[eatatjoes]

i was minding my own buisness today, checking out some shotguns for shooting trap, at a gun show near atlanta when something caught my eye. sitting all alone in the corner next to some ar-15 uppers was a very nice norinco made SKS (i am unsure of the chinese designation for the rifle.) I wandered over and with the dealer encouragement picked it up and gave it a quick once-over. the stock was immaculate, as was the rest of the rifle, the dealer told me it had never been fired and had been sitting in the previous owner's closet for several years. I will not say the price he wanted for it, as someone may through a fit and accuse me of flat out fairy tale telling:D, but it was a good price and i bought it. along with a hundred rounds of ammo to blow through on wednesday at the range.

I took the rifle home and after a quick field-strip and wipe down, i loaded the magazine and cycled through the rounds to make sure everything was in proper order. Everything went well, loading and ejecting worked perfectly and the action is tight and smooth. As i picked up the rounds off the ground i was slightly dismayed to see there were indentations on 8 of the 10 rounds loaded and extracted. I am a shotgun guy by nature and this is a new thing to me, should i be worried about a slam fire? is this a common occurance or does my rifle just need to be broken in?

any help with this matter would be much appreciated. i tried to take a picture of one of the primers but my digital camera skills are not up to par and you can just barely make out the indent.

[eatatjoes]

here's the rifle in question, i plan on removing the bayonet and putting on a bi-pod i've had floating around for a while.

[bbrins]

All of my SKS's leave a slight mark on the primer. I just assume that its because of the free floating firing pin slapping against the primer when the bolt slides home. When you load it for the first few times, don't load more than a couple rounds at a time, just to make sure that it doesn't slam fire. Most Russian ammo is berdan primed and the primers are pretty hard and should be alright.

[Mike Irwin]

It IS because of the free-floating firing pin. A lot of rifles will do this, including some American military and sporting rifles, as well. I believe the M1 and M16 both do this. The German G41 and G43 rifles from WW II also employed a floating firing pin.

Back when the SKS became real popular I was working for NRA, and we started getting reports of the guns slam firing once or several times without the trigger being pulled.

It turned out that the common thread in all of these was the owner was using commercial ammunition and had lubricated the bolt and/or firing pin with one of the super lubricants.

Apparently the lube reduced friction just enough that the firing pin was able to gain enough momentum to set off the primer.

With military surplus ammo this apparently isn't a problem as the primer cups are harder.

The advice that we always gave was when lubing your rifle, use straight oil or grease on the bolt, but NOT one of the new class of super lubes, and leave the firing pin dry.

[Gewehr98]

But the Remington Model 8, and some of the earlier Model 81's, will do this, too. ;)

[Mike Irwin]

Already know it, Gew.

Hopefully this week my 81 will come in!

[Poodleshooter]

The model 8 is entertaining when it slam fires. Dad and I test it with 2 rounds whenever we've monkeyed with the firing pin retaining spring, or removed and replaced the bolt. I think the 81's have dual springs to avoid this.

[Gewehr98]

More specifically, in the garage at my reloading bench, as I was handloading a batch of cast-bullet .32 Remington, and adjusting the bullet seating depth to stay off the rifling. Ka-Boom, into the drywall above my bench, but it hit a spare Harley disk brake rotor on the shelf before shattering and sending sub-projectiles into the drywall and on into the living room on the other side. My wife was in the kitchen, and came running into the garage, fearing I had shot myself.

Dumb, dumb, dumb. And the only reason I post this is that I hope others learn from my stupidity. :(

[fallingblock]

No need to worry, there are others of us who have been, uh, "discretion-challenged" in such matters. :eek:

My own personal awareness trainer was a Ljungman M42B and PMC 6.5X55 ammo.
The newly-altered 5 round magazine had just arrived and I figured just to test it for feeding before putting it away. In the bedroom, no less.

Ran the same round through three or four times and then noticed that the primer was FULLY INDENTED:uhoh:

The impacts were just soft enough each time to not detonate the primer, but it was pure, dumb luck.:eek:

I'll NEVER try that again:what:

Military semi-autos can and do slam-fire. Don't try this at home......