SKS accuracy

Gatehouse said:
From my experience, shooting beyond your capabilities is much more prevalent with people using scoped, bolt action 300 winchester magnum rifles that are easily capable of MOA accuracy.
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This is my experience as well, however I attribute this to the simple fact that far more people choose a scoped, bolt-action 300 win mag (or .308, or .270, or .30-06, or 7mm, etc. etc.) as a hunting rifle... because it is a far better choice. Therefore, there are more of them out there who may (or may not) try to shoot beyond their capabilities (as compared to people choosing the far inferior SKS).

Or are you saying that people hunting with SKSs are inherently more disciplined and have more self-control. If so, please enlighten us all because that certainly has not been my experience.
 
My experience with 4 SKS's I have shot is that they would be fine for hunting out to at least 100 yards, farther with the scoped ones.

In the age of the internet sniper, and many people sneering at any rifle that doesn't shoot MOA altogether, the SKS gets a bad rap, but it's 99% undeserved; particularly in regards to hunting, where your real-life kill zone is most often 8" or larger diameter.
 
ironsighter said:
This is my experience as well, however I attribute this to the simple fact that far more people choose a scoped, bolt-action 300 win mag (or .308, or .270, or .30-06, or 7mm, etc. etc.) as a hunting rifle... because it is a far better choice. Therefore, there are more of them out there who may (or may not) try to shoot beyond their capabilities (as compared to people choosing the far inferior SKS).

Or are you saying that people hunting with SKSs are inherently more disciplined and have more self-control. If so, please enlighten us all because that certainly has not been my experience.
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I'm saying that I have seen far more hunters using scoped bolt actions shooting at game beyond their capabilities, than I have seen of hunters that use iron sighted rifles such as 30-30s, SMLEs, SKS, muzzleloaders or other rifles that fall into the " iron sights, not sub MOA" category.

The spray and pray mentality is not restricted to SKS hunters, either. There's plenty of guys with bolt actions laying down fire to try to kill animals, and plenty of bolt action hunters shooting at game at a distances far beyond their capabilities- and often that isn't very far!
 
I have a military type 56, excellent chamber, bore and crown and I'm dropping it in an archangel stock. I'll see what I can do for accuracy out of this one, my Russian was a beater in rough shape, factory config and it was all over the place. I've seen good sks and 30-30's group similar. So I have a type 56 and new mossberg 464 20' laminate, I'll find out this weekend how they compare with milsurp vs off the shelf whitebox.

Edit - fixed post. I can re-load for both of these, but won't be anytime soon, but with hornady sst and IMR powder, I may do a comparison some day.
 
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GH, you are pissing in the wind. This thread was on accuracy, and the same people that got the last thread locked switched it to deer hunting, again.
Let them have their way. The SKS can't hit a deer in the vitals at 100 yds. Cool. Thanks for the advice.
By the way, a younger acquaintance succumbed to peer pressure and bought a .300WM since that's what you need for deer. His father's '06 wasn't enough gun and had zero ###y about it. He brought it out to the range with me. He had a 14" group at 100yds with a brand-new, scoped rifle, from the bench. But, heck, that's good enough for hunting right? I mean , since it's a .300WM on a modern platform.
 
RW that's all too common! But he has a bolt action so he is a snipah! :)

Anyways.....today I was heading to the range. I was sure I could do better with a better sighting system than the cheesy simmons scope, so I dug into the spare parts and cobbled together what can only be described as a "contraption " :)

The high tech snipah system included a Burris 3-9 scope, a plastic jar shell deflector and duct tape !

Results were interesting. More info and pics soon. Hopefully the thread will stay open for now. :)
 
Snipers work in urban and jungle environments too, You don't have to have a long range rifle to be effective.
800px-Captured_Sniper_Rifle.JPEG
 
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rookie wildcat said:
This thread was on accuracy, and the same people that got the last thread locked switched it to deer hunting, again.
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If that were the case this thread should be in the "Hunting and Sporting Arms" section.... it is in the "Hunting" section... and what, pray-tell, would one be hunting with an SKS??? I think the answer is obvious and logical...
 
Thanks, I for one, am interested in seeing them / reading an update.
Gatehouse said:
RW that's all too common! But he has a bolt action so he is a snipah! :)

Anyways.....today I was heading to the range. I was sure I could do better with a better sighting system than the cheesy simmons scope, so I dug into the spare parts and cobbled together what can only be described as a "contraption " :)

The high tech snipah system included a Burris 3-9 scope, a plastic jar shell deflector and duct tape !

Results were interesting. More info and pics soon. Hopefully the thread will stay open for now. :)
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Well,. as I said....I cobbled together an embarrassing looking contraption. I was very happy to see nobody else at the range today! :)

10698547_10152677552730516_6124694884630322691_n.jpg


The shell deflector actually worked excellently. The scope shot nowhere near POA, so all I was testing was grouping

Imagine my surprise when I shot a 3 shot group from this rifle!

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SO I loaded the magazine and shot 5 more

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Which gave me a not bad 8 shot group, although it was starting to show vertical stringing. Maybe the barrel was getting warm (I wasn't babying it) or more likely, my scope contraption was starting to move around.

So I shot one more round which also went vertical

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3 shots= 1.5" group
5 shots= 2.5" group
8 shots= 3" group
9 shots= 3.5" group

On the other thread I mentioned I had used this Chinese $75 1992 purchased SKS to shoot a 200 yard, 6" 10 shot group using handloads and a decent scope. So who knows what would happen if I actually got a proper SKS scope mounting device and put a good scope and shell deflector on it? :)

This was actually a real eye opener for me. I was expecting maybe 2.5" 3 shot group at the very best.

I also took a square file to the iron sighted Russian SKS, in hopes I could see the front post better. I succeeded in doing that, but the front post is still waay to small for me to get good accuracy. Results were similar to the as issued sights

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I know the rifle can do better, it's the sights that are a real handicap. Fortunately that can be fixed with a $50 aperture sight if I want to.

I'd sum this little experiment up as this- The SKS can be more than accurate enough for deer hunting at 100 yards, but as Boomer mentioned, the real handicaps are the sights, short stock and less than stellar triggers. Fortunately all of this can be remedied with a a bit of fine tuning and some aftermarket parts that you can pay little or alot for, depending on what you want to do. And if you have young eyes, and can get used the trigger, you can do fine as is. I do recall it being much easier to shoot accurately with the sights when I was 25, rather than 20 years later.

If I chose to hunt with an SKS, I would install a good scope setup on the Chinese one and some aperture sights on the Russian one and go hunting.
 
j_06 said:
What if your rifle is only capable of hitting within a 4" circle, but your hearts pumping, hands are trembling fully gripped by buck fever and your off by 4 inches? What if that first shot is you flier? Now your 8 inches high, low, right left and you've got a gut shot deer running a couple kms into the bush? There's no doubt that would hit a deer, but do you really shoot at an animal and just hope to hit it? Myself I wouldn't feel comfortsble making a clean kill with a rifle that only shoots 4 " @ 100. Too many factors involved to have to worry about bad accuracy. Are you set up to reload?
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You lost me at "What if"

What if bats flew outta your butt when you were getting ready to shoot, and it threw your aim off?

See how stupid "What if" can look?

It looks that dumb from here.

The deer haven't figured out the Internet yet. They are gonna laugh a lot, when they find out they are not actually dead, 'cause some guy said it wasn't possible online, eh?

Cheers
Trev
 
Been quietly watching from the sidelines and I'd have to say...Gatehouse, that was nicely done. Tip of the hat.
Only recently have I loosened up the purse strings and bought higher end rifles. Til then all mine fell to Old '94's and milsurps.
I can feel my teeth clench slighty when the higher end gun snobbery rears it's head.
Some good arguments went back and forth, but that was well done retort...with a cobbled together scope mount no less.
 
Oh yeah, I forgot....

I did some running and jumping to get my heart rate up and make sure my hands were trembling with as much fever as I could muster! Grabbed the iron sighted SKS and shot the 10x10 gong at 100 yards! It went SMACK!

I did it a few more times before I decided to put it away and shoot the NEW KING- the real reason I went to the rang en the first place! :)
 
tokguy said:
Been quietly watching from the sidelines and I'd have to say...Gatehouse, that was nicely done. Tip of the hat.
Only recently have I loosened up the purse strings and bought higher end rifles. Til then all mine fell to Old '94's and milsurps.
I can feel my teeth clench slighty when the higher end gun snobbery rears it's head.
Some good arguments went back and forth, but that was well done retort...with a cobbled together scope mount no less.
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Thanks Tokguy :)

I think it's easy to sit back and criticize but I'd prefer to get a real answer myself.

Just because the SKS is often used as a range blasting toy doesn't mean it's not a useful hunting tool. It's all what you do with any rifle. I think many of us have seen sight in gong shows with nice bolt actions. Guys can't even sight in, never mind make a decent group that their rifle is capable of!

To be fair, there are plenty of inexpensive bolt actions on the market today, some with scope combos too. The rifles/scopes may be a bit junky but they are probably better hunting rifles out of the box than the SKS, and it's what I would recommend to a new hunter rather than an SKS.

Still, if a guy already has an SKS and wants to hunt with it, there's no reason not to, as long as he works within the parameters of his rifle and practices. But that's the same with every hunting weapon.

With this thread, I was interested in people getting truthful information, not just the same old "SKS junk, gutshot deer, blah blah blah...."

Of course, I'm not the first guy to do this, plenty of Google info out there if someone wants to look for it.

Actually, this experiment was a real eye opener for me, too. I think I might invest in a cool Archangel stock and some other add ons. Not really for me, as I'm never going to hunt with an SKS, but for clients that I am sure will find shooting accurate SKS rifles interesting.
 
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