Turn SKS into bolt action to test a scope without damaging it ?

It's not something I'd normally do for surplus ammo but I will when using my precious reloads.

Pull the piston out and reinstall the tube. It works great. I've done it often and also watched while my son fired off quite a few rounds. The discharge out the cyl breather holes is so minimal as to be virtually unnoticeable. The bolt retraction and case extraction will be very smooth. The only thing that is a little difficult is the reach. The charging handle is far ahead of the trigger and not an easy or intuitive reach like most bolt action guns.

Clean the gun as usual. The bolt will actually be very clean and won't require service except to inspect for defects/damage as you'd normally do anyway.
 
It's not something I'd normally do for surplus ammo but I will when using my precious reloads.

Pull the piston out and reinstall the tube. It works great. I've done it often and also watched while my son fired off quite a few rounds. The discharge out the cyl breather holes is so minimal as to be virtually unnoticeable. The bolt retraction and case extraction will be very smooth. The only thing that is a little difficult is the reach. The charging handle is far ahead of the trigger and not an easy or intuitive reach like most bolt action guns.

Clean the gun as usual. The bolt will actually be very clean and won't require service except to inspect for defects/damage as you'd normally do anyway.

X2 I've been doing this off and on for over 25 yrs, developing handloads.As some of you other old farts will remember, finding boxer primed 7.62x39 brass back in the 80's was damn near impossible and I didn't want to lose any.

A2
 
There is a modification you can do on the rear side of the ejection port where you grind it perpendicular instead of being sloped, it shucks the brass sideways instead of up. Might be something to consider.
 
Chances are that you will have difficulty operating the rifle manually. With no primary extraction, it will be difficult to pull back the charging handle. The one time I tried shooting an SKS without the piston installed, I ended up having to mortar the rifle to extract the spent case.

^This was exactly my experience. It is a pain in the ass to have to put some force on the charging handle with a shop club to get the action to open. I was using Partisan.

I also keep my rifle clean, and was keeping it clean when I tried the straight pull thing.

The only thing is Privi Partizan soft point is loaded to Euro specs and I noticed it tossed the brass in semi - auto mode with considerable gusto in my then unmodified SKS. Brass might have been sticking due to the strength of the load in straight pull mode.

Would be interesting to rig up some sort of linkage to open the action manually. :p
 
Last edited:
There is a modification you can do on the rear side of the ejection port where you grind it perpendicular instead of being sloped, it shucks the brass sideways instead of up. Might be something to consider.

Ive seen videos for this but dont wanna do it incase I mess up. The plug works great besides the bolt getting stuck the odd time. Not sure if its cause I wasnt letting my sks cool down after a bunch of shots
 
Looking forward to the thread next month "Why I spent the night in the ER"

You seen me, No burns on my face..

The bolt carrier pretty much deflects most of the gas away from your face. I felt no chance other then increased recoil. Ive done it by removing the gas piston, and as well removing the whole gas block, Front sight etc and plugging the gas port. Sometimes it was hard to #### back the action, but not all the time, but sure improved the accuracy.
 
There is a modification you can do on the rear side of the ejection port where you grind it perpendicular instead of being sloped, it shucks the brass sideways instead of up. Might be something to consider.

I have done ejection port mod along with adding vent holes in the gas tube and it works quite well. My casings eject at 2:00 and land about 7 feet forward and to the right of me on a 45 deg angle. I have a couple of youtube videos of it posted as "Bubba SKS Project" by Van Isle Gunnut. First one was posted several months back and another cleaned up version (watch that one) posted just the other day, but the all the mods originated from this forum in the "Sticky: Helpful hints to DIY for Red Rifles" thread.

The port mod serves several purposes for me: it keeps the brass close so I can easily find it, it eliminates the need of a shell deflector when I have a scope mounted, and it keeps the casings from hitting whatever is above me when shooting from a covered bay.

As always: your money, your gun; but it really makes the most sense to do these mods on a damaged/refirbed rifles.
 
Back
Top Bottom