Pictures of my new Yugo SKS!

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Solinvictus70

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Chattanooga, TN
This picture is right after I got it home and placed it on the deck. Note the cosmoline sheen over it.
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This picture is after cleaning the exterior, mag well, gas piston, and bolt group. I've still got an hour or more of detailing yet to go.
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The rifle itself is unissued, I'd doubt seriously if it's been shot other than a factory test fire. It took lots of WD-40 to free the firing pin.
 
Locally

A local FFL, Darr Shooting Supply about 5 miles north. He's the only dealer in Chattanooga that bothers carrying milsurp and he's got a great selection. My next purchase will be a Mosin Nagant.
 
Don't use WD-40 to clean the bolt/firing pin, WD-40 will congeal to a very sticky consistency when heated and it could lead to a 10 round runaway, which has killed at least one shooter in the past.

Use aerosol carb cleaner, it's better and it's cheaper. That's the only thing I'll clean my SKS bolt with.



Newton
 
Why not just disassemble the bolt and clean it with a rag and some solvent?
 
Nice looking Yugo! You are going to be even more happy once you get to shoot it, I bet. I love SKSs and I think the Yugo is my fav. It is the least recoiling of any SKS due to the extra weight up front. It makes for a nice bench gun and I also perfer it for standing shooting because I like extra weight to steady the gun.

You really should get a C&R FFL. I did and it has "saved" me the cost of the app many times over. I think it has saved me money but it has also made me spend a lot more than I had ever intended also. I am getting guns delivered to my house way too often for it to be saving me any money.:D
 
what my buddy did, which made his yugo look extra shap, was he sanded the stock and refinished it.
 
Dude, you really might want to consider punching out that firing pin retainer pin, remove the firing pin and get all of the cosmo & WD40 out of there. It is tough and you may have to press it out with a vise but from my experience, there is a ton of crap in that firing pin channel. You do not want a slam fire, full auto SKS. If you can't shake the bolt and have the pin rattle back and forth, you got a potential problem. Go to surplusrifles.com if needed for instructions. Just my .02 worth.
 
Ditto the firing pin warning. Very important to take it apart and clean every nook and cranny, especially the first time w/ all that cosmo.

How did you clean the stock? If you didn't sweat it out w/ heat (sun, heat gun) or soak it out with a degreaser bath (Purple Power), it'll prolly sweat out cosmo when the gun heats up from firing. Bring paper towels to the range.

I took mine completely apart, cleaned all metal parts w/ brake cleaner and CLP, and gave the stock the Purple Power/ boiled linseed oil treatment. Very happy with the results.
 
Because pounding out that damn pin is a pain in the rumpus!
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A sudden unexpected slamfire, full-auto, empty the magazine, oh crap why is there a hole in my friend incident is an even bigger "pain in the rumpus" ;)

Dave
 
Yeah, full-auto, slam-fire SKS's caused by stuck firing pins are bothersome to say the least. Trust me, I know from personal experience.

Frank
 
If you cant get the firing pin out ( i gave up) soak and swish the whole thing in mineral spirits for several days.Worked for me.I beat my brains out trying to get my bolts apart.My Chinese or Romanian werent that hard but those Yugos are a different beast all together!
 
Ok, I have the same problem with my yugos. Grease and gunk in the firing pin cause it to not strike well enough at times and thusly, result in unfired rounds.

Now, I am supposed to spray someting on the bolt in order to dissolve the grease? So what is it that I am supposed to be spraying??
 
A sudden unexpected slamfire, full-auto, empty the magazine, oh crap why is there a hole in my friend incident is an even bigger "pain in the rumpus"
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Oh, I know. I clean my SKS firing pins religiously. I was just adding a little levity. :)

Ok, I have the same problem with my yugos. Grease and gunk in the firing pin cause it to not strike well enough at times and thusly, result in unfired rounds.

Now, I am supposed to spray someting on the bolt in order to dissolve the grease? So what is it that I am supposed to be spraying??
Click to expand...

Actually, you need to be removing your firing pins and cleaning them and the pin channel spotless. Do not add any grease or heavy oil after cleaning. Otherwise, you may get a slamfire, and that could ruin your life.
 
I had a SKS firing pin retainer pin that I felt was impossible to pound out safely with a hammer. I did the following:

Drilled a half inch diameter hole in a 2x4 - board was about a foot long

Cut a heavy nail in half and filed it flush on the end. Nail should be no bigger in diameter than the retaing pin.

Put board in vise & place the bolt up against the board with the big/flat side of the pin facing the hole you just drilled and the small side of the pin facing outward.

Wearing safety glasses, put the nail up against the firing pin retainer pin and slowly close the vise.

You can ease the pin out with no problem using a good heavy vise. Now clean out the firing pin channel (I used mineral spirits and brake cleaner, Q tips and a pipe cleaner) and put it back together - firing pin must be in the same orientation as you took it out. I hammered the pin back in, taking time to jiggle it between strikes to make sure the retainer pin wasn't binding up on it in any way.

I'm no pro but this worked great without a lot of hammering. YMMV.
 
Cleaning

I'm not finished by a longshot. It still has cosmoline all in the trigger group and mag well. I'd heard that carb cleaner or even break cleaner would work on the bolt assembly. I may bring the bolt group to work and fiddle with removing the firing pin. I've got more work to do this weekend, the preliminary clean was enough to be able to handle the rifle. I researched the serial number and it was manufactured in 1967. I'm looking hard at an M48BO at the same FFL.
As far as the cosmoline in the wood, how do I get it all out?
 
With my heavily cosmolined SKS' I generally boil them in water for a half hour or so (use an old pot that will never be used for cooking again, don't ask me how I know this :rolleyes: :D ). After cooling off they get soaked in mineral spirits for a couple of days. If after all that the pin doesn't rattle around then you can consider punching out the pin & really cleaning the whole assembly. To date I haven't had to go that far in my cleaning.

However don't screw around with cleaning/decosmolining that part of the rifle. Or at the very least, make very sure of your backstop & what is a few degrees above it when shooting it for the first time.

Greg
 
Firing pin

OK, so it needs lots of free movement? I appreciate that, the last SKS I owned was a decade ago and a Norinco. I wondered about movement, because it still seemed rather stiff after the cleaning. I'll cook and soak it, then.
 
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