Exposure
Member
I have recently been bitten by the C&R bug and have fallen in love with SKS's. One of the ones I bought was pretty rough with a trashed stock, and no finish. It functioned great but looked like hell. I thought it would be fun to make it into a "sniper" SKS so I got a Dragunov stock, muzzle brake, a couple of colors of Duracoat and a Choate scope mount and scope.
Well long story short when I drilled the four holes for the scope mount I screwed up on one, I can't imagine how the heck I did it but I got one of the holes in the wrong place. To make matters worse I didn't like the mounted position of the scope feeling it should be a little further back. So I set the gun in the corner and felt pretty darn bad about it for the last couple of weeks. Yesterday I decided I was going to do something about and started practicing with my Lincoln MIG welder filling and grinding holes in a bunch of scrap steel I had laying around. Today I felt I was ready to go and the pics below tell the story!
Here is the pic of the original holes. The third hole on the right is the obvious culprit. UUUUGGGGGHHHHH!!! Was how I felt when I wiped away the oil and shavings and saw what I had done. I considered buying another SKS and starting from scratch.
Here are the holes welded up and ready to be cleaned. Hope I do it right!
And the finished product. I used very low heat, just enough to penetrate, and very short dwell time on each bit of weld I added. I hope this kept any damage from occuring to the reciever itself. It all is still perfectly square and the action cycles fine. I am assuming it is okay. Once I Duracoat everything there will be no evidence externally of any repair. Of course it will be covered up by the scope mount anyway which will be about 1/2 inch further back, AND drilled properly!
I think it came out pretty good for a first timer. Now I just need to redrill and finish off this darn project! Full pics will follow when it is finally put together.
Well long story short when I drilled the four holes for the scope mount I screwed up on one, I can't imagine how the heck I did it but I got one of the holes in the wrong place. To make matters worse I didn't like the mounted position of the scope feeling it should be a little further back. So I set the gun in the corner and felt pretty darn bad about it for the last couple of weeks. Yesterday I decided I was going to do something about and started practicing with my Lincoln MIG welder filling and grinding holes in a bunch of scrap steel I had laying around. Today I felt I was ready to go and the pics below tell the story!
Here is the pic of the original holes. The third hole on the right is the obvious culprit. UUUUGGGGGHHHHH!!! Was how I felt when I wiped away the oil and shavings and saw what I had done. I considered buying another SKS and starting from scratch.
Here are the holes welded up and ready to be cleaned. Hope I do it right!
And the finished product. I used very low heat, just enough to penetrate, and very short dwell time on each bit of weld I added. I hope this kept any damage from occuring to the reciever itself. It all is still perfectly square and the action cycles fine. I am assuming it is okay. Once I Duracoat everything there will be no evidence externally of any repair. Of course it will be covered up by the scope mount anyway which will be about 1/2 inch further back, AND drilled properly!
I think it came out pretty good for a first timer. Now I just need to redrill and finish off this darn project! Full pics will follow when it is finally put together.