I thought I would share my experiences with accurizing my SKS in hopes we can dispel the myths that these are inaccurate knock-around rifles.
I've got a 51' Tula with a Choat scope mount, and Bushnell Elite Tactical 10x40 scope. I've done a home trigger job on it (mostly just polishing) and removed the bayo, and cleaning rod. It has also been put into a Tapco stock.
Before recently, I've done basically all of my shooting laying prone in the grass at my cottage and been shooting targets roughly 100 meters away. To my dismay this has never given me accurate, repeatable results with my SKS and I started to believe all the bad hype we often hear so much of here on CGN.
As much as I hate to admit it, I was the only problem with the accuracy of the gun. I was out yesterday with a friend of mine to a shooting range and realized just how much shooting from a comfortable position will help with accuracy, but this isn't my only tip....
The BIGGEST accurizing tip I can suggest - get the barrel HOT before shooting groups on paper.
I sighted in the scope using 3 shot groups and checking the spotting scope after each 3 shot group. I shot roughly 30 rounds back to back and took my time to sight it in. After this was done I took about 5 minutes to chat with a friend and re-set the target turrets on scope. Once I had all the screws tight on the scope and after a good bit of chatting I thought - let me just check the sighting to make sure it's all okay.
So I took my time and fired one shot - low and left. I thought WTF, it should be fine, so I fired one more - high and right. I thought maybe the scope actually loose somehow after I JUST finished tightening it... Then my friend suggests "hey, your barrel has cooled down, try heating it up again and see if the bullets return to the target. So... 10 rounds later of firing them one after the other what do you know?! The shots seemed to have returned back to the bulls eye!
This SKS got me 2.5" MOA groups with a nice and HOT barrel. My buddy and I were shooting spent shotgun shells at 100 metres off of the top of the targets... I was SO impressed with this rifled.
So... again my suggestion for improving your accuracy when shooting this gun is:
-shoot from a comfortable sitting position (resting the gun on your knees and shooting while you're sitting in the grass will NOT give you repeatable positive results I don't care WHAT gun your shooting)
-Take the bayo off and cleaning rod (the legends are true it DOES make a big difference)
-get some good properly mounted optics so you can see what you're doing
-get the barrel HOT and keep it hot for accurate repeatable shots
Unfortunately this heating up the barrel trick will do nothing for all the hunters out there, but for us target shooters I was amazed at how much of a difference this really made.
rant over**
I've got a 51' Tula with a Choat scope mount, and Bushnell Elite Tactical 10x40 scope. I've done a home trigger job on it (mostly just polishing) and removed the bayo, and cleaning rod. It has also been put into a Tapco stock.
Before recently, I've done basically all of my shooting laying prone in the grass at my cottage and been shooting targets roughly 100 meters away. To my dismay this has never given me accurate, repeatable results with my SKS and I started to believe all the bad hype we often hear so much of here on CGN.
As much as I hate to admit it, I was the only problem with the accuracy of the gun. I was out yesterday with a friend of mine to a shooting range and realized just how much shooting from a comfortable position will help with accuracy, but this isn't my only tip....
The BIGGEST accurizing tip I can suggest - get the barrel HOT before shooting groups on paper.
I sighted in the scope using 3 shot groups and checking the spotting scope after each 3 shot group. I shot roughly 30 rounds back to back and took my time to sight it in. After this was done I took about 5 minutes to chat with a friend and re-set the target turrets on scope. Once I had all the screws tight on the scope and after a good bit of chatting I thought - let me just check the sighting to make sure it's all okay.
So I took my time and fired one shot - low and left. I thought WTF, it should be fine, so I fired one more - high and right. I thought maybe the scope actually loose somehow after I JUST finished tightening it... Then my friend suggests "hey, your barrel has cooled down, try heating it up again and see if the bullets return to the target. So... 10 rounds later of firing them one after the other what do you know?! The shots seemed to have returned back to the bulls eye!
This SKS got me 2.5" MOA groups with a nice and HOT barrel. My buddy and I were shooting spent shotgun shells at 100 metres off of the top of the targets... I was SO impressed with this rifled.
So... again my suggestion for improving your accuracy when shooting this gun is:
-shoot from a comfortable sitting position (resting the gun on your knees and shooting while you're sitting in the grass will NOT give you repeatable positive results I don't care WHAT gun your shooting)
-Take the bayo off and cleaning rod (the legends are true it DOES make a big difference)
-get some good properly mounted optics so you can see what you're doing
-get the barrel HOT and keep it hot for accurate repeatable shots
Unfortunately this heating up the barrel trick will do nothing for all the hunters out there, but for us target shooters I was amazed at how much of a difference this really made.
rant over**
