Which Country for SKS

+1 on Yugo M59's (not M59/66).

Russians too; Romanians no less.

Just a dumb question for you guys: I just bought a new Norinco SKS and already love it - that gun is a sweet shooter. However, I don't know how to read the sights on it. When you pull the rear sights all the way back, does that set it to "battle", or to 100 yards? Just wondering, because my shots were going a bit high. I don't know if it's the rear sight, a mis-aligned front sight, or maybe just me.

Its the sights. They are set in meters and they suck. Get ya'self a set of techsights and fugedaboutit

I talking about 20th Century. We're living in the 21st Century, btw.

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So the Chinese were building arms before the start of the "last" century (by which you actually meant the 20th century) which means they were building them before 1950 or so. That doesn't make sense friend. And what does "China's decentralization policy regarding armaments in preparation for nuclear war" have to do with what you were talking about?

BTW the Chinese "bought" rifles from Germany. They didn't produce them at least not on anything like a modern industrial level. Why do you think it was so easy for Japan to defeat the much larger China before WWII? What few rifles were available were based on Mauser designs but the plain fact is that corruption in the Chinese military meant that there was almost no standardization in production and that a lot of Chinese soldiers were ridiculously under armed. Their commanders stole the allotments of weapons they got and sold them for their own profit. They also stole the pay of their soldiers and kept dead soldiers on the payroll for years to pad their own pockets. At any rate China was NOT producing rifles for Germany. In the 1930's the Chinese army was using a collection of Mauser based rifles (bought on the surplus market for the most part although some crude examples were made in China) FN's, Mannlichers straight pull rifles from the 1880's, Caranco, Vetterli and even cap and ball rifles from the US Civil war period. Maybe the only significant production they did was what was called the "Type 21" rifle which was a crude copy of the FN rifles of the time. They did not make many of them and while they did function pretty well they were hardly on the same level as truly modern weapons being produced or designed at the time or even the equivalent of WWI era rifles from the west like the Springfield, the Enfield, and any number of western designs. They were even using stuff like French Gras and Chassepot single shot rifles. Yes they made attempts at copying Mausers but their success was very limited and I'll stand by my assertion that by any modern standards the Chinese really got into rifle production in the 1950's with what the Russians taught them about the SKS. The idea that they were selling rifles to the Germans is just not logical. They bought rifles from Germany but that ended when the Germans switched to the 7.92 caliber rifles and started issuing them solely to their own troops. The Japanese didn't make them stop building rifles for Germany. Why would Japan ever do that considering Germany and Japan were allies?

But you have given me nothing except evidence that China "bought" rifles from Germany anyway. I thought we were talking about Chinese "production" of rifles. I don't mind discussing history where it's appropriate but if you jump around like that it's hard to follow what you're getting at. Please don't take this the wrong way but I have no clue why you would be telling me about China buying rifles when the discussion was about China producing rifles. It just makes no sense.

None of this is related to the OP's question so it dies here for me. Have a good day and I wish you the best.

bainter1212 said:

Its the sights. They are set in meters and they suck. Get ya'self a set of techsights and fugedaboutit

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Those SKS sights that were adjustable way out to long distances were awfully optimistic about the ability of the SKS to reach out and hit something at long distances. I have never bothered adjusting mine to try to get a better sight picture for something at 300 meters. The bullets shoot fairly flat at that distance anyway but they aren't exactly flying straight and true most of the time. Good accuracy is pretty much limited to 200 yards although it is possible to hit something at 300 yards with a little luck. Those stock sights aren't going to help much though. A little Kentucky holdover works a lot better IMO. No reason to adjust a sight and hope it is still lined up the same way.

Is the Paratrooper Model a gun that never was?

All SKS rifles were made with a 20" barrel. When they started importing them to the US they were asked to shorten the barrels to 16" on some of them for marketability. So any SKS "paratrooper" is just a modified SKS. Shortened the barrel, cleaning rod and bayo.

The Russians have a higher collectability because there are fewer of them as they were only made until early 1956. Russia sold everything to China and literally shipped everything over to the Chinese arsenal plant and sent some of their guys to help them get started. The Chinese SKS started production in late 1956 and were literally a Russian SKS with defferent markings/stampings. After so many years the Chinese changed things to save money.
There are milled and stamped parts, long lug and short lug screw in barrels and pinned barrels. Some even had sheet metal receivers.

Some people get too caught up in it all. The Russian and early Chinese were very heavy overbuilt guns that were made to last a lifetime through war. Even the later "cheap" SKS is still a extremely solid well built rifle. Even the cheapest SKS is still build more solid than probably any rifle you could go to the gun store and buy today.

All SKS rifles are good, its just that some were built like tanks in comparison to others that were just built to last a lifetime of abuse.

I also want to add that the Russian barrels were chrome lined from late 1951-1956 when they stopped production. All Chinese are chrome lined. Only the Yugo's and early Russian's didn't have chrome lined barrels.

I think the Yugo M59/66A1 is the most interesting SKS. It has a grenade launcher and grenade sights, plus flip up night sights. Very cool!

Other than the wood I would put a Romanian right up there with a Russian.

Let's not forget that China had been given type 99 Arisaka Mausers as war reparations. These were rechambered to 8x57 Mauser without re boring. The FMJ ammo simply swaged down to 7.7 mm bore diameter. They also had the great Mukden Mausers built during the 1930s in Mukden, Manchuria then called Manchukuo. China had the capability of manufacturing millions of rounds of 8x57 from the 1930s on.
They are the first known customer to order rifles in .277 bore diameter. They had Model 98 Mauser prototypes made in 6.8x57 caliber. Many people believe that the legendary Mexican Arisakas in 7x57 were finally delivered to China after the regime of Porfirio Diaz defaulted on the Japanese contract. These had a Mexican Eagle on the receiver ring.
Given the firearm history of China, you can easily see why there is so much confusion on the issue of SKS manufacture.

Looks very familiar. Pro Russian separatist in eastern Ukraine.

http://d.ibtimes.co.uk/en/full/1381527/pro-russian-separatist.jpg?w=720&h=526&l=50&t=40

safety is off ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

As always when SKSs are mentioned I feel compelled to post mine.



There are a couple (long and short) Chinese ones, a Russian, Yugo and Romanian