''I wouldn't think that an AK, SKS, or any other firearm chambered in 7.62x39 would be very useful where the country is open and the ranges over 100+/- yards.''
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The SKS's are the girls, my 13 year old and my 16 year old.Carol is in the picture trying my M-39, and she was doing quite well, getting a heavy rifle like that out past 300 yrds. She has an M-39of her own, but it is hard to put down a much trusted and accurate rifle that she has with her SKS..........Im fairly sure she like the idea of 'More guns' ........LOL!!.
Being on the smaller size of gals,(5' even and 5'3") her and the youngest, Qutan, both fit and handled the SKS's size and recoil, while my middle daughter Mary used her Brno CZ527 in 7.62x39 for many years as well.
Now that they are getting grown, they are better able to properly use the larger, full power cartridges, and both have a Mosin and all the ammo they want to pound away with.
The two oldest daughter had .223s when they were growing up, the boys too.
Range with the 7.62x39 is the limiting factor. The rifles are accurate enough. We teach them to get close with game, only use a gun they can make a killing with, and if the 7.62x39 is treated like a .30-30, and its limitations, then all is well. They know when Not to shoot as well.
The AK is a 5.56 I put together, An AK-47 flat, AKMS under folding stock/under folding stock trunion,, Ak47 bolt carrier, Bulgarian .223 bolt (spring loaded firing pin, short stem), a 23mm Bulgarian trunion, a Bulgarian barrel I turned to 18.5mm and fitted AK-74 from the rear sight base forward.
Mags are the Chinese 5.56 steel 30 and 40 rounders I ended up with a ton of, so I put em to use
I put German G3 front and rear sights and a flash hider, wooden furniture and a tapco trigger group, and enough USA made stuff for legality's sake.
Still, its not bad out to 400 yards with 55grn stuff, probably further if I really tried.
From what I've read, the folks who have Ruger American Ranch rifles in 7.62x39 are getting excellent accuracy from them. I bought my Wife one of the Davidson's non-cataloged stainless 77 MK2 in 7.62x39 back in the 1990's, but it isn't the most accurate rifles I've owned, perhaps due to the long tapered throat that eases .311" bullets into .308" bores.
Lyman used to, maybe still does, make a receiver sight for the SKS that mounts on the left side of the frame, not on the receiver cover like the 57C, and, at least for me, allows for a longer sight radius and a little more precision, or at least as much precision as a NORINCO SKS is likely to produce. Back in the early 1990's I thought that the flood of new $90 Chinese SKSs would become the most common barn/ranch/truck gun in the U.S., but they didn't.
I'm not much of an AK guy, probably due to the fact that during my 7 years in the Army, almost everyone with an AK was the enemy.
