I've had one for almost eight years now. I know it isn't from this new import you're talking about, but it's the same rifle as what you're looking at now. Anyway...
They're front heavy and they never seem to be as reliable as any other military SKS - I suspect the gas shutoff valve is the culprit. They also don't come with chrome lined barrels - one may retort "Oh, just clean it after shooting and you'll be fine". Well, after spending eight hours and a few hundred rounds with a buddy at the gravel pit on a very muggy Eastern Ontario summer day back in 2013 or so, my bore went from "like new" to "fairly frosty" before I got home and cleaned it. Maybe I should have brought some oil with me and sprayed it down the barrel halfway through my outing, but regardless, that wouldn't have happened with a chrome-lined Chinese or Russian model. I have a Chinese SKS with over 12 thousand rounds through it and the barrel literally looks as good as the day I bought it. At the end of one range day with my Yugo, suddenly my barrel just isn't as good as when I set off to the gravel pit that very morning. Accuracy hasn't changed, however: it's still as crappy as it was before my barrel degraded while I was on the range. That's another thing about my Yugo: it's probably the least accurate rifle I own. I have an atrociously ratty 1943 dated M38 Mosin Nagant that outshoots it. Hell, my Carcano with improperly sized soft-point projectiles shoots better than my M59/66. If you think I'm being unfair by comparing it to bolt action rifles in other calibers, allow me to make a few better comparisons:
- I have over 10 SKS carbines. The Yugo is the least accurate one I own. None are tack drivers, don't get me wrong, but the M59/66 is noticeably worse.
- My CZ-858 is more accurate than my Yugo. The barrel, also not chrome lined, hasn't rusted while on the range like my Yugo did.
- My Type 81 (fantastic rifle by the way!), a rifle a lot of people on here lampoon for being minute of barn door at 100 yards at best...yep, still shoots better than my Yugo.
Speaking of my Chinese model with 12+ thousand rounds through it, I think it's malfunctioned six or seven times, and I haven't even replaced the recoil spring in it yet. Meanwhile, my Yugo has malfunctioned at least 20 times in under six hundred rounds, but I honestly stopped counting once it nearly tripled the amount of malfunctions as my used well-used Chinese model, so it could be even more. It mostly fails to extract, but sometimes the bolt doesn't get enough oomph while cycling to properly chamber a new round. This has happened with Romanian, Chinese, Russian and Polish surplus as well as LCW non-corrosive ammunition. Again, I suspect this is related to the gas-adustment valve. These things just don't seem to cycle as well as SKS rifles without the gas adjustment valve do. I've shot my well used Chinese rifle so much that it has lost most of the bluing inside of the action, such as on the rails the bolt rides on and on top of the magazine's follower, and the piston-head is scorched black with carbon that I cannot get off with a steel brush and it's still exponentially more reliable than my Yugo.
Oh, also: I cracked the stock near where the receiver meets the bolt handle. How did I do this? Putting the magazine into it after taking it apart. The wood on these things is really uh, dry, I guess you could say. I've not fixed this yet, and considering how uninterested I am in ever shooting the thing again, I don't really have any immediate plans to do so.
I didn't get a beater, either. I'm not going to say it was new when I got it from a particular company in Eastern Ontario that is no longer a CGN sponsor packed in enough grease to preserve a battleship docked in the Dead Sea, but it had basically no signs of wear on it when I cleaned it up and inspected it. I got one of their "Unissued" models. I don't really believe anything that particular company says anymore, but when I got it, I had zero reason to not believe I got what the company claimed they sent me. The thing was absolutely pristine. I didn't buy a junker at the end of its life cycle - I suspect it was VERY lightly used, if not indeed unissued as the company said it was. Still, compared to my other SKS rifles, it's been a problem-child ever since my very first range trip with it, where failed to feed twice.
In conclusion:
Do I regret owning it? No, but maybe that's because I didn't spend any money on it - it was a birthday present. With that said, it's very front-heavy, it doesn't work as well as any other SKS I've used (I own over 10 and have shot probably triple that), and the lack of chrome lining in the bore is an annoyance even with my rather persnickety cleaning habits. I don't particularly have any interest in selling mine, but I also haven't shot it since Obama just started his second term and have no immediate plans to do so. The most use I give it, beyond monthly oiling and function checking, is to pull it out of the safe when I have a new gun-buddy over to say "Hey, look at this weird f****n' thing."
So, in my opinion, unless you're a serious SKS collector and can't pass up the chance to have a pretty uncommon model of the Simonov here in Canada, which is why I have mine, you're missing literally nothing by not buying one. I'll put it this way: When I got mine, it was about $300 less than what they're selling for now. If they were selling, right now, for the price of a bog-standard Russian SKS, I probably wouldn't buy another one. I historically have pretty poor self control when it comes to the Simonov carbines, and I'm known for buying ones I don't need if the price is right, but I don't think I'd buy another M59/66. I'd probably buy an M59, though...
YMMV, and it's your money. If you buy one, I sincerely hope you enjoy it and have a lot better luck with yours than I did with mine. They're certainly interesting curios, and they undoubtedly have collector value here in Canada, but as shooters they're extremely underwhelming compared the Russian and Chinese models you can get for several hundred dollars less. You could basically get an unissued Norinco SKS and a crate of ammo for the same amount of money they're asking for Yugos these days, and trust me, the Chinese one will be a lot less hassle to deal with from a shooting perspective.
I'll bet a six pack that if you took that Chinese or Russian model to the range, with the 1440 round crate of surplus ammo you picked up with your savings for not buying a Yugo, you could blast through that entire crate of ammo in one sitting without putting a drop of oil on the rifle beforehand and it would run like a top. I would not make that bet with an M59/66. I've done basically just that - two friends and I have put 1320 (I think that was the amount in the crate) rounds of incredibly shi**y Romanian surplus through a bone-dry Chinese SKS in one range trip and it just kept ticking. The SKS is an extremely reliable rifle and I just cannot recommend a version of it that isn't as reliable, while weighing more, costing more, and being more annoying to clean. They're only worth the money for the collector value, which is admittedly fairly substantial and only going to improve over time - it's why I still have mine.
Whatever decision you make - happy shooting! Cheers.
