39MM cartridge and can be maintained with the same tools. These rifles are an interesting addition to my historical collection due to their former roles are weapons on the other side of the Cold War and now they're also fun shooters for quick trips to the range.

Here's Lagniappe with my old Chinese SKS. Silly dog... When I suggested we go get Chinese, that's NOT what I had in mind!