guys

/u/nadeshda signed me up for a year long series of articles here

and im like man thats a lot of articles

so im gonna start talking about guns i like

there are a lot of guns i like so this should last me a while lol

and i figure ill start with the sks

the sks is a good gun

its also from an interesting time in history

which gives it a unique story

it was designed in the soviet union during wwii by a guy named simonov

everybody in wwii had discovered that the rifles theyd been using were more powerful than needed in most of the battles theyd been facing

their soldiers could all shoot out to like 1000 m

but nobody was ever made contact more than like 400 m away

this meant their soldiers were carrying ammunition that was heavier than needed

if they were given a lighter round they could carry more ammo for twice the pew pew

the nazis had created a smaller round to do just that

they called it the 7.92 mm kurz

kurz is how you say short in nazi

it was literally just the 7.92 x 57 mauser round shortened

then they nazis made some rifles to go with it

these were pretty effective at murdering soviets

so the soviets were like aw dang we need to do that

the soviets did a similar thing to the nazis and just shortened their 7.62 x 54r round

this means they can keep some of the machinery for drilling barrels and whatnot so its efficient

they worked on this round in 1943 so it was called the m43

then they needed something to shoot it in

thats when simonov got involved

so simonov had designed some other stuff

and he was experienced with the soviet arsenal system

so for construction techniques he went with arctic birchwood and milled steel

this is more time consuming and heavy and expensive

but soviet industry had been milling things for many years

so it was easy to adapt workers and machinery

but simonov also saw advancements in other countries designs

so he made a rifle that would shoot the new intermediate m43 round

instead of the bolt actions most were using he made it semiautomatic like the american garand

but with the smaller ammunition it held 10 rounds instead of 8

and you could load it with clips but unlike the garand the clip was disposible

the bolt carrier would lock back on an empty magazine and had feed lips so you could slide a new clip right in

it uses a short stroke gas system

that means gas is bled off from the barrel and pushes a piston over the barrel

that piston goes back to push another little piston but doesnt go all the way

then the bolt carrier ejects the spent case and loads a new one

the bolt is kinda neat because it slips down into the receiver to lock

the entire fire control group comes out in one assembly

the whole rifle is really easy to strip and doesnt need any tools to disassemble

it has a compartment in the butt to store a cleaning kit

i love this and think its required on all rifles

so its semi auto

just bang and dont bang

10 rd fixed magazine

loaded by clips or single rounds

its kinda heavy for what it is

which gives it really mild recoil

definitely fun to shoot

has a bayonet that locks forward or back

has around a 400 m range

overall its just a very simple and robust system

it was adopted by the soviets as the sks45 in 1945

and it was given to and produced in many soviet allies

lots of them are available on the us surplus market

lol i wont tell you how much i paid for mine

but lets just say

its tripled in value

invest in guns

but clammy you ask

if its such a great gun why have i never seen it used

well

there was this guy called kalashnikov

he competed against simonov with a carbine of his own

but he sucked and his gun sucked and the sks was picked

so then kalashnikov went back to the drawing board and ended up making the ak47

detachable 30rd magazine

select fire

it was a no brainer

after the ak47 got adopted the sks45 was obsolete

in just two years

but it was still a great gun and was used by second line troops

and by guerrilla armies

the vietcong used them a lot

and youll see them used today for hunting and plinking

its light enough to carry but hits hard enough to take out a deer

in fact the terminal effectiveness and bullet drop is similar to the .30-30

which is another classic deer cartridge

there are tons of aftermarket accessories for it too

most are junk lol

people try to turn them into an ak and it doesnt work out

there are extended magazines

that fail

there are sights and scope attachments that replace the top cover

which wobble all around

basically if you have an sks i suggest you just leave it as originally made

its an excellent carbine and will serve you well just as simonov designed it

pewpew