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So I just bought a Chinese SKS. Will be bringing it home on Dec 2nd. Will be sure to post pics after I get it home. Its drowning in Cosmoline.

Nice! Just be extra sure to check the firing pin, it took me two days and several punches to get the firing pin out and cleaned so it wouldn't just slamfire through everything

After that though, it's been one of my favorite shooters. A great pickup.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Nice! Just be extra sure to check the firing pin, it took me two days and several punches to get the firing pin out and cleaned so it wouldn't just slamfire through everything

After that though, it's been one of my favorite shooters. A great pickup.

Probably a good thing the primers on mil spec ammo are hard.

I once had an issue with an FN-49 at deep negative temps. I've seen what out of battery discharges can look like.

 Grey Templar wrote:
I saw a PSA video of some guys who shot a 300 blackout round in a 5.56 barrel to show what happens. The bullet actually came out the end, looked like someone stepping on a tube of toothpaste on the high speed. Surprisingly, only the barrel itself was ruined. Both the lower and the upper survived.

For practical purposes, 300 blackout is very similar to 7.62 in terms of use and they have similar ballistics when dealing with the same bullet weights. Given the potential safety concerns with 300 blackout and 5.56 confusion if you're using both at the same time I honestly would take a 7.62 upper instead as I would get much the same overall results as 300 blackout without the potential for a safety disaster. You can't mix up the mags and 7.62 will never ever feed into a 5.56 chamber even if you tried.

If you mean 7.62x39, there's just fewer options for subsonic rounds and defensive bullets. The whole romance for Blackout is being able to switch back and forth between subs and supers in a relatively short barrel. There's seduction in hardware reuse as well, if you can keep from committing hardware sins. Also, one could build cases from spent .223.

So all in all it's a lot of great ideas, but like some kitchen aids on TV like the slap chop, do I really need it? (well of course, but mostly because its cool). In another world and another time it might have been the backbone of some army's infantry. In this day and age it competes with lots trying to do many jobs as well as more specialized weapons.

Meh, I'm good with it because choices are good, but one shouldn't have .223 and .300 unless they are going to have a bit of admech reverence for the machines involved.

The SKS is home. Tomorrow its bathtime.

Serial number is in the 11 millions, which according to one site I have found indicates roughly 1967 manufacture. Stock, bolt, and receiver all have matching numbers.

Nice! Good luck with the clean-up!

All done. Even the bore was covered in cosmoline. snapped a photo of the log that got pushed out when I sent a rod down.

Only non-matching part is the bolt, seems to have been replaced when it got refurbished.

 Grey Templar wrote:
All done. Even the bore was covered in cosmoline. snapped a photo of the log that got pushed out when I sent a rod down.

Only non-matching part is the bolt, seems to have been replaced when it got refurbished.

Yuck. I'm having flashbacks to cleaning my Mosin Nagant.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Only non-matching part is the bolt, seems to have been replaced when it got refurbished.

Lucky. My only mismatched part on my SKS is the entire stock! Fortunately its only 4 numbers off the rest of the gun so I don't feel as bad about it

Vomiting my curious ignorance upon your screen once again, but in a festive style.

When it comes to popular or well known (and legal where you are) firearms? Are there any you don’t care to own, and why.

I have honestly never been interested in ARs. Now, I don't own firearms myself, (though I've been considering getting a revolver for target shooting), but I have friend that takes me shooting every so often, and I just... Rifles aren't my jam, and ARs don't even have the sort of historical interest that a Nagant or other old bolt-actions have. Nothing against them, and I'm sure they're fine for their purposes, but I just... don't care about them.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:


When it comes to popular or well known (and legal where you are) firearms? Are there any you don’t care to own, and why.

If I won the lottery, I would have a huge garage full of motorcycles and a big ass arms room with all kinds of things which go BANG!. So no, there is nothing I wouldn't care to own. I'll take one of each and 2-3 of the ones I do!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Vomiting my curious ignorance upon your screen once again, but in a festive style.

When it comes to popular or well known (and legal where you are) firearms? Are there any you don’t care to own, and why.

ARs. I've had to carry that garbage pea shooter for almost the entirety of my military career stretching back to 1992, and I'm of the opinion that we should have went with the FN FAL all along.

Anything single shot, unless it's 50BMG. Most black powder stuff, unless it's a build-a-gun kit, because that just looks like fun to build. 45 auto is just not a cartridge that interests me, like at all.

AR's aren't fun to me and I also have very little interest in expensive, and while i find black poweder guns to be fun, I don't like then nearly enough to actually by one and all the stuff to go along with it.

 Just Tony wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Vomiting my curious ignorance upon your screen once again, but in a festive style.

When it comes to popular or well known (and legal where you are) firearms? Are there any you don’t care to own, and why.

ARs. I've had to carry that garbage pea shooter for almost the entirety of my military career stretching back to 1992, and I'm of the opinion that we should have went with the FN FAL all along.

Having used a SANDF R1 I strongly disagree. The FAL is a decent platform but there isn't anything a "battle rifle" can do that an "assault rifle" can't also do, at half the weight.

Anything people claim a battle rifle can do requires a DMR or a GPMG/MMG.

A 16" FAL with a short stock is a handy dandy weapon but hardly a good replacement for an AR.

I get not wanting to own an AR, I'll never buy an R4/5/Galil. That being said with an unlimited budget the only guns I won't buy are any WWI /WWII era bolt action like a K98, Mosin/ Enfield because, meh. Or anything in 5.45x39mm because locally we have *zero* ammo available. I know a guy with a mint AK-74 but he can't fire it because of the lack of ammo.n

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Vomiting my curious ignorance upon your screen once again, but in a festive style.

When it comes to popular or well known (and legal where you are) firearms? Are there any you don’t care to own, and why.

I'm not a fan of ARs or small caliber handguns. I'm over six foot, and for me they feel too much like I'm shooting toy guns.

My brother from Tulsa is visiting for the next week. He told me the gun stores down there are pretty well picked over, leaving mostly 12 gauge birdshot on the shelves. Any rifles or pistols left are pretty generic and going for well above MSRP. I took him to our local small-town gun store and his jaw dropped at the selection and sane prices. Kind of felt good somehow.

I'm not interested in most guns actually. I focus on AR pattern rifles, and that mostly because of the wide parts and options availability. It's a rifle that everyone in the US should know how to run and mantain in my opinion.

I have an ancient paint ball pistol that was the lowest tech of its time in the late '80s.
I have a hunting bow that I haven't used in about 10 years.
And there's a pellet rifle that gets used every few months to thin out the pigeon flocks that infest our barn.

Beyond that I'll never talk about what guns I might/might not posses

 Slinky wrote:
Got a brief trip to the indoor range in last week - All ranges are now shutting down again for England's month-long lockdown.

My 10/22 "Target Tactical" and SMLE trainer rifle (1943 Lithgow, converted to No 2 Mk IV* in 1949).

Spoiler:

I like the look of your SMLE, an iconic rifle, how does it shoot? After 20+ years in the military I still enjoy shooting, was going to sign up with my local range once everything opens up again.
Never thought about picking one of these up, but seeing yours has piqued my interest. Are they easy to find? Any problems getting ammunition for them?

I believe the SMLE trainers use .22lr. Hence why they are trainers so you're not wasting a bunch of 'real' ammo. A byproduct of the old mentality governments used to have where everybody was super stingy with ammo for training, and either wouldn't give soldiers any ammo at all or only a handful of rounds. Then they moved to modified weapons chambered in .22lr because its dirt cheap and better than basically not training your troops at all. Of course, training your soldiers on .22s isn't ideal at all beyond getting them accustomed to shooting in general. Its useless for marksmanship because the weapon will handle completely differently when you're using the real thing.

They're definitely interesting relics of the premodern military mindset.

Yeah, it's in .22LR, which is all that is allowed in my indoor club anyway

It's a nice historic piece, it shoots "okay", not exactly pin-point accuracy, but lots of fun, and always gets interest and people wanting to have a go!

One interesting thing is that it is a single-loader, but it doesn't have an ejector - The magazine is just an empty .303 one, and the empty cases just fall into it, then when you are finished you can take the mag out and neatly dump the brass into the brass bucket

 Slinky wrote:
Yeah, it's in .22LR, which is all that is allowed in my indoor club anyway

It's a nice historic piece, it shoots "okay", not exactly pin-point accuracy, but lots of fun, and always gets interest and people wanting to have a go!

One interesting thing is that it is a single-loader, but it doesn't have an ejector - The magazine is just an empty .303 one, and the empty cases just fall into it, then when you are finished you can take the mag out and neatly dump the brass into the brass bucket

You learn something new everyday. I vaguely remember being told years ago about .22 ammunition for training, are there still .303 variants around then?

 Slinky wrote:
- The magazine is just an empty .303 one, and the empty cases just fall into it, then when you are finished you can take the mag out and neatly dump the brass into the brass bucket

That's neato.

So I'm finally gonna do it. Soon as the tax refund is in I'm gonna get a Standard Industries DP-12.

The real question is, Tan, Green, or Black?

That's excellently bonkers

I would think tan or green rather than black, personally.

I'm looking to buy a new .308 and thinking about getting a PTR 114. Does anyone here have any experience with the PTR line? I've seen good things online but wanted to get some more info on it before I spend that kind of money.

I was thinking about getting a ptr 91 or 114 as well. Or something like the smith and wesson mp 15 sport 2 (which seems like a decent budget AR). This would basically be my second firearm, only other one ive bought was a mosin nagant at 100 bucks almost a decade ago. Another thing to consider is I live in california so it would be neutered with 10 round mags. Good thing about the AR platform though is you could put a sparrow type grip on it to get around having that paddle blocking my thumb.

I really don't have much to add t this, the only thing to happen here recently was I got a reproduction bayonet frog in the mail for my Type 30 bayonet.