Thank you. I was suprised with the matching internals only costed me 220
Chinese SKS rifles get a bad rap. Some folks claim they're inferior to Russian SKS rifles. IMHO, that's a false assumption. The only thing about Chinese SKS rifles that would make them better would be a higher grade of wood for the stock.
The thing is, those rifles weren't made to be pieces of art. The early rifles were built on Russian supplied machinery and built under Russian scrutiny. As mentioned there was a switch in bayo type. Chinese SKS rifles with proper early blade bayos will fetch a premium price.
OP, your rifle has been Factory Thorough Repaired. It was likely test fired at the factory, before being dipped in cosmoline and wrapped. It wouldn't be unusual for the internals to be matching IMHO. I've seen many of them that are very similar to your rifle with matching internals.
Chinese SKS rifles work and go bang every time they're supposed to, unless something is broken or assembled improperly. They are not tack drivers accuracy wise. They can be fiddled with to get sub two inch groups but that is more a labor of love than anything else. They can be dressed up and in the few I've worked on, the parts from any other SKS, no matter where they were built will interchange. Only one needed a bit of stoning to make the part work. Mostly, the parts are just drop in and go.
Some of the folks here know SKS rifles to the point of splitting hairs. No I don't have any issues with that. Your rifle is a great place to start collecting milsurp rifles. If you decide you want to collect/shoot SKSs, you will find there are a lot of variants and each of those variants has a story. Good way to pick up on history and how governments make decisions.
There are many people that have used SKS rifles under stressful conditions that preferred them over AK types. Lots of good reasons for that. They are handy, rugged, dependable and in a pinch make decent hunting rifles out to 150 yards with ammo they like.
One thing about them though, they can have some variation in bore diameters. a few thousandths of an inch one way or the other. Some will actually shoot .308 diameter bullets well.
The real drawback for handloaders is finding fired cases. The SKS flings the brass a long way after ejection. If you're shooting in a grassy area, hardly worth looking. If your shooting in one of those areas where the ground is covered in a mat of unpicked up cases, sorting them out is next to impossible. So, if you're not shooting surplus, which is getting more expensive the rifles aren't as cheap to shoot as they were a decade back, but what is?
Decent rifles all around, even the models with the press fit barrels. Your rifle's barrel is screwed in.
