Dealing with slop in SKS stock/receiver

[Suther]

Like most, my sks is a bit lose in the stock.

I was wondering what people have done to take this slop out? I can feel it shifting every time I pull the trigger and I know it can't be good for accuracy...

So I was thinking either shim it? (With what? Where?) or bed it? (With what? Where?)

 

[grelmar]

I used baking parchment paper (shh! Don't tell the wife I was raiding her cooking supplies!)

Folded it over until it had the right thickness, pressing occasionally with an iron to compress it and stiffen it up a bit, then cut it to shape to fit behind the heel of the receiver, forcing the action forward tight against the cross-stock lug in the fore-end.

It's held up nicely, and shaved a good 1" + off my group sizes at 100 yards.

The advantage is that I could adjust the thickness essentially one sheet's thickness at a time until I could get it just right, and when done it has roughly the same stiffness as wood - feels hard, but like wood, actually flexes slightly under recoil, so it still distributes and absorbs the forces like a wood stock is supposed to.

It's a bit of a process and trial and error to get it right. Good rainy day Sunday project when you've got nothing else to do.

 

[BeaverMeat]

I used steel shim sheets from Brownells (20 years old) and a feeler gauge to get the proper thickness and cut the shims to fit in the rear tang slot. You can also mess around with the fore stock tension by shimming the front ferrule. The gas tube can be shimmed also with a 'U' shaped shim if it wobbles around too much. Although, I'm unsure how that effects barrel harmonics enough to improve accuracy.