Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles What kind of accuracy are you getting with your SKS rifles?

Lets talk about something other than AR's for a bit. I'm wondering what kind of accuracy one should expect with their SKS rifles. I've been shooting mine a little bit lately because I have a couple thousand rounds of steel cased ammo. I don't want to burn it up, but I also haven't wanted to burn up all of my AR15 ammo either. I'm saving that chidt in case we go to war or SHTF.....and reloading components are getting harder to find. I'm saving what I have. So in the mean time, I have been shooting more of my SKS and 22lr etc... I found a cool old stock still new in the package at one of my favorite LGS near by. She sold it to me for $40.00 and I'm pretty happy with it:

I installed it the other day and took it to the range. I really like the pistol grip on this cheap synthetic ATI stock. I took the bayonet off because I don't need it on there. I'll keep all the parts incase I want to return it to original. The original stock is like new:

I've also added a rear aperture sight. You can see it in the pic above^^^^ The rifle puts them in the black bulls eye religiously and I think, that is accurate enough for what it is.


Here's a group I shot last year after I got it. I don't even think the barrel is broke in yet:


How do your guys' SKS rifles shoot? I know, "MOM". We all know that, but seriously, how do they print on paper at 100 yards? Thanks guys and have a great weekend... Feel free to post your pictures and targets. MontanaMarine, you can post pics of how well your AR15 7.62x39 shoots. I like that little rifle. Maybe it will give me some ideas on what kind of ammo I can try, if I don't load my own. Or hell, let me know where you buy cheap/inexpensive bullets (preferably .310-.311") to load that produce good accuracy..

Long ago, I had an old SKS that I thought would do okay, so I put a "Scout scope" type rig on it, and the group sizes went from 3.5"@100 yards to 4" @ 100 yards. Needless to say, I took the scope rig off and kept on using the iron sights. It was more of a curiosity to me anyway, but I thought it might make a good rainy day deer rifle. I was just shooting Chinese ball ammo for it, but some experimenting with Hornady 123s and 680 powder didn't show any improvement at all compared to the ball ammo, and the softer commercial primers often doubled, due to the floating firing pin. IIRC. RP brass used small primers and Winchester brass used Large Primers.

What I know now. I should of bought a pile of them in my younger days when they were selling for $79.99 lol... Now days the ones I see are priced with AR15’s I rather blow my money on a AR15. But if I ever ran across an SKS cheap I would nab it for sure..

Now funny story. Every year the rifle club I belong too has a summer solstice match. It’s a fun shoot, people encouraged to bring what they normally don’t shoot. This is when guys bring out the M1 garlands.. well one of the guys who is a damn good shooter brings his SKS. Remember this is a 600yd match. Anyhow he tried and tried but never could get on paper at 600yds. I suspect that Russian ammo wasn’t doing so well at those ranges lol..

Ha ha. Thaks for sharing J. Guys around here bring their M1 Garand's out for our military rifle shoots and some of our black rifle shoots, when allowed. We had a huge turnout (for our little club) last time. Guys were allowed to bring whatever semi auto centerfire rifle they wanted. AR's against M1's and M1A's etc. Great shoot. I didn't feel too bad about pulling the iron sighted Noveske out. The funny thing I see all the time is guys not zeroed in with their rifles and ammo. It never fails...... I've seen guys shoot 1 moa 5 shot groups with irons during practice and sight in before the shoot and call it good and then have a hard time hitting the broad side of the target when its their time up to the bench... I know you see all kinds of goofy chidt too....

Thanks for your input ratsmacker. I loaded some ammo up the other day and was not impressed. I used some 150gr bullets that came out of some M2 ball from 1942. I think the steel case Wolf HP's did better... ha ha.. Those 150's don't shoot too bad in the AR10 though...

My chicom SKS is a money pit and the only reason I continue to puck around with it is that I am a tenacious old cuss.
As far as I can tell, it is nothing more than a bullet hose capable of laying down covering fire or reliably hitting a man center of mass at 50 yards and in. But I continue to hope.
Back in the day, when you had to buy them without the bayonet, a friend bought a "case" of them or some such. I'm pretty sure they were new, unused chicom (Norinco.)
He sold me one with a pile of ammo and accessories for something like $120. Then I started spending money on the POS.

Choate Machine and Tool stock: $60 (I'm 6' 2" if I haven't started shrinking.)
Trigger job from some guy everyone raved about: $60. I guess it is better than it used to be, but how hard is that?!
Tech SIGHTS brand rear aperture: $60
The Choate stock and Tech SIGHT were worth the money. I'm not sure about the trigger job (more later.)
So at this stage it was a $300 SKS.
The protrusions left over from removing the bayonet were sure to snag and rip a truck seat someday, so I cut all that off and refinished the front end with Brownell's spray on / bake on.

Part of my problem is my 67 year old eyes do not do well with iron sights, at least for any precision. Conventional open sights are damn near useless. A rear aperture is better, but not great. I can still do pretty good work with both front and rear aperture sights. (Thank God for Lyman 17A front sights and Lee Shaver inserts for same! I have a few rifles so equipped, and in good light I am as accurate with them as with a 1x scope.) But a front aperture sight for the SKS has proven elusive. If I am to have one, I suspect I will have to make it myself, and even a metric screw of the proper thread (M6 x 0.75) is not easy to come by.

The SKS is difficult to scope. The most solid ways to mount a scope (D&T the receiver) result in a high mounted scope at a poor position for eye relief. So that is a doubly bad. A longer eye relief "scout" scope is not easy to mount solidly.
I tried a red dot on a Scout Industries brand mount. The mount is well made (and made nearby, in fact), but the design principles behind it have never inspired confidence. (I'm a Mechanical Engineer, so that opinion has at least a bit of expertise backing it up.) To be fair, I cannot say it is a bad mount. I am having so much trouble with this rifle that I don't know if it is the intrinsic accuracy or the sights. All I know is that I can shoot an accurate rifle well if it has sights I can use.
If I recall correctly, Ultimak, who builds some great scope mounts, actually started life as a company planning to build a mount for the SKS as their first product. They have gone on to build some great mounts, but alas, they still don't make a mount for the SKS. Perhaps that puts the difficulty in perspective?

I think the best thing for an SKS is a red dot. Having put some study into mounts for the SKS, I think the best two are the MagWedge rail (or similar) or a UTG #005S mounted on the barrel behind the front sight with a Bushnell TRS-25. I have a MagWedge I have never used, but it feels solid. This will allow proper eye relief for a decent scope, albeit a bit highly mounted. It will mount a small red dot reasonably low. The last idea, a red dot way out on the barrel, comes from YouTuber "Insane Accuracy." I have never shot same, but I did mount one up. The sight is definitely subject to damage way out there, but it looks hella cool and the rifle handles VERY well. We will see how it works out.

So far, I have tried "Russian white box", Wolf, S&B, and PMC. Nothing has stood out as best, but again, sights are still not settled. Lately, the damn thing has begun to give me more than one bang per trigger pull. I have not yet determined if it is a floating firing pin / soft primer issue or a trigger issue. I believe there is an outfit (name escapes me at the moment) that makes firing pins with hold back springs, but if I recall correctly it is a bit pricey. This thing is not only a money pit, but a DEEP one!

Again, this is a project I come back to from time to time only because I am a tenacious old cuss. I have not yet made the decision to go down the rabbit hole of hand loading for this damn thing, but I might. I'd settle for 4 MOA, but I'd really like at least 3 MOA.

May be more than bsa1917hunter wanted me to crap on his thread, but since we were talking SKS, I do believe some of my rambling may help others.

Gun Doc out.

I haven't had an SKS in years, but bought two new ones in the early '90s when they were cheap. I did a lot of load development work with cast and jacketed bullets. The cast were more accurate. I'd have to look up old notes, but I think the best cast loads would shoot into about 3" or so at 100 yards. I never tried any accessories or scope sights. These are incredibly crude guns and I finally realized I could afford better. Got rid of my SKSs and miss neither one.

Thanks for your post gun doc. I like your idea of an aperture front sight. I think I have a spare laying around here somewhere. Something you guys don't know about me is I went to school to be a machinist. I'm a welder by trade though, so working with metal is a breeze. I really like front aperture sights. I have a newer rendition on one of my [bleep] shooting AR's and damn near broke MOA with that set up in the black rifle challenge here with that rifle. I might head out to the shop and see what I can put together. Also, it is funny the day after I started this thread, I was at the range and a new member pulled out a sweet looking SKS. Had a bad azzed looking stock, and it was scoped. I was watching him shoot and he had a hard time putting all his shots into 10". His buddy, that was not a member was shooting a cool A2 AR15 and was talking about wanting to shoot some of our ar matches to see how his home built A2 would fare against our rifles. I told him to join the club, we'd love to have more guys shooting events. I'm sorry to hear your SKS is a POS. Mine runs flawlessly and its fun to shoot. I don't expect it to shoot as good as any of my AR's, but do expect at least 4 moa out of it. I've been getting that out of it too. With better sights, it should do better.

BSA,

I look forward to your efforts to come up with a front aperture post. I believe the thread for the front sight is M6 - 0.75. This should not be a terribly odd size as it is listed as standard M6 fine thread. But so far I have had a hard time sourcing screws in that thread.

If I can solve the multi-shot issue, and when I finally settle on sights, I believe I might end up with 4 MOA. I don't remember if I have measured the bore. I know the proper way is to slug it, but I could probably learn a lot using some gauge pins. My guess is I have shot a good bit of .308 down a .311 barrel.

If using cast bullets, treat the SKS like any other rifle used for cast shooting. Slug the bore if you like, but I never found it necessary. The largest diameter bullet that will permit easy chambering of the cartridge and stay within SAAMI specs will be the right diameter for best accuracy. That diameter will be somewhere between .311" and .314". According to my notes, I used .313" for my two SKSs, but that probably would not be a universal diameter. For my Ruger bolt-action 7.62x39, .311" cast bullets were best, like they are for most .30 caliber rifles.

Been a while, but mine is a "commercial" from the '90s that came with a yellow thumbhole stock and takes standard AK mags. It shoots well. Maybe 2 MOA or so with basic ammo. I don't have any hard numbers on group sizes.

A SKS that took AK mags and was a legit 2 MOA gun would be worth hanging onto! If reliable, and not prone to "doubling" or worse, I could even live with a shoddy trigger pull on such a rifle.

Well, the trigger is "typical" - its really not so bad.
And yeah - its not going anywhere.

Its got the short barrel. Now I'm wondering if they tend to shoot better.

Sounds like a great rifle. I'd hang on to that one..

In retrospect, I'm thinking its more like 3 MOA.
But it's a good rifle, and shoots better than I expected it to when I bought it.

3 moa is still pretty dang good with an SKS. At least from what I've seen. I've managed to shoot a fluke group with my dads other SKS (same Yugoslavian model as the one I have, except he shot that one a lot) one time that measured 2". That was 10 shots (full mag). His rifle is well broke in though and shoots better than the one I have. My hope is that as mine breaks in, it will also shoot better. One of the reasons for my question in the OP. Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this thread. Its always nice to see what others experience may be on a subject. As for the guys calling the SKS rifle "junk" or a "pos", that may have been their particular rifle. From what I've experienced with them in almost 30 years has been they are pretty exceptional really for what they are. They run flawlessly, if you don't try to modify them too much. They don't like some detachable magazines. I've seen that with my dads experimenting with his rifle. If you keep them pretty much bone stock like mine, they are a work horse. As for a combat weapon: I'd fear one, as I can keep all my shots on a head sized target at 100 yards. No problemo at all.

I have an extra Chinese trigger group laying around, if anybody needs one.

I have a Yugo SKS. It is a 2 MOA gun all day long with Ruusian Tula ammo. Heavy as hell, though.