SKS how accurate?

[maverick]

I just aquired an SKS (Chinese) from a relative that was EXTREMELY Bubbafied! This had basicly a homemade butt stock (Made out of wood) with a plastic pistol grip (Yeah,I don't get it).This also has two 30 round clips that came with it. The original stock is nowhere to be found.
This is what I would like to do; I am thinking I will buy a Chaote Dragonuv stock for it with a scope and an aftermarket 20 round clip (That is fixed)!
I am not going to try and turn it into an AK-my thoughts are it should be more accurate than my AK's and would probably make a decent long distance rifle.
What do you guys think? How far out is an SKS accurate? Is it a good long distance rifle? Is it worth the investment?
I wish I could have it all original-I am just trying to figure out where to go from here. I like the idea of having guns that all share the same ammo and am trying to find a good place for it in my collection!

[kARL]

With a good stock, tight bedding, and a reworked trigger, I would say, that with good ammo, I use "Wolf" which is not match grade, you should be able to hit what you can see out to 250 meters..more if firing from a rest.
It will never be a Mauser but it was never meant to be.

Karl

P.S. That 250 meters is as far as I have been able to reliable hit, but that is with 62 year old eyes and bifocals.
I think that it is possible that a fella with 20 year old eyes,that knows how to shoot, may push it past 400 perhaps even 500 meters.

PPS.
I like the SKS, It is a grunt's rifle. Simple to care for, dependable and I much prefer the 7.62/39 to the 5.56.

[ISC]

Originally Posted by maverick

This is what I would like to do; I am thinking I will buy a Chaote Dragonuv stock for it

that sounds like a good choice

Originally Posted by maverick

with a scope

You'll need to buy a replacement receiver cover with a rail to mount it too.

Originally Posted by maverick

and an aftermarket 20 round clip (That is fixed)!

I'm assuming you mean a 20 round magazine. The SKS comes with a fixed ten round magazine that is loaded with 10 round clips. Clips and mags are two very different things. It would be a good idea to get a few clips to load your magazines with, the 20 round mags are awkward to reload fully with clips, but you can start with a fully loaded 20 rd mag and use 10 rd clips for faster reloads.

Originally Posted by maverick

I am not going to try and turn it into an AK-my thoughts are it should be more accurate than my AK's

You'll get a little bit higher muzzle velocity, so that helps increase range. The big advantage of the SKS over an AK in accuracy is the longer sight radius, which is negated by using a scope. Neither AK's or SKSs are very good platforms for mounting a scope if you use a receiver cover mount, but I think the siderail mount on European AKs and some (kind of rare) chinese SKS work pretty well.

Originally Posted by maverick

and would probably make a decent long distance rifle.

Only if you think 250 Meters is long distance

[CAMPYBOB]

Yoda dad claimed to be able to shoot an SKS 1000 yards and keep the group inside 12".

ME?

I build a Choate Drag-stocked SKS with a Red Star scope that would keep them inside 12" at 200 yards.

ALL SKS triggers suck. To the point they really detract from what can be extracted from them. In my experience, the Chinese triggers are just one step worse than a 200 amp circuit breaker. Yeah...worse.

Plan on sending that trigger out for rework.

Agree with ISC. Use the Chinese (or old B-West if you can find one) receiver type D&T scope mounts. The action cover mounts make better hammers.

Is it a good long distance rifle?

IMO,no. The only thing the SKS has going for it (in a semi-auto discussion) is the short stroke gas system. Other than that, tilting bolt lock ups be damned, the rest of the rifle is just not designed for anything beyond medium ranges. Ammunition is a limiting factor, although a dedicated hand loader will be able to wring the most out of his well tuned build.

Is it worth the investment?

That's pretty subjective. It's always fun seeing what can be done! As an investment...probably not.

[CAMPYBOB]

No clue if this guy is any good...not trying to shill for him, but you might want to talk to someone about reworking the typical SKS trigger.

http://www.kivaari.com/

[paintballmagnet]

Campy, I can vouch for Kivarri. Great work, reasonable price. IMO, the further away from original configuration an SKS gets, the worse it becomes. The original ten round box, fed with stripper clips can keep one running much longer than having to stop and reload those awkward duckbill magazines. I HATE even looking at a bubba'd SKS, no way I'd keep in in that shape. The SKS is a fine rifle out to 200 yards or so, I think no so called survival collection is complete without one. Another point is whether an SKS is even legal with all the crap Tapco and others sell to bolt on them.

[RT]

I would have to dig around to find one, but I had some scout scope mounts for the SKS that replace the upper gas tube housing and allow the use of a LER scope. There was an SF guy I met at a gun show locally a few years ago who had one set up pretty nicely and very low budget, sort of. He used one of those scout mounts modified a bit to make it more secure along with an aimpoint he had left over from an M4 that got upgraded to something else, and then had removed the whole bayonet and lug assembly, and installed a regular M16 flash hider, mainly as a muzzle protector to keep the barrel crown from getting bashed in hard use. His rationale for keeping all of the optic up front and out of the way of the action was that it made cocking the rifle with either hand easier, and caused no interference with reloading from the stripper clips. He used the basic stock, and with the regular 10 shot magazine. He said the secret to running CQB drills was frequent topping off of the magazine. Running in the woods and range drills again, topping off the magazine. What would happen is you end up with some partially loaded stripper clips in your pocket, so the gun is not running dry quite as often as you are just topping off a few rounds during a lull in the action.

Accuracy to common target recognition distances of 200-250 yards with a dot scope or 1.5X LER scope, easily "center of chest" but the 250 yards is kind of stretching it a bit. A bone stock SKS in the Chicom "sniper" grade with one of their 4X red star scopes would give someone 6" groups at 300 yards with the good Chicom steel core match ammo but that ammo is pretty much no longer in circulation in the US. People do play around with handloads on new US made brass to get that sort of accuracy though. My opinion, don't try to make an SKS into something it isn't. It is a medium power medium range rifle, so expect decent mid-grade reliability and performance.

[ozarker]

The choate stocks are pretty good, I have one on one of my sks carbines. The nice thing about the choate stocks is you can adjust your length of pull. There are a lot of the original sks stocks around if you want to go back to original condition. I would just stay with the original ten round fixed magazine. With a supply of stripper clips it would be plenty fast to reload. It's designed to be a short to medium range, reliable carbine. I wouldn't bother with optics. Keep it as close to original design as possible and you'll be happier.

[kARL]

Gotta agree about the optics..I never found any that held zero.
I took them off after spending more than was wise.
Problem was that you zero..shoot for a day and have to take the scope off to clean the rifle..zero is lost. I cannot speak for the scout mounts..but the rear mounts are a waste of time.

Karl

[Gunwolf]

I used to collect and shoot alot of SKS's...I found that the yugo's were a little more accurate than my chinese.maybe the lack of chrome lining or the fact that the yugo was heavier. still not a "sniper rifle" by any means , but I have dropped a coyote at 400 yards with a sks....iron sights!

[Black Pete]

Well I think if you can hit a man sized target with an SKS at 200 yards your doing good. Oh I know that so many say they can hit a nats azz at 500 yards but reality says that the rifle wasn't made to do that. Of course I never did all that boosting work on my russian SKS. Used the bayonet as a bipod, russian ammo, cheap rear reciever scope. but I can hit a man size target at 200 yards everytime and thats what counts, and you can pack out a lot of stripper clips. Now compared to my M1A or my savage bolt there is just no contest. I like the SKS its a very nice inexpensive rifle thats dependable.

[paintballmagnet]

No matter how many magazines you carry, if you empty them all, you got a problem. With the SKS and strippers you can just keep going until out of ammo. How many stripper clips equal one AK mag in weight? 50? 75? Dunno myself but its quite a few.

[jefferson101]

Forget the platform, and consider the ammunition. 7.62x39 is pretty much ballistically the equivalent of 30-30, based on everything I've heard and seen on the subject. (Don't trust me. Check the ballistic tables. They are close.)

Now, tell me about any deer hunter you know who would depend on a 30-30 much past 100 yards.

I've got a Romanian that will generally hold a paper plate at 200 yards if I jack the sights up accordingly, but 300 is a lob and hope, mostly. FWIW, the same thing applies to an AK. Same round, same results.



I loves me some SKS's and some AK's, for what they are good for. But if you want something that will hit what you are aiming at consistently at 300 yards or better? Get a real .30 magnum rifle, not a downloaded round.

8mm, 7.62x51, 30-06, 7.5 Swiss, 7mm Mauser, .270, one of the newer short magnums, or whatever turns you on, but it needs to be a full sized round, not something lightened up for an "Assault Rifle". They aren't long range rifles, and are not intended to be.

[paintballmagnet]

Ahh, yes, while the typical 30-30 projectile is a round or flat point and bleeds off speed and energy very fast, the 7.62x39 spitzer type bullet will help keep energy levels up for a few more yards.

[combfoot]

Most of the SKS rifles out there are ex military rifles that outlived there service life, and got sold off. It's common to see an SKS that is 30+ years old. all that wear and tear on anything is going to reduce accuracy. I would say the low accuracy is culmination of poor stock fit, barrel wear, poor bullet ballistics, and trigger. As far as I know, no one makes a drop in replacement trigger. After you spend the money on the rifle, a trigger job, an after market stock and scope with mount, it's almost as expensive as a low end, new AR. When you think of nations that produce great rifles, China and Yugoslavia don't come to mind.

[jefferson101]

Originally Posted by paintballmagnet

Ahh, yes, while the typical 30-30 projectile is a round or flat point and bleeds off speed and energy very fast, the 7.62x39 spitzer type bullet will help keep energy levels up for a few more yards.

Don't forget that I own a bolt action .30-30. My hand rolled loads for it shoot about 4" over factory .30-30 ammo at 100 yards. And I'm surely not going to put those rounds into a lever action rifle.


But I still wouldn't trust that .30-30 for deer at over about 200 yards. Neither would I trust it to put people down and out beyond that range.



I do find it fascinating that there are a lot of folks out there who wouldn't trust a .30-30 over 100 yards, but think that a 7.62x39 round with the same ballistics is somehow going to be effective out to 400 yards or better.

The 7.62x39 round is a 7.62x54R round downloaded and downsized. Do you expect a .30 carbine to shoot the way you would expect a .30-06 round to? Same general idea, actually.

The variance may not be quite as great, but it's the same thing in principle.

[paintballmagnet]

Yeah, I know a couple guys with Contender pistols that would never consider Elk hunting with a 30-30 rifle, yet they are ALWAYS working on that perfect Elk load for their 30-30 pistols.... Jefferson, if you do your own loading for the 30-30 bolt action you have, try a max load (38.5) of the new Hodgon Leverevolution powder with a 150 grain Nosler Ballistic Tip, seated as long as your magazine will allow. Should get you around 2400 fps at the muzzle, still running 1800fps at 300 with 1100 foot pounds of energy left. Three inches high at 100, 200 yard zero, just 12" low at 300. NOT your typical round or flat nose 30-30 load.

[BigEd63]

Smooth up the trigger.

Get a drill and tap side mount on it.

Bed it into a Choate stock with a cheek riser for a good cheek weld.

Next you are gonna need good glass and good ammo.

Minumum Burris on the glass and for the ammo Lapua is pricey but the best.

The typical loose fitting stocks, cheap ammo and bargin brand chinko pinko scopes are not gonna cut it if you want consistanlty tight groups.

[ISC]

Originally Posted by combfoot

Most of the SKS rifles out there are ex military rifles that outlived there service life, and got sold off.

I disagree. The most common SKSs are Chinese, and most of them were made specifically for export and commercial resale. They were never issued and were sold NIB. I've only seen a couple Chinese SKSs in less than very good condition out of the hundreds I've handled over the years, and those few isolated cases seemed to have gotten most of their hard use and neglect here in USA.

The next most common SKSs are Soviet made, and the Soviets were very good about rearsenalling their SKSs and putting them into storage as war reserves. I've never seen a Soviet SKS in less than very good condition unless it was one that had been hacked up after importation.

Yugo SKSs are a different matter completely. They were modified from the original design by adding a gas cutoff valve and deleting the chrome bore. Those two changes made the Yugoslavian rifles much more susceptible to damage from corrosion. On top of that, the Yugo SKSs were issued with exclusively corrosive ammo and actually used in their civil wars by their militia and reserves who were much less likely to correctly maintain them. Yugos are the only SKS which are likely to have been imported worn out.

Romanian SKSs are well made but never methodically subjected to an inspection and rearsonal process, so they are frequently found in only good condition.

Yugo and Romanians were imported in much smaller numbers than Chinese or Russian SKSs so not only are they much less likely to be in less than great condition, , they are also much more prevalent.

Originally Posted by combfoot

It's common to see an SKS that is 30+ years old. all that wear and tear on anything is going to reduce accuracy.

Age has nothing to do wit a rifle's accuracy. SKSs may be old, but most of them spent most of their lives in storage or being used for drill and ceremony. That won't cause accuracy degrading wear and tear.

[paintballmagnet]

I've seen more SKS ruined by Bubba than other other method. I did have one that got here by being dragged all the way from China, looked that bad but was one of the best shooting SKS rifles ever. Had about a three pound trigger-the single most important aspect to accuracy. I'd say the second would be getting your hands on some Chinese ammo-will outshoot any Russian by a mile.