I broke my SKS :(

[Cerdan]

Well, probably not but it did stop shooting mid-session. Fired a few reloads, no problem. Then I fired five rounds of S&B soft-points, and upon inspecting the spent cases I noticed four out of the five primers were pierced.

Buddy loaded another five, but it never shot again. At first the trigger wasn't responding. Racked the slide and then I was able to squeeze the trigger, but the "click" seemed noticeably lighter and only very slightly dented the primer, failing to ignite it.

I removed the bolt (in which I'd installed one of those spring-loaded firing pins from the SKS man) to inspect the tip of the firing pin (thought it might have broken off). It protrudes from the breechface as much as before when I push it forward from the rear.

I'm being a bit lazy here 'cause I intend to take it apart and take a closer look, but I had a few minutes downtime at work tonight and thought I'd ask you guys if you ever encountered something similar, or if you have any theories on what might be going on.

Thanks!

 

[Satain]

I had the excat same thing happen to me. The spring in now no good. Found whole punched primer's every were and even inside with the firing pin. Turned out that there was a primer wedge in my trigger assembley that was the problem.

 

[Cerdan]

So there's something in the trigger assembly preventing the hammer from striking with full force then? That was my running assumption after having determined the firing pin was intact...

The spring in now no good.

How do you mean "no good"? Which spring? Hammer spring?

 

[Claven2]

Two main possibilities, both as a result of using commercial ammo in your SKS. The primers are too soft and are piercing. If you insist on shooting commercial ammo, get a spring-loaded firing pin first.

1) Your trigger and bolt are perhaps heavily oiled. Powder from the primer blowback made the oil sticky like glue and things are gummer up.

2) The little brass discs punched out from the primer are either stuck in the firing pin channel or somewhere in the trigger group.

All you need to fix this is a good cleaning of the gun.

 

[David_K]

Two main possibilities, both as a result of using commercial ammo in your SKS. The primers are too soft and are piercing. If you insist on shooting commercial ammo, get a spring-loaded firing pin first.

1) Your trigger and bolt are perhaps heavily oiled. Powder from the primer blowback made the oil sticky like glue and things are gummer up.

2) The little brass discs punched out from the primer are either stuck in the firing pin channel or somewhere in the trigger group.

All you need to fix this is a good cleaning of the gun.

He said he has a spring loaded firing pin.

 

[Claven2]

In that case, I would inspect the point of the pin to make sure it is not too sharp. It should be smoothly rounded. Next, Iwould check the firing pin protrusion. If too much, you may need to stone the pin down a few thou.

Problem is, if you don't fix the root cause of the primers piercing, your problem will recur even if you clean the trigger mechanism and get it running again.

 

[Satain]

2) The little brass discs punched out from the primer are either stuck in the firing pin channel or somewhere in the trigger group.

This happened in my rifle except they were even found in my reciever, mag assembelly and also inside the bolt with the firing pin. This resualted in the rifle slam firing or not firing. Also the rear of the firing pin on mine broke off so the big tab that was there was no more. To fix this I went back to the orignal set-up and has been working fine ever since.