Converting an SKS to 5.56 or 5.45?
- Thread starter lawn gnome
- Start date
I dunno why you’d want to but if you could convert it to 5.45 your ammo picking would be expensive and slim pickings.
But I would think it’d be a matter of getting a new barrel and bolt then tweaking it to cycle correctly but I’m not gunsmith so I dunno, personally you can look to a vz58 for inspiration since they did it and offer it in a 5.56 pattern.
But I would think it’d be a matter of getting a new barrel and bolt then tweaking it to cycle correctly but I’m not gunsmith so I dunno, personally you can look to a vz58 for inspiration since they did it and offer it in a 5.56 pattern.
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Bluebulldog
Regular
- Location
- Constance Bay ON
Taking a gun with minute of barn door accuracy, and trying to alter same to fire a harder to source round, or a 5.56?
have to agree with jest. Other than an experiment, why would you want to?
have to agree with jest. Other than an experiment, why would you want to?
More of a theoretical idea.
I was impressed that the guy converted one to 5.56.
The trajectory of a 5.45 is pretty similar to a 5.56, but given the casing similarity I was curious if it would have been easier to convert it to 5.45?
Barrel and chamber, ok.
Bolt? I am not sure
Mag?
I was impressed that the guy converted one to 5.56.
The trajectory of a 5.45 is pretty similar to a 5.56, but given the casing similarity I was curious if it would have been easier to convert it to 5.45?
Barrel and chamber, ok.
Bolt? I am not sure
Mag?
Blastattack
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Winnipeg MB
Barrel change. That’s it. Everything else should work fine. May or may not need to adjust the gas system for optimum reliability.
5.56 is a much more difficult proposition as a greater number of parts would need to be modified or fabricated.
5.56 is a much more difficult proposition as a greater number of parts would need to be modified or fabricated.
That is pretty much what I suspected.
Casing is identical to a M43 round, the bolt is probably good to go.
Only question is what kind of differences there are in gas pressures and what the tolerances of the gas piston are to handle it.
A 5.45 round out of a twenty inch barrel has me interested and rather curious now.
Casing is identical to a M43 round, the bolt is probably good to go.
Only question is what kind of differences there are in gas pressures and what the tolerances of the gas piston are to handle it.
A 5.45 round out of a twenty inch barrel has me interested and rather curious now.
I would think it’s cuz no one asked the Chinese to do it and my other guess would be at the time 5.45 was out and gaining popularity China decided they wanted to make their own domestic small caliber rounds so it’s probably been in the back burner with little to no tooling or development of any sort. At this point if they did start it up they’re would probably have to be a sizeable order for them to even think about it.
Soviet Sino diplomatic relations were so strained from.1956 through the late 1970s that the potential for military conflict was a real possibility. Its doubtful that the Soviets were sharing any 5.45x39 R&D the Chinese.
Besides, by the time 5.45 was replacing the 7.62x39. in the USSR, the sks was already being phased out in China.
Norinco made a few in 5.56mm shortly before the import ban in the US. There is no 5.45 ammo in Canada because there is almost nothing to shoot it out of. However the future outlook for surplus 5.45 mightt be better than 7.62x45...
Because they are making so much money producing M16 clones.
I was thinking bout the more recent additions like the type 81 I’d love to get an lmg version but with their reply to TI on how much they’d need to order before they’d consider it was a shame. Or an 81 in 5.56 would be cool too they made a few for the US before they banned em, no idea why they didn’t make any for the Canadian market since they made em before.
Norinco did make a SKS in 5.56in very small numbers but didn’t work the bugs out. A collector friend of mine had one and wouldn’t sell it as it was crap but wanted it in his collection. Did try to make it work with out success. Wolverine or someone chimed in after when this was brought up and and after I replied about it agreed they were junk. —-Dieseldog!
What do you mean by junk? The kind of person (me for one) who would be buying an SKS in 5.56 would care more about reliably than accuracy. I would buy it if it is SKS reliable but 6moa
Probably unreliable. Doubt Norinco put any effort into making them run well with the different cartridge. Probably just changed the minimum number of parts to make it go bang and called it a day, potentially leading to feeding, extraction, and /or ejection issues. Accuracy is the least of your worries if the gun doesn't run reliably.
At sks prices, totally. However anything newly manufactured, and not built on tooling from the cold war is going to cost far more than that... At which point you'd probably be up into vz58 or Wk180c sorta pricing, or at least AR pricing (i realize AR isn't NR which is a major draw of the sks) at which point the allure drops a lot.
