School me on SKS magazine options

jacotsmith

jacotsmith

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Hi everyone,

Maybe I'm unCanadian. I don't like the Leafs. I don't drink Tim Horton's coffee. And I never had any interest in owning a $150 (back in the day), sixty-year-old communist-era relic from the back room of Canadian Tire. Until recently.

After owning literally hundreds of firearms in my life, I have finally bought a SKS to give it a try.

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The whole 5-round internal mag and stripper clips thing is not going to work for me though. So what are my options for alternatives?

I was looking for a reasonably priced D model to take advantage of AK mags, but I picked up a Russian standard model instead. The price was right.

So from what I can tell, the most common option is to use the duck bill mags. Other than looking absolutely ridonkulous, they don't fit in standard mag pouches. But I understand you can get an adapter that plugs the hole and allows you to cut the duck bill off. That doesn't really interest me though as I would rather not buy a bunch of proprietary mags that only fit one gun, when I've got lots of other different mags already.

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I see there are a variety of magwell adapters available that allow usage of AR pattern and 10-round pistol mags, which is much more appealing. But the adapters are hard to come by and expensive and require some mods to install and function. Is one brand better than the other?

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Am I missing any other options out there? What do you all use? Any thoughts on the magwell adapters? Any other "mandatory" mods you would recommend? Firing pin/springs/mag release/etc?

I know I'm late to the party here, but these things just never interested me before. But if the Liberals ban every semi-auto they possibly can, because of the popularity of this one, particularly among certain demographics the Liberals try to keep happy, I figure it should be closer to the bottom of their priority list.

But that's using logic, and we all know that the Liberals even want to ban gun-shaped sticks. Especially if they're black.

But not black shoe polish, Justin needs that to play dress up.

Anyway, please let me know your recommendations.

Thanks for looking!
 
It's a conundrum for sure.
I was never a fan of the duckbill mags or any of the conversions to alternate mags.
I personally would have held out for an SKS-D model but every knows I am gonna say that hehehe :evil:
Right now I see at least one for a grand...... a decent offer might snag it for less this time of year but you never know.
It solves the magazine issue right off the bat as they are fairly easy to come by at the moment but possibly not for long......
 
Thanks. I’ve missed the odd good deal on a D model, but most seem to be going for minimum $900, which is much more than the one I bought plus a mag adapter, so even with the additional cost I’m still ahead of the game if I go that route. Plus I prefer AR mags to AK mags if given the choice. But are the adapters dependable? I get one of the selling points of the SKS is how they are dead nuts reliable and I don’t want to mess with that.
 
I just bought an SKS D for a grand, but the seller still hasn't removed the post. So either the seller has more than one or he just hasn't pulled it off the EE yet. There is a SKS KD listed for 900 though in the same EE post.
 
You can go the other route and get your SKS Hi Caled this involves shaving the bolt to accept XCR pistol mags to 10, and also like the D model fill fetch a price of 1 k to buy. My Tula is HI Caled and never missed a beat with Chinese surplus.
 
It's your rifle. Do what you wish, however I will say this: Any attempt to make the SKS into something it isn't is going to disappoint you and waste money. You're going to spend cash to irreversibly change something to try and make into something it was never designed to be. It's a fool's errand.

I have an SKS-D, and for what they are, they're 'OK'. Looks cool, but that's about it. The SKS bolt intrudes into the magazine much more than an AK bolt does, and the mag is pinned for the rifle it was designed for: so on the SKS it only holds 4 rounds. On top of that, the SKS was never designed for AK mags so loading them can be hit and miss. It's a range toy though, and nothing more.

Personally, I hate the adapter route. It looks like hot garbage and the "AR Style" push button release is awkward to hit because the mag well is so far ahead of the trigger.

Back in the day on my $75 Chinese rifle I just went with the Crapco stock for better ergo's, and the spectre kit to accept chopped up Crapco duckbill mags. Works ok, and the whole thing goes back to factory original. Though I did this before I had my 'D' model and now it's moot, but at least I can swap it back to factory without it having been molested at my expense.

With all you'll spend to modify it, you're better to sell the thing for $500 and spend another $500 to either get a 'D' model or something more suited to what you're looking for.
 
Honestly you’re better off learning to use the original mag setup, especially if you are just shooting irons. The alternative mag systems are just trying to make the rifle something it never was. Buy a t81 or an sks-d if you want a detachable mag, the duckbill just seems clunky. Can’t put them in mag pouches side by side or in a chest rig like ak/t81 mags, kinda pointless if you want to run a gun with it. The magwell adapter is putting lipstick on a pig, the pig was better all original.
 
I would recommend just leaving it as it is.

I’ve tried a bunch of different magazines and loading options and found the internal box magazine is the best. Everything else seemed to work “ok” but not as function as the box magazine.

A few of the modifications took a ton of work to do too.
 
everyone trying to improve an obsolete platform... that is best the way it is.

Aftermarket everything for an sks is junk: rattle optics mounts, stocks and mags. all junk


If magpul could make something I would recommend it.
 
Yup leave it as is and get a few tapco mags for it and learn to change them it isn’t that hard
There is an aftermarket extended mag release that you can get I think spectral ballistics makes it
It makes it easier to swap mags and doesn’t permanently alter the rifle
 
HiCal is doing a run of their mag adapters soon if you wanted to go that route.

That said, I feel it's worth noting that the 10 round magazines are already of dubious legality - the XCR pistols that make them legal were prohibited with the May 2020 OiC, and thus the pistol that allows the magazines to be legal is no longer commonly available, and that pistol being commonly available is a requirement for the magazines to be legal. Same thing could be said for LAR mags since the AR pistols were banned. Honestly I'm surprised neither the horse cops nor the govt have come out with a statement on these mags.

With the Liberals talking about magazine limits lately I'd be looking to buy asap.
 
It's too bad our gun rights are being squashed everywhere we turn.
In truth I did enjoy shooting the fixed mag sks rifles back when they weren't plugged to 5 rounds.
Loading stripper clips was easy and the chinese bandoleer belts held a lot of ammo and were kinda cool.
There were some aftermarket extended fixed mags I remember seeing at some point but none in recent times.

We are fortunate that in this time of global uncertainty, we can still buy affordable sks rifles off the rack and spam canned ammo to go with.
right now "any" functioning sks is better than no sks hehehe
 
I'd stay away from the Hical conversion, it is not as easy as you think doing it yourself and the full service is rather expensive. Plus the XCR magazines do not always run as well as you would think. Same with SKS-D. It took me a while to set mine up without the original stock/stock insert. I find the stripper clips for the SKS a perfect way to load a rifle, why not use it as it is? If you want to mount a scope, magwedge has a rather expensive version with the cutout to load stripper clips. If you want removable magazines, the type 81 SR for $1k is a fantastic deal right now.
 
I've got a '51 Tula in a Tapco stock, and I just use a 'Sally-Ann' ($5-has strap & belt loops) camera bag that holds 6-Tapco mags (w-ducks) and 4-20-round paper bundles = 110 rounds. The mags can be refilled with strippers while in the rifle, if I wish. I rarely shoot more than that on a single day (I usually have more x39 ammo with me at the range anyway). If I "need" more I have a few at home :rolleyes:
PS - I can switch mags faster than re-load with strippers. Of course that only gives me 30 rounds w/o re-loading the mags.
 
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I think standard configuration with charger clips is more reliable, a faster reload and easier to manage ammo handling & carry than a bunch of big clunky 5/30 detachable mags. That is if you modify the charger clips with tape or whatever to only hold 5 rounds, so you don't spill extra rounds during the reload.

At our milsurp shoot, I found I could easily put many more rounds downrange and on target at 200m during the "mad minute" with standard SKS & 5 round chargers, than others who were using Garands with 8 round en-blocks.
 
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