Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Took SKS to the range

I was shooting those Tula 154gr sp 100 yards. I was getting a little more than 2 inch 5 shot groups. Can expect any better groups at that distance?

Do you need better?

No, whatever you do, don't sell that rifle, and buy more of that ammo.

This

Might want to try some in in the 123-124 grain. This was the original bullet weight.

Those are excellent groups for a military rifle. Not bad for a deer rifle, either.

Wow, I find myself in agreement with TAK. Yes, that's excellent accuracy for an SKS. You could try some Lapua ammo if you want to see the best in accuracy, but I doubt it's going to improve on that significantly. Russian AK ammo is FAR better than most give it credit.

My AK shot Russian ammo more accurately than any US made 7.62x39. And then a box of Lapua increased my accuracy by a good 30%. But only the Finn's can afford to feed Lapua to an AK.

AMEN THAT!

I sold all of my SKS rifles back in 2008, but I had a couple of Tula Arsenal, laminated stock rifles that would shoot very good groups with the 123 grain stuff.
The SKS always gets a crap brush off from the 'knowledgeable' gunners. You know the ones? The guys that own nothing but high end ARs?

The SKS that I once owned would shoot much better than the typical 123 grain milsurp ammo commonly available for it.

It would group very well with .311 diameter 150 grain commercial bullets loaded over H322.

It's been a long time ago and I don't remember the specific load, but H322 is very slow for the chambering and you pretty much have to load a case full of it in the 7.62X39 with 150 grain bullets to get consistent burn with it.

One big advantage with an SKS is that you're getting a TRUE mil-spec rifle. One that's made to an ACTUAL military specification. Everyone claims to be "mil-spec" but they're not. They're referring to a military spec for dimensions, but military spec goes WAY beyond dimensions.

It will be something like:

You will buy this grade of steel from these 4 vendors. It will then be cut on this make/model machine. Then the milling operations will be done with this fixture, on one of these 3 approved mills, with this cutting tool sourced from these 3 approved vendors, at this feed rate. Then the hardening will be done in this type of furnace at this temperature for this long, and quenched in this grade of oil kept at this temperature range, and held for this many seconds. Then the steel will be hardness tested by this process using this machine.

THAT is military spec, and there's a reason for that. They have figured out what works and what doesn't. All the "new" stuff that claims to be mil spec...that just means it will probably drop into your gun. But you have no idea of the metal quality and the manufacturing process.

With a true military rifle, you know that it's made exactly the way it's supposed to be made. That's why there isn't a lot of call for SKS parts; they generally don't fail for decades of hard use.

Like was said, keep it and get more of that ammo. That's pretty darn good for iron with an SKS.
I had the same experience with H 322 hand loads. A bit slow. Better to go with 4198.

I bought 500 rds of the 154gr sp and 500 of the 124gr fmj.

my old sks shoots right at 1in at 100yds with remington ammo. get some good ammo and try it.first time in the woods with mine i killed a 11pt buck at 75yds . shot him in the neck facing straight at me and he drop in his tracks.

Stretched the sks out to 250 yards today, 4 inch groups with the 124gr HP.

Looks like you found your truck gun.

You could probably win some beer bets at the range with the tacticool wannabees and their m-4's..

I love the way this thing shoots.