SKS-Poor man's AR15, or European boondoggle?

I cried when I was forced to surrender my M-14 and was issued am M-16... First, reliability and then "lethality". The SKS/AK is at short range much more lethal than the early issue M-16s. Only now, utilizizing heavy, unstable, bullets are the M-16 issued to our military capable of some level of reliable lethality at 100 yards. Past 150 yards it again becomes "iffy". The ideal battle rifle is 100% in three areas...(1) Mechanically reliable; (2) accurate; and (3) lethal to 300 yards. (It is also good to have a 250-300 yard "point blank range of 4" +/-) The SKS/AK family and the M-16 variants (in all flavors) fail to have all three. In a heads up choice of either/or I will take the M-16 for accuracy (The Marine Corps taught me fire discipline so "spray and pray" is a useless concept). But, if I had to don a green suit again for social purposes and you asked me what I would like to have in my hands; it would still be an M-14. I will poke your eye out at 300 yards.... It is lethal at that distance and the platform is very reliable.
 
Interesting range of answers here. For those of you who told me to sell the SKS and some other stuff and buy an AR, that's not an option, even if I wanted to buy an AR, which I currently don't. Color me out of style, but thanks for the opinions. And besides which, I just got the SKS, which appears to be in immaculate condition with all matching serial numbers on all the parts, so I'm not ready to sell it yet.

Right at the moment, I've got the red dot scope (got it for Christmas), and I've discovered scoutscopes.com, which is a company that makes rear sight replacement scope mounts for the SKS. I'm hoping to have one of their mounts ordered by the end of the week.

I realize that this is not going to be a MOA or less rifle at 100 yards. On the other hand, it is gonna be fun to shoot, and if I can tip over a few coyotes with it, that's even more fun.

I'll probably end up doing some loading for it, since I have some Winchester brass and some Hornaday bullets, just because I like to reload and like to shoot handloads.

Time will tell. If I do happen to manage to get a dog or two with the SKS, I'll post pictures...
 
I absolutely LOVE my SKS. I bought it years and years ago when I was in the Army and put a nice Ram Lime stock on it and peep sights like my M4 had.

It's cheap to shoot, and the only deer I ever shot was a victim of this rifle, at 100+ meters, standing off hand shot Dead when he hit the ground and even using cheap [beeep] russian ammo.

For deer sized and smaller animals out to medium range- it's an amazing weapon for hunting. Excellent plinker.
 
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I realize that this is not going to be a MOA or less rifle at 100 yards. On the other hand, it is gonna be fun to shoot, and if I can tip over a few coyotes with it, that's even more fun.

I'll probably end up doing some loading for it, since I have some Winchester brass and some Hornaday bullets, just because I like to reload and like to shoot handloads



Hang onto it, at the price of these guns compared to the fun of shooting them you would be giving up a lot for just a little $$.

I loaded some Horn 123 Vmax bullets in Win cases that shot pretty good but not much better than the wolf or any of the other readily available stuff. The only ammo I didn't care for was the wolf 154 grain stuff.

The russk ie HP ammo will work good on yotes. They tip over in the first four inches of penetration and make a pretty lethal wound.

I have a Yugo 59/66 with a red dot on it and like the quickness of it but actually my 100 yard groups are just as good with the issue sights. Am looking to pick up a model 59 too just to lose the grenade launcher.

It's a fun gun. Won't compare to the ar in most areas, but still only costs about 1/10 the price too!! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif
 
First, there's more to SKS's than Chinese and Russian. There are also Yugoslavian, Romanian, Albanian, and a few very uncommon variants like North Korean or Vietnamese.
If you want to talk about the quality of machining, the Yugos are the best I've seen. The downside to a Yugo is that the barrel is not chromelined. I haven't seen a Russian, but I hear they are made well. The M59 Yugo is supposed to be an exact copy of the Russian, while the M59/66 Yugo has some more hardware tacked on the barrel. Unfortunately it seems that most of the M59's are used, while you can still find some M59/66 Yugos that are new/unissued.
Whichever you choose, realize that these rifles were designed more for volume of fire and reliability than accuracy.

I'm going to echo the other poster's comments re: 5.56 vs 7.62, but correct him a bit by pointing out that the Russians (and much of Eastern Europe) switched to 5.45x39.

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My question is now this after seeing conflicting answers. Is there a big difference in quality and accuracy between those that are Russian and the other Chinese variants such as Norinco etc? I heard years ago that AK's and SK's from either are fine unless you shoot the heck out of them. Then the Russian models are more durable. Is that true and is there an accuracy difference? Just trying to see both sides.

 
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I have a Yugo 59/66 with a red dot on it and like the quickness of it but actually my 100 yard groups are just as good with the issue sights. Am looking to pick up a model 59 too just to lose the grenade launcher.





Mine's a Yugo 59/66. I found a website called Surplus Rifle that has a whole bunch of great SKS info on it, including a way to take off the grenade launcher, and the address of a guy here in Oregon who makes a screw-on compensator that is threaded exactly to match the grenade launcher threads. That's gonna be number three on the agenda after the scope mount for the red dot and a synthetic stock.
 
Is an SKS my goto gun for 'otes??? ..... no

Do they kill 'otes ..... heck yes ...... but like others have said ...... out to about 150 yards.

Mine ... with stock sights dropped a coyote with a neck shot @125 and a ground squirrel at 50 with Chinnese 123 gr. SP ammo.

So far as scope mounting goes .... I would recommend a receiver mount rather than the "easy way out" of using a different bolt cover.

But with my successes with the standard sights ....

.... I would try the new Tech-Sight ..... it's an appeture that mounts behind the receiver and bolt cover ....

.... that's what I am trying next!

Three 44s
 
Not all SKSs or AKs are stamped. Both of mine are milled. The Russians and Bulgarians had the right idea. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
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