Newly manufactured chinese sks's feesable?

tinviper

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I seem to remeber a company saying newly made sks would have to retail for around 600 bucks a few years ago. I wonder if thats still true?

I think the market may be close to bearing this especially with majority of semi autos being banned.

Another thing anyone know why sks d's stopped being made?
 
The last attempt to reintroduce a long-out of production military firearm was the Australian Lee Enfield Mark 4 (IIRC). It looked and handled like a No.4 but came in a couple of chamberings, .5.56, 7.62x39 and most commonly 7.52x51. The designers figured that there was a big supply of part they could cycle into their production lines, and that demand would be sufficient. It didn't work out very well at all. The old Marstar had them, and sold out quickly, but didn't restock.

The SKS went out of production in China because they changed service rifles from a semi-auto to a selective fire genuine Assault Rifle. Ditto for the East Germans, Russians, Yugoslavs, etc. That would have been back in the 60s or 70s. I don't know the reason why new commercial rifles have been a thing, except maybe there was a leftover production line that just kept on making rifles until they figured there were enough out there.
 
I seem to remeber a company saying newly made sks would have to retail for around 600 bucks a few years ago. I wonder if thats still true?

I think the market may be close to bearing this especially with majority of semi autos being banned.

Another thing anyone know why sks d's stopped being made?


Similar thread was already posted a while ago in the general discussion, but if you had to make a rifle like that using the old school technology, it would be much, much higher than $600, as the old school machining and tooling is pretty expensive and it requires somewhat skilled workers (read higher paid workers)
If I had to guess, newly made SKS rifle would have to sell for at least $2000 to make any kind of profit in today's market.
 
Before the embargo on Chinese arms, military SKS rifles were imported into the US in large numbers. The demand was so great new ones were made for the US market. They looked like issue rifles, but weren't. Quality was noticeably less than issue PLA rifles. Retail price in the US was modest. But these rifles were not only inexpensive, they were cheap.
Whether the tooling for actual service grade SKS rifles still exists, who knows?
How many would have to be ordered to entice a Chinese manufacturer to tool up and get them into production?
Then there is the risk of committing to a project and then having Justin and Bill scupper the rifle.
 
Before the embargo on Chinese arms, military SKS rifles were imported into the US in large numbers. The demand was so great new ones were made for the US market. They looked like issue rifles, but weren't. Quality was noticeably less than issue PLA rifles. Retail price in the US was modest. But these rifles were not only inexpensive, they were cheap.
Whether the tooling for actual service grade SKS rifles still exists, who knows?
How many would have to be ordered to entice a Chinese manufacturer to tool up and get them into production?
Then there is the risk of committing to a project and then having Justin and Bill scupper the rifle.

Plus, if new sks were to be built I'd much rather the Russians made them. Not a big fan of china right now.
 
A new SKS would require a new production line, this would cost a LOT. This is not a stamped firearm and small quantities (in terms of the number sold vs the cost of set up) would make for a huge cost per rifle
 
Somehow I believe that the current SKS prices are not real, mostly caused by the sudden high demand and shortage of everything else.

When, if it will happen, everything comes back to normal, we will see SKS prices come back down. There are so many of them out there, and they are not the best semi-auto rifles. People will eventually stop panic buying, or be able to buy other rifles, and will sell the SKS's.
 
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Somehow I feel that the current SKS prices are not real, mostly caused by the sudden high demand and shortage of everything else.

When, if it will happen, everything comes back to normal, we will see SKS prices come back down. There are so many of them out there, and they are not the best semi-auto rifles. People will eventually stop panic buying, or be able to buy other rifles, and will sell the SKS's.

People said the same thing about lee enfields, garands and even mosin nagant m44s. The price aint gonna go down. It is not 1997, 2005 or 2016 anymore...
 
Similar thread was already posted a while ago in the general discussion, but if you had to make a rifle like that using the old school technology, it would be much, much higher than $600, as the old school machining and tooling is pretty expensive and it requires somewhat skilled workers (read higher paid workers)
If I had to guess, newly made SKS rifle would have to sell for at least $2000 to make any kind of profit in today's market.

If it was made in the developed world. Built by Chinese slave labour like all things Kanadian Tire or Princess Auto, it would be as.cheap as the greed of the importers.
 
I do think the price will go down in the future, but the "regular" price will be starting at $400 for all makes of SKS. The days of <$400 SKS's are gone forever.
 
The biggest problems I see are the following:
1) US manufacturers aren't going to go on this project when they have access to AKs; SKS's are great but there's a reason Russia moved over to the AK. It's essentially going to be a Canada only project.
2) There would have to be a level of modernization done to the SKS; at this point they would at the very least need to all be -D models
3) Further to the above, people would want multi cal option, most common I'd imagine would be .223, 7.62 and even potentially 308
4) Price would probably be at minimum around the $1k range
5) You would have to go to market with a "new" firearm that is up against surp rifles that have been sitting in crates since the 50's and hope they work as reliably if not better.
6) Part of the reason the SKS has kept skipping by being banned in Canada, is due to its next to impossible tracing of how many are in circulation including indigenous people. The other part as I see it, is the SKS well is finite and drying up paired with part support only being ripped from donor guns. To this, the SKS's that are in circulation currently are on their way out. To put them back in modern production gives the feds even more 'reason' to justify banning the SKS and its "variants".

Take this opinion with a grain of salt, I've just thought about this a lot. This is just how I see it going down. Maybe if I win the lotto I'll do the production myself at a loss, but until that day I can only dream.
 
Those Australian (aia) enfields did sell well. What happened was, they were using some Chinese or Vietnamese steel for the barrells I believe. And their biggest market...the usa saw that and it was on the do not import commie list. So their biggest customer dried up over night.
 
The only thing that was keeping the price low was a seemingly endless supply of minty russian and as new chinese sks's now the dumpy hodge podge rifles are selling for 350-400 . I think demand has overloaded supply. It might level off but with the next semis being atleast a 1000 i dont see any changes to prices anytime soon
 
It would be cool to see new SKS be made but I have a feeling it would cost more than we would want to pay. I think some slapped together NR sten guns that use glock, CZ or beretta mags would be a better investment. As long as its reliable it would sell.

It does not even have to be a sten gun. Any generation 2 sub machine gun that is 9mm and NR would do.
 
Those Australian (aia) enfields did sell well. What happened was, they were using some Chinese or Vietnamese steel for the barrells I believe. And their biggest market...the usa saw that and it was on the do not import commie list. So their biggest customer dried up over night.

More than just Chinese or Vietnamese steel. The rifle has been displayed as a product of the Vietnamese arms industry. The ones marketed by AIA did not qualify being labelled as "Made in Australia" under Australian law.

As far as banning SKS rifles goes, this government doesn't give a silent fart that there is a large number of them in the country.
 
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