Highest quality SKS?

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I'm guessing you're asking about countries of origins rather than the companies that make them? They were all made by com-bloc countries. The Russian is widely considered the best quality. After that, it's a toss up, with the Romanian, Chinese, Yugos, and Albanians coming in behind. Don't know much about the Vietnamese, East German, or North Korean, but if you find one of those, let me know and I'll buy it from you. :D

I like the Yugos personally, I think they're build as well as the Russians, but w/out the price of the Russians. The one down side is they do not have chrome barrels, whereas the others all do. This makes no difference to me as I got a few with good bores to start with and don't shoot corrosive ammo through it. But if I wanted top quality, regardless of price, I'd go find a really nice Russian.
 
I've shot Russian, Norinco, and Yugo. I've handled Romanian

I'd rank them as such;
1. Russian
2. Yugoslavian (all milled parts, very nice)
3. Chinese, Romanian (not sure since I haven't shot the Romanian)

I own a yugo for a few reasons
machine work close to russian quality, newest sks you can get (beside norinco), all milled parts, no cheapo stamped trigger group. And at less than half the cost of the russian, it's a great deal.
 
High Quality + SKS = Oxymoron
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Don't know as I can agree with that. Especially given some of the CRAP machine work I've seen on some recent NIB guns (from well known names like Smith & Wesson and Ruger). Suddenly the machining quality of my SKS looks a lot better than it did before :neener:
 
Not only that, but they are a heck of alot nicer than some "stamped" rifles I've had the chance to handle.
 
I'll put up my Yugo, with the cheapest steel cased ammo, up against any AR with any ammo for a reliability test.

I like my Bushmaster, and my AK, but, to be honest, the quality and simplicity of engineering that went into the SKS is something to be admired. Those that bash them haven't yet gotten the cosmoline into their blood.
 
If your definition of "quality" is elegant machinework with everything done exquisitely, then no SKS will meet it.

If your definition of "quality" is something that has nearly absolute reliability with acceptable accuracy, the SKS is it. These things are built like a brick outhouse.

I don't know that there's a huge quality difference between the various nationalities; the Russian and Chinese ones are probably a step up from the rest, but the rest (if in good condition) are plenty good.
 
High Quality + SKS = Oxymoron
Click to expand...

Right, because there are so many instances of their flimsy plastic frames cracking.

THR enjoys a high signal to noise ratio, but occasionally the noise gets through and it is up to the end user to detect it :)

If you are bad with sarcasm, my main point is that the Simonov is one of the most solid and reliable rifles to come out of eastern Europe.
 
My Yugo is a great gun, never jams, and its accurate enough to get headshots at 100 yards. Every SKS I've seen has those features, but the 10 round magazine thing is nauseating. It shouldn't be too hard to make a reliable detachable mag system for it, but none exist. Let me put it this way, there are many people who manufacture guns and gun accessories who frequent this board. Why can none of you make a decent quality aftermarket SKS magazine?
 
1911JMB: about the 10 rd mag thing....that's part of the secret of it's reliability. I read somewhere that Simonov wanted to put a detacheable higher cap mag on it, but Stalin himself intervened and said no, because apparently they could not design one reliable enough to meet his standards. No detacheable mag could really ever be as reliable as the fixed 10 rounder it has. Detacheable mags are prone to getting broken, bent treated harshly on the battlefield. That fixed mag is not going to break.

But, you're right, a nice 20-30 rnd mag would be good. The Chinese seemed to think so with their SKS-D.
 
The Chinese made a 20 round fixed mag for the SKS and I have one on my Yugo M59/66 that works perfectly fine. I had a few problems with it when I first got it whenever I tried to cycle the rounds manually without firing it testing it out, but when it cycles by firing, I have not had a problem with it feeding properly.

I gotta tell y'all though, the Chinese mag on the inside looked so rough it is like it was made in a Chinese village blacksmith shop....but it works :)
 
There are shops around the country that used to make a kit to retrofit an sks with a new mag well to accept the ak mags (the owner of the local shop I go to showed me his kit that he had developed), BUT, it's clear that Uncle Sam thinks this is almost as evil as spawning Satan's next heir to the throne, and the rest is history. Some were qaulity and had the ak style mag release others were not and had the standard fixed mag release, which didn't work well.
 
A. Patriot is my new hero for the day. He sure knows how to ruffle feathers with the best of em.

Let me try;

The AR-15 is inaccurate, poorly constructed, uses a girly caliber, and can't hit the broad side of a barn past 50 yards:neener:
 
Guilty of SKS Blasphemy

I'm sorry everyone. I didn't mean to cause such an uproar. I did say it with a smile. :)

Seriously, I own about 6 of them including a factory one that takes standard 30 round AK magazines. Last weekend I even installed a rear scope mount and scope on one of them for my 11 year old niece to use deer hunting.

In my mind, I was comparing it to my 20 year old Browning BAR 30-06 or my Remington Sendero 7mm Mag. (not a fair comparison, I know).
 
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