My SKS "Hunter" model

LawrenceN

LawrenceN

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Location
Toronto (West end)
I didn't know whether to post this on the "gunsmithing" forum or here (heck, I may do both), but I thought I'd share my mods and reasoning behind them. I love the SKS rifles. Over time, I've picked up a few that have been modified by others so to set the purist's minds at rest, no rifles were harmed in the making of this build. I don't know if others have had this problem, but it seems to me that most of the after-market synthetic stocks have a sloppy fit for the rifles. I bought this rifle in an ATI Dragunov style stock, but I was never happy with the accuracy. Sure, it looked cool and it gave me minute-of-deer accuracy, but I wanted to tweak it as a pure hunting rifle and to hell with the "tacticool" factor. I figured that I'd put it back into the original wooden stock it was fitted for to see if that would tighten up the groups.
So, where to start? Firstly, I got rid of all the unneeded metal. I ground off the bayonet and cleaning rod hardware as well as the forward sling attachment. I filled in the bayonet channel with a piece of maple and used auto body filler to fill in the rear sling swivel. I blued all the places where I'd removed any metal. I put on the UTG recoil pad and commercial "quick detach" swivels. The scope was something I'd fabricated a long time ago and it's in another thread about SKS mods. With the Russian shellac stripped off and the wood and Bondo filler bits, I decided to just paint the stock a flat black and give it a few shots of satin lacquer.
So, here's the finished product (or almost so). I intend to drill some 1/2" lightening holes into the scope mount as the amount of steel there now is excessive. Comments or observations are more than welcome. Enjoy!

 
I like it!, I'm a fan of the clean look up front (no bayonet and bits). I saw an sks the other day in a laminate Timbersmith hunting stock and it looked pretty sweet.
 
Plasticman said:
looks nice and clean. solid looking scope mount you have there. Maybe do some type of simple bedding job, if you want to keep screwing around with it.
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Hey Plasticman, thanks for the kind words. As to bedding, there's no room in the factory stock for any bedding compound. That's why I took it out of the ATI stock and put it into the original factory stock.
 
mhowarth said:
That's a nice looking rifle! Have you had the opportunity to get it out to the range yet?
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MARK!!! How you doin'? I have several lots of ammo to try out. I have Prvi PSP and RNSP, Sellier & Bellot PSP, my reloads, and some China Sport soft point. My plan is to get up north to my buddy's place where we have a nice little range set up on his land. That way, I can take my time and try out each type of ammo to see which is the best performer. As it was before I got to work on it, I felt the accuracy was substandard for my application.
 
Nice and clean as far as mods go. As for bedding, you may want to take another look.
Look at the recoil shoulder behind the recoil lug and see if it actually touches anything in the stock.
Mine had about an inch of space behind it so pleanty of room for some high strength epoxy.
 
Beermaker said:
Nice and clean as far as mods go. As for bedding, you may want to take another look.
Look at the recoil shoulder behind the recoil lug and see if it actually touches anything in the stock.
Mine had about an inch of space behind it so pleanty of room for some high strength epoxy.
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Thanks Beermaker, I'll take a second look. At present, the action fits like a glove in that stock, so much so that a spare action I had wouldn't fit into the stock. I still have a few minor tweaks to do, like the lightening holes in the mount, before I'll call it done. When I get 'er to the range, I'll publish a range report with the different ammo that I'd listed earlier and share the results with you lot.
 
Winston1984 said:
Nice setup Lawrence. One day I want to try something like that scope mount. On the 'list of projects' for now.
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Thanks Winston. If you choose to fabricate your own scope mount, take another closer look at mine. You will note that I made it with a long nose. In effect, I've built a shell deflector into the mount and I've found that I can mount any optic and not have to worry about the brass dinging off the bell of the scope. As an added benefit, it tends to consolidate the ejected casings into a smaller area so it's easier to police the brass at the end of a shoot.
Another "heads-up" to anyone contemplating doing what I've done. Personally, I love using a cabinet scraper to strip old stocks. If you're not familiar with them, look at Google and see what they look like and how they're used. All you need is either a small tarp or newspaper to catch the shavings and a vacuum cleaner to pick up any residue. It's a very fast method of stripping old stocks and there's nothing wet or sticky to worry about. Because the stock seems to be oily under the shellac, I may have to strip it again and use oil based paints to either go flat black or make a cammo design.
 
LawrenceN said:
MARK!!! How you doin'? I have several lots of ammo to try out. I have Prvi PSP and RNSP, Sellier & Bellot PSP, my reloads, and some China Sport soft point. My plan is to get up north to my buddy's place where we have a nice little range set up on his land. That way, I can take my time and try out each type of ammo to see which is the best performer. As it was before I got to work on it, I felt the accuracy was substandard for my application.
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Can you find any Federal Fusion?
Though not through an SKS, I was quite impressed with the Fusion I tried last week.
I'd been struggling to find accurate deer ammo, while I save some brass, and found the Fusion grouping to about half any other commercial ammo. It's also the only ammo to group tighter than surplus, through my XCR.
My results at 100 were about 1.75, compared to Winchester at ~4".

The rifle looks good, good luck.
 
I don't know if anyone local carries the Federal Fusion ammo, but I'll call around and see the prices. I'd love to try as many types of ammunition as I can to see what produces the best results. Thanks for the heads-up. BTW, the China Sport ammo seems to be a Chinese rip off. I'm going to section one of the bullets to see the construction, but a magnet sticks to the bullet so I believe them to be steel core with just a lead tip so that it looks like proper expanding hunting ammo.
 
LawrenceN said:
I don't know if anyone local carries the Federal Fusion ammo, but I'll call around and see the prices. I'd love to try as many types of ammunition as I can to see what produces the best results. Thanks for the heads-up. BTW, the China Sport ammo seems to be a Chinese rip off. I'm going to section one of the bullets to see the construction, but a magnet sticks to the bullet so I believe them to be steel core with just a lead tip so that it looks like proper expanding hunting ammo.
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I would like to see what those bullets look like, too.
 
The Kurgan said:
It's hard not to like that rifle. Very nice. How does it shoot?
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Thanks Kurgan. As I'd mentioned earlier in the thread, I haven't had a chance to do a serious work-up on it with the 5 different types of ammo I have on hand. Actually, I'm a dummy! I just remembered that I have some of the Hornady V-Max ammo as well, so that will be 6 different types of ammo to work with. After I get it to the range, I'll put out an addendum to this thread with pics of the grouping provided by the different types of soft point ammo. Us gunnutz gotta stick together and share knowledge and info, correct?
 
Absolutely. And, we love ammo reports. Personally, I have had excellent success with the Hornady SST and the Prvi SP. Both make the SKS as accurate as most other semi's out there.
 
LawrenceN said:
I don't know if anyone local carries the Federal Fusion ammo, but I'll call around and see the prices. I'd love to try as many types of ammunition as I can to see what produces the best results. Thanks for the heads-up. BTW, the China Sport ammo seems to be a Chinese rip off. I'm going to section one of the bullets to see the construction, but a magnet sticks to the bullet so I believe them to be steel core with just a lead tip so that it looks like proper expanding hunting ammo.
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It'd be the steel jacket that makes the magnet stick not a steel core.
 
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