trgams

okee-dokee....well lets see...Firstly, the original question asked about accuracy and tips about shooting the SKS ....and I related my experiences as they relate to the question....then, out of the blue comes what is percieved by myself, and apparrently others who read it, an attack on my first response(and my credibility). I decided to respond to this attack with more facts. In my first post I also responded about accuracy beyond the 300 yard mark...if you look up ballistics of the 7.62x39mm fmj round, most loads aren't capable of less than a foot of bullet drop at that distance, therefore accuracy would be drasticly affected. I never intended to imply that your run of the mill SKS is a nail driver, but accuracy that I described IS easily achieved, and that is what the original poster asked. I hope this has cleared up my viewpoint on this matter, and I also hope we all learned a little from this thread. I know that I did. Cheers.

PS: the original SKS was not intended to be extremely accurate...it was intended to achieve decent accuracy within the range usually seen on the modern battlefield. And also it was designed to be inexpensive and simple to keep clean and be able to be maintained by troops with little training. The sheer numbers at which they were and are probuced, and the eastern block and third world armies that use this weapon both reflect these facts. I hope this additional information will be useful to someone.

jay79

Thank you guys for your help. I use to be a 0311 Rifleman in the Marine Corps. So i was familure with shooting the M-16. It is by far more accurate than the sks. I took mine out shooting the other day and i have to say that i was pretty impressed with it. I was shooting at 100 yards and kept a 1 to 1.5 in. group with it. When i was in the Corps we would shoot the m-16 from 500 yards with open sights at sillowets of the upper half of the human body I could hit the head right between the eyes with that thing. But for the price of the sks i have to say it is a pretty decent gun. I mainly just bought it to have fun with. You can't hunt deer with rifles in indiana which sucks, but thats the way it is. I would feel sorry for the poor bastard that tries to break in my house though, The'll have 30 rounds cumin at them in a hurry.

Bilge

Yeah, a lot of guys use 'em for deer hunting for situations of less than 100 yards. A great "brush gun," they are after all designed to work in some pretty bad conditions." The ballistics are actually pretty comparible to the trusty old .30-30. And yes there is a wide margin in accuracy from one SKS to the next. I think the Yugoslovian SKS's have a better reputation for consistancy in the accuracy department but that's just hear-say. I know my old Chinese SKS was spot on for anything at 100 yards or less. I guess it's luck of the draw but back then you could buy 'em still in the cosmolene for $75 a piece all day long. So, if you got a junk one you didn't take a beating on it.

You'll have to get out of Indiana for some fun rifle hunting. I hated hunting firearms season in Indiana when I lived there, instead I just bow hunted. Too crowded down there for me.

Desert Dog

I may as well jump into the fire here. Now, I do not contend to be an expert on anything, nor can I or will I make any blanket statements about the SKS. I will say that I bought one years ago and decided to mess around with it a bit about a year ago.

I changed the stock, bedded the action, tuned the trigger, installed a recoil buffer, muzzle brake, polished the bore and did some experimentation with different brands of ammo. OK, it ain't no Savage but it will out shoot a MIni-14 any day of the week. Since installing a receiver mounted Choate scope mount, I can easily ring the 12" 300-yard gong, 5 shots out of six. I can also use it for an up close and rapid fire coyote rifle.

Here's a photo of it.