Misfiring SKS

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jumpingjupiter

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Picked up a 51 Russian SKS yesterday and some Czech mil surplus 7.62 ammo. First SKS, First time with Mil Surplus ammo, hell... this is my first semi-auto.

Took it home and cleaned out the cosmoline. Cleaned it up and I let the bolt soak in brake cleaner for 45 min and cleaned it up as best I could with out disassembling it.

First magazine (5 rounds).... 2 shots then a misfire then 2 more shots. I thought... hmmm.. might have just been a bad round.

Second magazine (5 rounds) 3 shots followed by 2 misfire.

The next few magaizines, only the first round loaded would fire then 4 misfire.

Pulled the bolt out and took a look at the firing pin. Added a dab of oil to the pin, wiped off the excess.

All misfires for the next 2 magazines.

Checked the dimple on the primer and didn't see much difference between the misfires and the spent casing.

Now for the odd thing. The misfires would fire consistantly the second time provided I fed them in one at a time.

I got home and cleaned the gun, disassembled the bolt and cleaned the firing pin channel, firing pin, and ejector with in an inch of it's life. Haven't tested it yet but the free floating pin rattles much easier now.

I figure my problem is one of 3 things.

Gunk on the firing pin or in the channel (I figure this will be corrected now)
A warn firing pin that isn't striking deep enough to set off the primer.
A light strike. (weak hammer spring perhaps??)

Anyone with an SKS experience this problem? Any advice? Am I on the right track?
 
9 times out of 10 it'll be caused by the fact that you didn't disassemble the bolt before you fired it for the first time.

Now that you've cleaned out the firing pin channel, you should have far fewer misfires (there might be some from surplus ammo, it's just the nature of the ammo).
 
As mentioned above, disassemble the bolt, clean it thoroughly, do not oil the firing pin.
I fired my 1951 Tula for the first time on Friday and had zero misfires, FTF, FTE, FT anything.
 
The first SKS I had experienced the same issue.

It would misfire with Czech surplus about 20% of the time. Rounds would always fire on the second go.

Hungarian surplus was 100%.

The Czech primers are hard.

I fully dissasembled the bolt and it got a little better.

Some on the SKS boards suggested slightly (and I mean slightly) round the firing pin.

No love. Eventually I ordered a new firing pin and that solved the issue.
 
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I guarantee you that its the bolt. My Norinco was mis-firing even after I throroughly degreased it, so I watched a Youtube video on how to dis-assemble the bolt and after cleaning the bolt, it fires just fine. Like others have mentioned, dont oil it.
 
also make sure that the recoil spring is installed properly.the wavy part goes in the bolt and the straight part of the spring is visible to touch the cover...
 
I had the same issue happen with mine and I had disassembled the bolt and cleaned it quite thoroughly too. I was wondering if it was striking the primers lightly or bad ammo. Also, my firing pin came with a spring on it, so it doesn't rattle freely. Does anyone else have a spring on their firing pins too. Should I remove it?
 
jcuffe6240 said:
my firing pin came with a spring on it, so it doesn't rattle freely. Does anyone else have a spring on their firing pins too. Should I remove it?
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no, dont remove the spring , the spring will reduce chances of slamfire when using commercial soft primer. just keep it clean and not oil.
 
Thanks for the advice. After taking apart the bolt cleaning the chanel and pin I got a chance to take it to the range today. I also picked up 2 boxes of differnt ammo to compair.

90% fire rate on the CZ ammo (100 rounds - 10 misfire). 100% fire rate on the different ammo (40 rounds). One thing I noticed about the misfire ammo was the primer was resessed a little deeper. I checked all the Czech rounds and found the primer to be slightly ressessed but you could feel with your finger the misfires were a hair deeper.

Cleaned the gun after the range and pulled the fireing pin again. Got in the chanel with some q-tips and carb cleaner this time. Not sure if it was just carbon from recent firing but there was junk in the channel. Carb cleaner is great stuff for breaking down petrolium products so there may have been still some residual after the last cleaning with brake cleaner.

Last week, Lever Arms provided me with a replacement firing pin and suggested sanding just a little bit of material off the fireing pin shoulder so it would strike deeper. Now that I have sanded a hair off, if I start peircing primers, I can always put the replacement fireing pin in.
 
PS.

I took my buddy with me to the range. He is a way better shot than I am. His 50 yard groupings were the size of a toony. Even after the barrel was getting hot, his patterns were very tight.

Not sure why I folks on the forums slag this gun for being inaccurate.... It shoots better than I do :)
 
jumpingjupiter said:
90% fire rate on the CZ ammo (100 rounds - 10 misfire). 100% fire rate on the different ammo (40 rounds). One thing I noticed about the misfire ammo was the primer was resessed a little deeper. I checked all the Czech rounds and found the primer to be slightly ressessed but you could feel with your finger the misfires were a hair deeper.
Click to expand...

i wanna get this straight , your misfire primers had deeper strike than your czech primer that went off ?
 
All of the Czech primers feel slightly ressessed. But the miss fires with the Czech ammo had a primer that feel a hair deeper in the case than it's brothers. The newer test ammo had primers almost flush with the case had a 100% fire rate.

The original issue was definately gunk in the pin/chanel. This smal percentage misfire rate now, I think is related to the ammo.
 
jumpingjupiter said:
All of the Czech primers feel slightly ressessed. But the miss fires with the Czech ammo had a primer that feel a hair deeper in the case than it's brothers. The newer test ammo had primers almost flush with the case had a 100% fire rate.

The original issue was definately gunk in the pin/chanel. This smal percentage misfire rate now, I think is related to the ammo.
Click to expand...

i get you now. the whole primer was set deeper .
 
Just to be clear, is it safe to re-attempt to fire misfired rounds? Just pop them back into the magazine and fire them again? I've never shot the Czech surplus stuff yet so I'm just wondering how to handle it when the time comes. Thanks.
 
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