Thread: Hunting with an SKS

I had one for a while, didn't really expect too much from it. I really enjoyed it, ammo was cheap and effective.
I got a rail in from Canada from memory that I mounted a cheap scope on. It made a huge difference, groups went from 4-5 inchs at 100 with open sights to around the 2 inch mark and best ever was an inch.
I loved the no bull shit rugged engineering , just a clever effective design.

If set up right and you get a good one they can be surprisingly accurate, not tack driving but very acceptable as a hunting rifle.
The Russian ones are considered the better build quality and more collectible. However once the Russians moved all their manufacturing plant to China and set up over there to help their fellow Communists out I believe the early ones out of China were also good as Russian supervisors were still present. Serial numbers and factory stamping can be very interesting and hard to decipher but even from the history point of view they are interesting rifles.

Regretted selling my first Norinco SKS which was a 16". Shot it with open sights and managed mostly 3-4" groups at 100m with romanian milsurp. And yes it poleaxed many pigs for me in the bush. Reason for selling was I got another AR for hunting as I wanted to suppress my rifle effectively and keep more meat from my kills. Now I'm on the hunt for another 16" for sentimental reasons.

Nothing wrong with the 7.62 x 39
My first deer was with a mini 30 and plenty of goats with my SKK
All about shot placement and as with any semi auto a bit more emphasis on safety

Only reallyy worthwile mod imo is to lengthen or change the stock, the originals very short. I fitted an ati montecarlo that added 50 mm to the lop and made a huge improvement to both comfort and accuracy. A thumbhole like kimjons, might he better especially for off hand shots

loved my old sks. it was the first centre fire rifle i bought. ammos cheap and they take a beating. mine came with a scope rail and a cheap 4x32 scope but it did the trick out to 125m on pigs and goats. hadnt really used it in a year or two as i got an nhm90 so i traded it not long ago for a norinco bush ranger in x39 too as a wee hunting rifle for the mrs.

Originally Posted by Marty Henry

Only reallyy worthwile mod imo is to lengthen or change the stock, the originals very short. I fitted an ati montecarlo that added 50 mm to the lop and made a huge improvement to both comfort and accuracy. A thumbhole like kimjons, might he better especially for off hand shots

I just took my ATI off and put the orignal back on. Found a 2" butt pad on Ebay for round $40nz landed. Back
to nice and light again and groups tighter than the ATI. POI changed now shoots 200mm low at 100, go figure? I'll have to set the sight post again next time I'm out. It did need re-zeroing when I changed stocks to start with.
Avoid any receiver cover mounted scope mounts though.

I am leaving the stock as it is at the moment, since most of my shooting is with either a pack or a daybag on.

Shot countless goats and my first red deer with and SKS. Never jammed or failed to fire. I think the bigger slugs work better on goats than .223 but shot placement is always crucial as well as a suitable bullet. We used to pull projectiles from chi-com ammo and replace with speer soft points. Worked a treat, I was getting more than 2500fps from the 20 inch barrel.

Might buy another.

I am impressed with all of this positive feed back, makes me want to go out and buy one. Are we talking about the ones that go for about $499.00 at Gun City?

Originally Posted by Marty Henry

Only reallyy worthwile mod imo is to lengthen or change the stock, the originals very short. I fitted an ati montecarlo that added 50 mm to the lop and made a huge improvement to both comfort and accuracy. A thumbhole like kimjons, might he better especially for off hand shots

I have that particular stock sitting being useless at the moment. $80 for anyone that wants it. Comes with gas tube cover of course

Originally Posted by Fawls

I am impressed with all of this positive feed back, makes me want to go out and buy one. Are we talking about the ones that go for about $499.00 at Gun City?

I have seen them as cheap as $325 in the gun city sales so it might pay to wait or go in and bargain them down a bit.

They're solid rifles for the money. Cheap and dirty but just work. Some of the cheap 20" one's GC sells are lemons though. They have some fucky non OEM mags that don't work that flash. I've seen afew that weren't up to the build quality of my "paratrooper". And that wasn't great...but it ran like a sewing machine.

Originally Posted by Fawls

I am impressed with all of this positive feed back, makes me want to go out and buy one. Are we talking about the ones that go for about $499.00 at Gun City?

Yes, those are the ones, although any shop can get you one, you shouldnt have to buy from Gun City. (No one should have to buy from Gun City)

But stick with the straight 'normal' ones, dont buy one that has some aftermarket magazines or are threaded or come with any accessories. Just buy Soviet rifle, as manufactured by Communist Peoples Republic. You can buy them second hand on Trademe for $300, and that would be worthwhile I would think, they are hard to break, and they have chromed bores.
A lot of people are not used to open sights as well I think, and blame their lackluster performance on the rifle, and sell them on after having a bit of a play around.

Don't get me wrong they are not sniper rifles, and a scope will not help you shoot much better, but if you can shoot 3-4 inch groups at a 100m then the rifle is doing what it was designed for, and you have a perfectly effective big game rifle out to 150 - 200 metres, which is as far as you should shoot with a little 7.62x39 cartridge anyway.

As too build quality, all the Chinese SKS's I have seen were all the same quality of fit and finish, and apart from the soft wood stocks, I couldn't really fault them. The Chinese were never cheap on their military production. (It's feeding peasants they are were not much good at.) The military SKS's are better quality in my opinion than the commercial M14/M305 rifles that Norinco have been exporting. But then, I have had two Chinese SKS's, but never a Russian one, or East European one, for all I know they may be better. Certainly they seem to have better stocks. A laminated stock would be better for an SKS, but the Chinese stocks are definitely light-weight, and that may have been why they used that Catalpa wood.

Thanks for the reply everyone. Lots of positive posts. Seems a sks might just make its way into my safe and into bush from there!

Originally Posted by Fawls

I am impressed with all of this positive feed back, makes me want to go out and buy one. Are we talking about the ones that go for about $499.00 at Gun City?

when they do their specials they are 399 or less