SKS - The Bubba generation.

10x

10x

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Have you guys noticed how the SKS has become the new platform for guys with the "Bubba" gene?
The SKS meets all of the criteria - they are plentiful, they are inexpensive, and guys can get all kinds of aftermarket parts.
I'll bet most of you don't remember the 1960s when Lee Enfields sold for under $10.00 and guys started "sporterizing" and "improving" them....
 
I've thought the same for a while now. Back in the day, Lee enfields were cheap and ammo was plentiful. No one cared if the stock was cut off etc etc. Will the gun collectors 50 years from now curse our generation for all the bastardized and cut up SKS's? Will people being restoring them and searching for lost bayonets and replacement gas tubes?
 
10x said:
Have you guys noticed how the SKS has become the new platform for guys with the "Bubba" gene?
The SKS meets all of the criteria - they are plentiful, they are inexpensive, and guys can get all kinds of aftermarket parts.
I'll bet most of you don't remember the 1960s when Lee Enfields sold for under $10.00 and guys started "sporterizing" and "improving" them....
Click to expand...
So what is your definition of a SKS "Bubba", are they different from a person that is "Sporterizing" the Lee Enfields of the day?
 
One of the generational differences is that most of the Bubba work on Enfields involved cutting down stocks and barrels, sometimes replacing the stock with a manufactured plastic alternative. With the SKS, it seems to be much more a matter of installing manufactured accessories and replacement parts.
 
Just wait, soon the SKS will become something like the Gewehr 98 and Kar98k being desired in original configuration.

I would imagine SKSs of today are like the Kar98ks of the 1950s.
 
Maybe I should get one. But it's hard to justify the price of the more desireable ones when for not much more money I could get Norinco's perfectly serviceable copy of the M-14, and I am not doing that either, because I am still content to be stuck on Enfields.
 
Weirder things have happend.

All the more reason to get some of the chicom military sks' and some russian ones. Look at the price the albanians are already commanding.
 
I just saw an ad from site sponsor Frontier Firearms offering Norinco versions for $169.99 each - if you buy them in packs of five. Bulk buy discounts on firearms at retail. What a great concept.
 
Can't go wrong with a refurb SKS that you normally see on the EE for less than $200 shipped. Some great deals to be had on there. In a way, all SKSes, even the refurbed ones, are collectible. Mine isn't a safe queen, but a shooting queen and I like it :D.
 
Bulk buying?

Clearly, you didn't see the ads for Walter H. Craig in Alabama. Carcanos as low as $6 if you bought a crate at a time. Might even have been cheaper.... it was a long time ago. Ads used to run in Gun Report and a couple of other mags, generally fullpage. Of course, back then the Dixie Gun Works catalog was only 32 pages, digest sized, at that!

Oh, I WISH! (They had some really NEAT junk!!!!)

Perhaps friend John Sukey might have an old ad he would share with us. Or perhaps someone else. Hunter's Lodge with their 'genuine spaghetti-grained stocks' on the Italian 70VV sniper rifles (Vetterli-Vitali 1870/87/1915) which was my first 'real' gun after I saved up the requisite $11.97..... plus shipping by actual steam train, which cost another $3, all the way from Peterborough, Ontario (Albion Arms, Canadian distributor for Hunter's Lodge). Werndls and Berdans for the same price and I couldn't afford them and straight-pull 1886 and 1888, 88/90 Mannlichers... all under 10 Yankee bucks, 20% higher in Canada, of course. Still don't have half of those, still can't afford them!
 
smellie said:
Bulk buying?

Clearly, you didn't see the ads for Walter H. Craig in Alabama. Carcanos as low as $6 if you bought a crate at a time. Might even have been cheaper.... it was a long time ago. Ads used to run in Gun Report and a couple of other mags, generally fullpage. Of course, back then the Dixie Gun Works catalog was only 32 pages, digest sized, at that!

Oh, I WISH! (They had some really NEAT junk!!!!)

Perhaps friend John Sukey might have an old ad he would share with us. Or perhaps someone else. Hunter's Lodge with their 'genuine spaghetti-grained stocks' on the Italian 70VV sniper rifles (Vetterli-Vitali 1870/87/1915) which was my first 'real' gun after I saved up the requisite $11.97..... plus shipping by actual steam train, which cost another $3, all the way from Peterborough, Ontario (Albion Arms, Canadian distributor for Hunter's Lodge). Werndls and Berdans for the same price and I couldn't afford them and straight-pull 1886 and 1888, 88/90 Mannlichers... all under 10 Yankee bucks, 20% higher in Canada, of course. Still don't have half of those, still can't afford them!
Click to expand...

The most interesting thing is that your gun was shipped by actual steam train!
 
I sure am ok with "accessorizing" a SKS, while (most will know by now) I am allergic to permanent Bubba'ing of genuine milsurp.

Hey I even got a deal recently on a plastic Dragunov-style stock, and one of my SKSes was so badly arsenal refurbed that it probably won't look worse in it! So, in comes the only good no-gunsmith scope mount for the SKS (found a used, "Scout Scopes" mount), and I have a red-dot doing nothing in the parts bin so... that should turn out to be a strange-looking toy. And, the original wood and metal parts stay intact...
 
tootall said:
The most interesting thing is that your gun was shipped by actual steam train!
Click to expand...

In the 1960's the train was the cheapest way to ship anything. The train also carried the mail as it was secure, ran to a schedule and was reliable.
I have purchased guns from Century International in Montreal and picked them up from the railway station ten days later. CN used an old mail car for freight - usually, sometimes a baggage car. The minimum charge was $3.00 / 100 lbs.
I would also order shot, caps, and black powder to make the most of my $3.00 shipping fee.

I miss the days when I could pick up a gun, unwrap it on the platform at the station, and load it with the ammo that was shipped with it, then use the baggage cart as a rest while the station master test fired it. - all very safe - as for legal - maybe a town bylaw was broken or stretched. This guy also had a CN revolver in 38 S&W stored in a drawer from the time the railway handled negotiable securities (boxes of money for the local bank).
 
I'm really not into the Bubba thing and I don't really like to fix things unless they are broke. An SKS is appealing to a lot of different people. Personally, I'm a shooter and don't really have a need to own firearms that I can't or won't shoot, Although I respect the collector and his desire to keep things original.

The availability and duration of SKS rifles and ammo on the market makes it a great gun for shooters, lots of pristine specimens for collectors, and basically a reliable poor mans gun with a long trail of aftermarket products to modify them as you would see fit.

My first SKS was a Norinco that was new in the box for $79 back about 1990. It didn't have the aftermarket following, but 1000 rounds of ammo was 100 bucks. I was surprised how few people had them other than myself.

The price is everything to SKS culture. The latest waves of Russian surplus in Canada just keeps the ball rolling. Its cheap enough that everyone can own and shoot and SKS. Its no longer just a fad to own one.


Funny thing though, it was a fair bit cheaper to buy and shoot when it was still a secret. In some ways, I'm disappointed that it got out ;)
 
fiddler said:
I'm really not into the Bubba thing and I don't really like to fix things unless they are broke. An SKS is appealing to a lot of different people. Personally, I'm a shooter and don't really have a need to own firearms that I can't or won't shoot, Although I respect the collector and his desire to keep things original.

The availability and duration of SKS rifles and ammo on the market makes it a great gun for shooters, lots of pristine specimens for collectors, and basically a reliable poor mans gun with a long trail of aftermarket products to modify them as you would see fit.

My first SKS was a Norinco that was new in the box for $79 back about 1990. It didn't have the aftermarket following, but 1000 rounds of ammo was 100 bucks. I was surprised how few people had them other than myself.

The price is everything to SKS culture. The latest waves of Russian surplus in Canada just keeps the ball rolling. Its cheap enough that everyone can own and shoot and SKS. Its no longer just a fad to own one.


Funny thing though, it was a fair bit cheaper to buy and shoot when it was still a secret. In some ways, I'm disappointed that it got out ;)
Click to expand...

I had one of those first SKS rifles. I only bought it because it was a centrefire semi auto and ammo was cheap.
It is only because so many folks did buy them that ammo remains relatively inexpensive.
Just remember that 7.62x39 ammo you are paying $180/1000 for was probably contracted to an individual who was paid a fee to dispose of it....
 
I heard all the same arguements back in the 1980's when places like Globe were cutting Enfields down by the thousands.

Any of these sound familiar?

"Why do you care, there were over 14 million if these things made..."
"These will never be collectible, they made too many of them..."
"I can't hunt with it like this, it's too (heavy, military looking, not pretty enough... take your pic)"

I read all these same rationalization every day here on the boards. Food for thought.

Should be interesting to see what is up with the SKS in 30 years, assuming we will still be allowed to own semi-autos.
 
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