Chinese SKS Rifles

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tinkerer416

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I was reading through a book I got from the Library & I came to a chapter
entitled "Working Chinese SKS Rifles" which I found very interesting & figured
that some members would also find it of interest so I'm going to pull bits&pieces from this chapter. The book is titled "Practical Gunsmithing" by the Editors of American Gunsmith. Here goes:

"manufacturing facilities...little more than assembly points...parts come from hundreds of small shops all over China....not only inconsistent the way they are assembled, the metal used for the parts vary widely too. Cheap Chinese steel is made the way we did it 100 years ago. China also makes a top-quality steel, but it obviously will not be used in rifles they sell us so cheaply.......good parts are mixed with bad...soft metal is to blame for the majority of the problems....broken extractors are quite common.These were designed to last forever even under the worst battlefield conditions, but poor metal defeats the original plan....Each broken extractor I have seen did have a common trait- its metal was porous, sandy and very brittle......major problem will be getting parts...fit less than 20% of the time. They can be made to fit only about 70% of the time..."

There's a lot more info in this chapter, I just tried to highlight a few points
of interest.
 
Speckfire said:
Interesting... What's the book called and who is the author?
Click to expand...

That info is on lines 3&4.
I'll write it more clearly:
Book Title- "Practical Gunsmithing" (got it from the Toronto Public Library)
Authors- "The Editors of America Gunsmith". The book is written by a variety of authors...it's a compilation from different gunsmiths. The author of this SKS Chapter is Butch Thomson.
Publisher- DBI Books
 
tinkerer416 said:
That info is on lines 3&4.
I'll write it more clearly:
Book Title- "Practical Gunsmithing" (got it from the Toronto Public Library)
Authors- "The Editors of America Gunsmith". The book is written by a variety of authors...it's a compilation from different gunsmiths. The author of this SKS Chapter is Butch Thomson.
Publisher- DBI Books
Click to expand...

Uh oh, hope Miller isn't reading this, or Libraries will be banned... or have book restrictions :)
 
tinkerer416 said:
That's definitely the book- no longer in print- that Amazon price is way too high at $50+ USD.
Check out AbeBooks......starting at $17.50 USD
http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?sts=t&tn=practical+gunsmithing&x=51&y=10
Click to expand...

terracecar,
Sorry, the price from AbeBooks I quoted is from a book with the same title but not the same book (different author)!!!!!!!
The book we're both talking about is the same price on both AbeBooks & Amazon.......must be a highly valued & sought-after book to command those kind of prices!!!!!! It is a darn good book for those of us who are or want to get into gunsmithing.
 
tinkerer416 said:
The date is 1996.....it could be that the Chinese have made improvements
since then.....after 13years, it's quite possible that their QC & their overall
manufacturing has improved.
Click to expand...

I thought most of Chinese SKS's we got were made before 1996. but I'm not very sure about it...
 
tinkerer416 said:
That info is on lines 3&4.
I'll write it more clearly:
Book Title- "Practical Gunsmithing" (got it from the Toronto Public Library)
Authors- "The Editors of America Gunsmith". The book is written by a variety of authors...it's a compilation from different gunsmiths. The author of this SKS Chapter is Butch Thomson.
Publisher- DBI Books
Click to expand...

Thanks .. my bad :redface:
 
I've yet to see a broken metal part from a Chinese SKS made to normal SKS pattern other than the odd butt trap spring or safety spring.

What is this 100 year old steel making practice for which they offer no evidence or example?

The last military Type 56 carbines were made in the mid 80s for the PLA and military export contracts.
 
eos said:
I've yet to see a broken metal part from a Chinese SKS made to normal SKS pattern other than the odd butt trap spring or safety spring.

What is this 100 year old steel making practice for which they offer no evidence or example?

The last military Type 56 carbines were made in the mid 80s for the PLA and military export contracts.
Click to expand...

Actually some evidence & examples are provided but I didn't include them
as I only provided snippets from the chapter.....here's more:
"......we took seven Rockwell hardness tests up & down the same barrel & got seven different readings. I've had the same experience with receivers.
From my experiences with this gun, the tubes & pistons are made of higher grade metal and have been properly heat treated.......trigger assembly.....
......only the surface of the 3 part sear mechanism is hardened....filing or buffing will remove the hard surface and effectively destroy these parts"

There's more to read but again I only provided some more bits&pieces.

There are a couple of things to keep in mind:
This book is from the States & published in 1996 & they could just have received a bad batch at around that time (maybe China was trying to
stick it to 'em....lol)
 
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