i have the chance to buy a russian sks, with plastic stock, scope, 6 boxes of shells, and a case for $150. is this a good deal? how accurate are these things anyway? i was thinking it would be a nice rifle for deer drives through swamps. is the cartridge enough for wis. whitetails out to 150yds? i'm not going tactical with it, just a back up for hunting. any opinions would be welcomed. thanks!

If I haven't done so before welcome to the forum cheezehead.

I've got a couple of friends with the SKS's. There certianly not minute of angle target guns, but seem to shoot well enough for deer hunting.

Loaded with softnose hunting ammo the old fella that lives next door takes a deer every year with his. I don't think he shoots at any that aren't under a hundred yards.

As for price I would hazard a guess that your in the ball park. I know that you can't even buy a 22 bolt gun around here for under a hundred bucks anymore.

You might check on some of the online dealers to see if they list them. Just do search for SKS for sale.

If it's in good condition, the price is pretty good. You'd pay as much or more for a Yugo and they don't have chrome steel bores.

All milsurps are of variable quality, but I've shot 4 SKS's. One CHinese and 3 yugo's and all were surprisingly accurate with iron sights.

Here's a couple links of interest.

http://www.sksboards.com/smf/index.php

http://www.sksboards.com/sksinfo/main.html

The Russian SKS's are suppose to be among the better quality, and are bringing surprising prices. The one I had was definitely of a higher quality than the Noinco's I've owned. I have had one Russian it would shoot 4" groups at 100 yds with open sights. I have had over time several Chinese, Most of those it was hard to consistently hit a 9" paper plate at the same distance. From what I have read there is a big difference in the accuracy of individual guns. I would think at reasonable distances with quality soft point ammo a Russian would do just fine for deer.

The Russian SKS's are suppose to be among the better quality, and are bringing surprising prices. The one I had was definitely of a higher quality than the Noinco's I've owned. I have had one Russian it would shoot 4" groups at 100 yds with open sights. I have had over time several Chinese, Most of those it was hard to consistently hit a 9" paper plate at the same distance. From what I have read there is a big difference in the accuracy of individual guns. I would think at reasonable distances with quality soft point ammo a Russian would do just fine for deer.

I believe w/ lighter bullets (125 gr), it's equal to the 30-30. I know it's used for whitetail.

You do have to be careful in keeping the inertial firing pin freely floating in the bolt or you risk slam fires. There is no firing pin return spring to positively push the firing pin back after discharge. THere's aftermarket cures for this problem.

First SKS i had contact with was a pre-ban Russian my brother-in-law got for $89 including a case of ammo. Definately not cutting edge technology or the last word in accuracy.

Sometimes a guy just needs a "fun gun"!

Best check your prices boys ... last gunshow I worked in Tampa (Jun 12/13), you couldn't touch a Russian SKS for less than $500 and Yugo's for $400.

On the accuracy side it's going to depend upon the quality of the gun as well as tuning the ammo to it. One of the biggest problems with accuracy is that people don't slug their bores and find out exactly what size bullet they need to be running. Groove diameters vary a lot in mil weapons and you can rest assured that both chambers and bore always error on the loose side to ensure reliability. If you have a rifle with a 0.312" groove dia. and try shooting 0.308" bullets through it, that 0.004" of slop and gas leakage is going to show on paper.

Don't discount cast bullets either, far easier to adjust bullet dia. to groove dia. with cast and NO, you do not need to use only pointed cast bullets. My wife's Yugo eats the 150gr Lee FN without incident. Forget the super hard cast alloys too, the 150's shoot good around 2000-2100 fps. Cast from well blended strait WW alloy then oven heat for about 30-40 minutes at 225-230°F and quench in cold (not ice) water, this stiffens them up a little to control expansion w/o making them brittle or hard enough to be considered AP. If you end up with a 0.310" - 0.311" groove dia, either the Speer or Sierra 150gr spitzer will usually work well, the 123 - 125gr spitzers will give you a little more velocity but avoid shoulder bone hits with them. Note, some rifles are picky on the bullet length too, it may prefer the longer 150gr spitzer or shorter 123gr to produce the best accuracy, the cast 150gr FN is about in the middle. The Lee cast spitzers have yet to shoot as accurately as the RN and does not provide consistent after-impact results.

thanks for the help everyone. looks like i'm going to add a new friend to the collection!

[QUOTE=markkw]Best check your prices boys ... last gunshow I worked in Tampa (Jun 12/13), you couldn't touch a Russian SKS for less than $500 and Yugo's for $400.

QUOTE]

I don't understand the popularity of the SKS.
To me they are overweight, awkward, and unbalanced, the stock is too short, are underpowered, overpriced, and not very accurate, besides ugly as heck. Typical third world quality.
It was OK when you could buy one for under $100 and plinking ammo for less than 10cents a round but for 4 or 5 hundred good quality American made guns can be had. SKS's will or do make a OK tool box or behind the pickup seat gun
. I don't get it I guess and have owned several. If you want a hunting gun go get a decient one, if you wanna play Rambo buy a AK.
All that is my personal feelings though for sure as they seem to sell like hot cakes.
Now that I have had my silly rant go take a look here if you can sell em for $400 and make yourself some money.
Pretty easy to find SKS's around here in the pawn shops, or online, for under $200.

http://www.classicarms.us/

As far as deer ability, I was doing a drive with my second cousin this year in northern MN and he dropped a small doe with a Ruger Mini-30, using 7.62x39 soft-point ammunition.

MarlinF,

The 7.62x39 is a nice round, plenty enough power for hogs & deer from the SKS platform and in a bolt it'll easily out do the .30-30.

Accuracy is directly proportional to what you feed it and of course the condition of the rifle. I had my wife's tightened up a little and with cast bullets in handloads it'll print 2" @ 150 yds.

The short stock is a wonderful thing, especially for those hunting in cold weather when their rifles with too long a LOP get hung up on the nine layers of clothing ... far too many times I've seen people bugger up shots because their LOP was too long and didn't take into account the amount of clothing worn on the hunt.

As for the unbalanced & ugly, that's just a matter of personal opinion. They are what they were built to be, an extremely reliable workhorse battle rifle. Balance doesn't mean squat when you're using it as a pry bar to get through concertina wire. The weight, strength and bulk make it very useful when the ammo runs out and it becomes a very good iron reinforced club and bayonet reach extender. They are by all rights a well built general issue battle weapon, they are quite sleek and sexy to me but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Much the same comments are made about the Mosin-Nagant's but I'll take a good M-N over a jamington or wimpychester any day. :D

To each his own. Not everyone likes the old battle weapons just like not everyone likes the ultra-light sporters.

I have to say that I LOVE my SKS. I have a Yugo that I picked up locally...drowned in cosmoline, for about $125. I know of a place close by that sells them NEW with accessories for about $150. I didn't know about the new ones until after I purchased mine, but that's the way it goes.

I bought my gun about the same time that a few other guys at work bought theirs. We all went in together and bought a 1/2 dozen. My original intentions were to get mine and change the stock, add a nice scope, a bipod, and adapt mine to accept one of the AK drums. Well, after lovingly removing all of the cosmoline and rubbing it with a diaper.....kidding.....I have decided NOT to change those things that I wanted to initially. I have falled in love with the useless but brutal looking grenade launcher...the bayonet that is as dull as a butter knife....and the the almost 10 pounds of hardwood!! It's one of the guns that I own that looks just downright mean, and I get "ooohs" and "aahs" all the time.

The only reall bummer that I had for a while was that I had swapped the original mag for a 30-round detachable one, and had nothing but bad luck with it. It would stove-pipe the shells and just scared the crap right out of me. I've since switched back, and have been much happier.

I firmly believe that the SKS will live on in the hearts of the military rifle lovers, despite the lack of total knock-down power, the not-so-light weight, the bulkiness, and the stench of cosmoline! I wouldn't sell mine for the moon. My next rifle will undoubtedly be a nice little numbers-matching Mosin Nagant 91/30. They are just ugly and cool too!!

Feed it right and there are no after-impact performance issues.

I have decided NOT to change those things that I wanted to initially. I have falled in love with the useless but brutal looking grenade launcher...



Did you happen to buy it at Big 5? If so, that grenade launcher may have been replaced by a muzzle brake. The importer did this w/ many of the rifles...much to my disappointment. I think CA regs were the problem. IF it's a cylinder woth a bunch of holes, it's a muzzle brake.

Did you happen to buy it at Big 5? If so, that grenade launcher may have been replaced by a muzzle brake. The importer did this w/ many of the rifles...much to my disappointment. I think CA regs were the problem. IF it's a cylinder woth a bunch of holes, it's a muzzle brake.


Well, as far as I can tell, it's the original grenade launcher part. I didn't buy it at a Big 5, but rather a local gun shop. When I looked online, every other Yugo with the grenade launcher looks just like mine, so I presume that it's the original. My gun has all matching numbers, so I don't think it was fooled with when I got it. I could be wrong, but heck....that wouldn't be the first time!! :)

I have a 1970 Unissued YUGO M59/66 I bought 2 years ago it was a shooter form the start. My groups generally are within 2" with some old Wolf blackbox and Brown Bear SP ammo I picked up around the same time. I recently picked up some reloading supplies for it a was excited about the loads I worked up for it. The 123 Gr. Sp shoots excellent (see target) and I have the 150 Gr. down to around 1" now still some tweaking to do on those. I dont have that crappy green sling on there anymore I took a M1 Grand sling and modified the front clip to fit on the YUGO nice desert tan one.
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