Short barrel SKS

Madmardigan said:
Ok, I seen enough. I'm doing it! I'll cut it to 18.75" to stay on the safe side. My only issue is I dont have tools to re-crown it. Anybody have a rough idea how much a smith will charge to do a crown job?
And is there anything I should know before going ahead. I take it you dont just measure from the muzzle? Is it from the base of the chamber?
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Bolt face (closed empty chamber) to the muzzle. There is an old school way of crowning. Using a drill, a brass screw and valve lapping compound. I did this on a .22 and worked great, very uniform and very cheap.

If your cutting on your own with a saw, you can use a pipe cutter to score the barrel, making a groove for the saw blade to follow.
 
Fyn said:
Bolt face (closed empty chamber) to the muzzle. There is an old school way of crowning. Using a drill, a brass screw and valve lapping compound. I did this on a .22 and worked great, very uniform and very cheap.

If your cutting on your own with a saw, you can use a pipe cutter to score the barrel, making a groove for the saw blade to follow.
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Thanks for the info! Is the angle of the crown not critical? As long is I can still hit a 2L bottle at 100 yards and in, I'll be happy.
As for cutting the barrel, I have two ways I could do it. Either a hack saw, or I can use a air die grinder with a thin cutting disc. Not sure whats best. I dont have a pipe cutter, but I seen a guy on you tube who just clamped on a piece of angle iron to guide the blade. I think I'll try that.
 
I used a grinder with a cutting wheel, then used my dremel to clean up the cut and finished with some metal polishing compound. It was really smooth. But, I'll admit, I did a crap job on the crowning. I just used a cone shaped dremel bit and stuck it in till I could see a slight angle, then again used the polishing compound on a soft dremel polishing bit to smooth it off. Not scientific at all and I wish I'd taken more time.
 
Madmardigan said:
Thanks for the info! Is the angle of the crown not critical? As long is I can still hit a 2L bottle at 100 yards and in, I'll be happy.
As for cutting the barrel, I have two ways I could do it. Either a hack saw, or I can use a air die grinder with a thin cutting disc. Not sure whats best. I dont have a pipe cutter, but I seen a guy on you tube who just clamped on a piece of angle iron to guide the blade. I think I'll try that.
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Not as critical as most think.There are 90 degree angle back bore crowns,45 degree cone or the "magical" 33 degree conical...45 is the easiest to do with hand tools and is better than none. There are a lot ways to improve a SKS,but it will NEVER be a precision rifle. I used a 45 degree counterbore in mine,turned out fine. Flaking chrome is BS,the chrome lining is just damped on there,far from being as thick as on a '57 chevy bel air bumper! If you do the cut,avoid tools that heat up the material (i.e. anything hi rpm grinding),rather band or hand saw-as mentioned before,pipe cutter helps to maintain a straight cut,then use a file to smoothen the cut.Reusing your sights...well you would have to turn your shortened barrel down on a lathe or drill the sight seat to fit the thicker barrel diameter behind the original sight location.
Everything is possible on a SKS,the question is how mucht time you are willing to spend.
 
Madmardigan said:
My only issue is I dont have tools to re-crown it. Anybody have a rough idea how much a smith will charge to do a crown job?
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Do it yourself, go down to your local home depot and find a brass round head bolt that is slightly smaller diameter than your barrel. Then go to Canadian Tire and get some valve grinding compound. Put the bolt in your drill, cover the head with grinding compound. center it on the bore and slowly use the drill to give you a dished crown. I've used this method and it works good. It was shown to me by an old gunsmith years ago, it was the only way he re-crowned rifles.
 
Madmardigan said:
Ok, Anybody have a rough idea how much a smith will charge to do a crown job?
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The last precision crown job I had done in Edmonton was a bout 45 bucks. Most of the "do it yourself" crown jobs have been substandard in my opinion, but I'm sure there are individuals out there who can do a proper job, I just haven't seen any of them. depending on how clean the cut is, you need to account for some loss of length to re crown. If it requires too much material to come off, you have to counter bore to keep legal barrel lengths. Proper crowning makes a huge difference in accuracy.
 
Thanks again everybody. I was talking to a buddy at work who is a fellow CGNer. He told me he has a pipe cutter that he thinks would do a pretty good job, so I'll try that method. I'll look into having the crown done by a professional. If it's only around 50$ I can handle that. Too bad about the front sight. I'm thinking of getting the Bushnell T-dot for it witch has some back up sights built into it just like a ACOG. Anybody have any experience with that sight? It looks to me like it will be next to useless if the dot ever goes out. Or is there a way to sight in the back up?
 
Madmardigan said:
Thanks again everybody. I was talking to a buddy at work who is a fellow CGNer. He told me he has a pipe cutter that he thinks would do a pretty good job, so I'll try that method. I'll look into having the crown done by a professional. If it's only around 50$ I can handle that. Too bad about the front sight. I'm thinking of getting the Bushnell T-dot for it witch has some back up sights built into it just like a ACOG. Anybody have any experience with that sight? It looks to me like it will be next to useless if the dot ever goes out. Or is there a way to sight in the back up?
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No they are just moulded into the rubber/plastic on the ones I've seen. What mount are you going to be running? They are a high optic (AR height)
 
As far as cutting the barrel down I've heard there can be issues with rounds cycling because of less pressure in a shorter barrel? I've thought cutting mine down as well a few inches ahead of the gas port but have heard some negative results, anyone else heard of this, as far as the folks that think restricted is a negative for a few hundred bucks you can have one of each
 
I have had NO issues with cycling after cutting it down. Maybe if you cut it WAY down there could be issues, but the SKS cycles so hard it can honestly use a bit less pressure.
 
Canadiantactical2011 said:
As far as cutting the barrel down I've heard there can be issues with rounds cycling because of less pressure in a shorter barrel? I've thought cutting mine down as well a few inches ahead of the gas port but have heard some negative results, anyone else heard of this, as far as the folks that think restricted is a negative for a few hundred bucks you can have one of each
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I wouldn't worry about the gas pressure, an SKS has plenty to spare and can lose half but still operate flawlessly. For two inches of barrel less, I doubt you could measure or calculate the difference. The gas piston operates as soon as the bullet passes the gas port, the microsecond difference in sustaining pressure is already after the fact.
 
if you were to re-class it to restricted, it would follow the same rules as pistols, correct? so if you re-registure it as a restricted firearm wouldnt you be able to cut it off at any length aslong as the barrel is longer than 4"??
 
m-134 said:
if you were to re-class it to restricted, it would follow the same rules as pistols, correct? so if you re-registure it as a restricted firearm wouldnt you be able to cut it off at any length aslong as the barrel is longer than 4"??
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Read the entire thread, this has been covered already. You CANNOT chop below 18", skip the restricted class, go directly to jail.
 
I was suggesting taking the maximum amout off, possibly 1.5-2 inch past gas tube, there was some info I had read recently that suggested this would create a problem cycling and a few people had found this to be correct, just wondered if anyone here had some first hand info
 
Fyn, I'm going to be using the choate mount that bolts to the receiver. I still haven't ordered it yet, I could get the mount that goes in place of the factory rear sight.
If there is no other way of having some back up sights, I'll most likely get a optic that dosent need a battery to work. If that's the case I'll could still end up getting the scout mount and go with a Burris scout scope.
Ahh! So many decisions. All I know is I need to have this build planed out before I order anything. But I'm definitely shortening the barrel. I want to have one tacted out sks, then I'll be buying another with a laminate stock and just leaving as is.
 
Madmardigan said:
Fyn, I'm going to be using the choate mount that bolts to the receiver. I still haven't ordered it yet, I could get the mount that goes in place of the factory rear sight.
If there is no other way of having some back up sights, I'll most likely get a optic that dosent need a battery to work. If that's the case I'll could still end up getting the scout mount and go with a Burris scout scope.
Ahh! So many decisions. All I know is I need to have this build planed out before I order anything. But I'm definitely shortening the barrel. I want to have one tacted out sks, then I'll be buying another with a laminate stock and just leaving as is.
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You could give it a try, I really suggest a micro RDS. I'm not sure if it's up your alley, but when I had my SKS I ran a Molot (Russian) side rail, in order to use AK style optics. Some of the Russian red dots have a black dot reticle etched on the glass, so they still work without power (like the PK-AS).

If your going to run the Choate mount, you could also run something like a Millet DMS-1, its 1-4x, pretty light, nice glass for the money, and it has an illuminated red donut reticle, but it has an actual etched reticle as well if the batteries fail. At 1x it's almost as quick as a RDS, but you get the advantage of magnification when you want it.

If your going the scout route, I would suggest the Scout Mount version over the BC Tactical. My BC Tactical was far to short to mount an actual scope. The Scout Mount has a longer rail, but it is a bit more complicated and expensive as well.

Just brainstorming anyway, keep us posted on your progress, it sounds like it will be pretty cool :)
 
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