dleong
Member
Hello, all.
Last Friday, a couple of friends and I were at the local range. One of my friends, Jim, was firing his "military unissued" Yugo SKS for the first time, using Wolf ammunition.
As we were stationed at separate benches firing our own rifles, we were not monitoring each other. After the range session, Jim indicated that he had experienced a jam in which the bolt had partially stuck open while extracting a spent case. He also recalled that the recoil for that discharge was significantly less. Jim managed to clear that jam by forcefully pulling the bolt carrier back and ejecting the stuck case. He then proceeded to fire another couple of boxes of the Wolf ammunition with no problems.
Thinking about what happened, it appears rather likely that the jam was caused by a "squib" round, i.e., a cartridge with little or no powder. The lack of recoil also leads us to believe the projectile did not clear the barrel, and remained lodged therein.
If that is in fact what happened, I think we were lucky that the subsequent rounds discharged did not rupture the barrel.
The SKS was closely examined after this, Visually, there did not appear to be any damage to the barrel, and no change in resistance was noticed when running a bore brush through the barrel (that might have indicated a bulge).
What else can be done to ascertain if his SKS is still safe to shoot?
DL
Last Friday, a couple of friends and I were at the local range. One of my friends, Jim, was firing his "military unissued" Yugo SKS for the first time, using Wolf ammunition.
As we were stationed at separate benches firing our own rifles, we were not monitoring each other. After the range session, Jim indicated that he had experienced a jam in which the bolt had partially stuck open while extracting a spent case. He also recalled that the recoil for that discharge was significantly less. Jim managed to clear that jam by forcefully pulling the bolt carrier back and ejecting the stuck case. He then proceeded to fire another couple of boxes of the Wolf ammunition with no problems.
Thinking about what happened, it appears rather likely that the jam was caused by a "squib" round, i.e., a cartridge with little or no powder. The lack of recoil also leads us to believe the projectile did not clear the barrel, and remained lodged therein.
If that is in fact what happened, I think we were lucky that the subsequent rounds discharged did not rupture the barrel.
The SKS was closely examined after this, Visually, there did not appear to be any damage to the barrel, and no change in resistance was noticed when running a bore brush through the barrel (that might have indicated a bulge).
What else can be done to ascertain if his SKS is still safe to shoot?
DL
