HI all. A little background, first. I recently purchased a PSA middy rifle kit to go with the Anderson lower I had purchased a few months before that. I've built and fired a few ARs before, but couldn't really love them. They're cheap and light and modular, and uppers can be switched out for different calibers, etc. This is probably the practical option, especially when mounting optics is concerned.
I've had a few SKSs go through my hands over the last few years. Never fired any of them, but I really liked the feel. I remember a particular Yugo SKS that I really liked. Beautiful wood and steel. Internal mag. Grenade launcher. Smelled like Hoppes and stale cigarette smoke. Loads of character. But I have no experience with combloc weapons or the 762x39 round whatsoever.
Either one would necessarily be a range toy, a Wisconsin woods deer rifle, and an investment. I'm leaning towards trading my AR stuff for a nice SKS, but wanted to know what others think.
I have had both, and have had a lot of experience with both.
The SKS is reliable. In the past these were cheap guns, too. I bought one in 1999 or so for around $150 tops (which was considered expensive for an SKS back then), and that was a new Chinese (Norinco) SKS. These days they seem ridiculously overpriced, at least if the $400-600 range I just saw on Armslist is accurate. The SKS goes bang every time I've ever pulled the trigger on it, with good or bad ammunition. It's not an accurate gun, and it isn't an easy gun to modify. Sure, a lot of folks have thrown on new stocks and detachable magazines, but in most cases it seems like in doing so folks have also sacrificed on the one thing the SKS was good at: reliability. If you want an SKS, I'd urge you to keep it in stock configuration, at least based on what I've seen in the past.
The AR-15 is also reliable. As reliable? I don't know. But, I can tell you that I have at least one AR-15 with over 10,000 rounds through it without a single malfunction during shooting. After about 7 years I needed to replace a safety detent on this rifle, because the safety was sticking in the fire position. But, I will say that with the drills we do with our rifles at work, that rifle was probably flicked on and off of safety at least 20 times in any one qualification course. More often than not I see AR-15 reliability issues coming from one of two places: 1) bad magazines. This is probably 90% of the cases. 2) Bad modifications. Sometimes guys do goofy stuff to their AR-15's, and this can impact reliability.
Regardless, here are some other things the AR-15 has going for it: Accuracy, modularity, and ammo capacity, just to name a few.
In the accuracy department, an average AR-15 will best an average SKS any day of the week. With an AR-15 chosen for the purpose of accuracy, it will shoot like a match rifle.
In terms of modularity, you can set an AR-15 up pretty much however you want to: you can build a dead-nuts reliable rifle that is made to handle the rigors of combat and all weather conditions. You can build an ultra-light rifle for your young child or small wife to use. You can build a rifle for precision shooting. You can set one up for large game hunting, you can set one up for small game hunting. Heck, you can change out the components on any given rifle to change it into any of the configurations I've already mentioned.
In terms of ammo capacity, you're looking at a standard load of 30 rounds in a detachable magazine, versus the SKS's 10 round internal magazine (loaded via stripper clips). The AR15 is the clear winner here.
The rub in all of this is that the AR-15 isn't just a better rifle for most purposes, it's also potentially a cheaper rifle these days! When I bought the aforementioned SKS for maybe $150, AR-15's couldn't be found for less than $700-800. Today, I can build you a fully functioning AR-15 for less than $400, and that seems to be where the market is starting on the SKS these days.
Guns are always an individual preference thing, but for me I don't see many good arguments to recommend an SKS over an AR-15.
