When SKS were still a fairly new thing on the US market a bud and I started calling them the "American Volks Gewahr" because so many were imported and sold. If the numbers of US Customs and ATF of the time were to be believed in just the first few years of importation more were bought by US citizens than there were people in the Armed Forces, including the one week end a month reserves and National Guard.
Ammo was dirt cheap and we joked about paving walkways at a local range with spent Berdan brass washed steel cases.
What seems odd to me is how few show up on the used gun market. It seems folks got them, shot them, and then just stashed them in a closet somewhere with a pile of ammo and forgot them.
During the first run at "Assault Weapons" laws you had to be fast to get ammo when it came in to local shops and the huge ammo mail order businesses did not exist then.
I considered putting together SKS specific classes at the time and mostly had a manual ready to print and bind (just in time for two others to beat me to market at less than I thought I could gamble on for a profit)
As I saw one at the Range a week or so back I realized I no longer keep my SKS sight adjustment tool in my range bag and so could not help the kid out. Think I will start carrying it again as young guys and gals are starting to get Dad or even Grandad's SKS.
I sure wish I could get Lapua ammo for what King's ( a major SKS distributor back in the day) was selling it for back then. I shot some up recently and felt like chasing every case like a Labrador Retriever after a tennis ball!
I have to be honest , I like the SKS far better than the AK or (sorry guys) even the CZ58.
My only mod was a one inch butt pad that just screwed down over the steel butt plate. For while I took off the cleaning rod and bayonet but put the bayonet back, it s a handy means of setting the rifle down with out laying it on the ground in the field. Extend bayonet, stick bayonet straight into the ground Viola'
SKS = Some Kind'a Special!
-kBob