Is an SKS REALLY this accurate?!?! - Page 2

jeager106 · June 10, 2014, 12:41 AM

Just go over to the SKS boards & do a search on accuracy and read the
posts.
You will find average accuracy will run about 4 inches & that's considered
acceptable for the SKS.
And it is acceptable for what the rifle was made for.
An SKS that regularly shoots 1 inch groups at 100 yards would be a rare
rifle indeed.
When I was on the police dept the SKS was introduced to the U.S. civilian
world & could be had for $90 bucks.
Like I said I've probably owned 5 of them & several officers on my dept.
bought them.
I'd say at least 12 guys had them & we often met at the range for a shooting session. Ammo was cheap at about $70 bucks for a 1200 round case.
Not one rilfe would do better than 3 or 4 inches at 100 from a solid bench rest.
Over the years I've like shot up 5K rounds of Russian & Chi-Com ammo with the SKS & AK rifles.
The very best AK rifles were made by Norinco & I'd love to have one.
I even have 100 pcs of reloadable brass & have tried handloads with good commercial bullets and never saw a group better than 3 inches.

Brotherbadger · June 10, 2014, 01:13 AM

Doesn't seem right. I'll say it's fake.

Mosin-Marauder · June 10, 2014, 06:10 AM

Quote:

But, with the low grade, commercial-production trash that's being imported today...

I tend to disagree. I like Tula Ammo in my Mosin, and Winchester and PPU make good reloadable brass. I've never owned an SKS so I couldn't say there.

Garycw · June 10, 2014, 08:15 AM

Maybe he was a bad shot and that's where they landed? He even seemed surprised

DPris · June 10, 2014, 10:17 AM

My Chinese "government" SKS won't come anywhere near that & it was bought un-fired in cosmoline in '88.
Not beat-to-hell, not one of the later tourist models, so fairly representative of Chinese SKS production.
Denis

mavracer · June 10, 2014, 12:16 PM

I've never seen one that would do that on demand. It's either fake or he got damn lucky. I'd bet $$$ he can't repeat it on demand.

psalm7 · June 10, 2014, 12:55 PM

I know some good shooters that added SKS's to their collection and most say they were surprised by how well they shoot . I'm not a fan of them but wish I had of bought one several years ago when they were plentiful and cheap . The argument could be made that the only time we were out gun by the Soviets was when they used the SKS and we still had the Garan .

FrankenMauser · June 10, 2014, 01:21 PM

Quote:

I tend to disagree. I like Tula Ammo in my Mosin, and Winchester and PPU make good reloadable brass. I've never owned an SKS so I couldn't say there.

PPU is good stuff. But, I don't know a single 7.62x39mm owner that is willing to pay for it for general use (-hunting, sometimes).
Winchester "Metrics" are primarily loaded by PPU and S&B. The PPU stuff is great. The S&B stuff is hit-and-miss. Unfortunately, I believe the current contracts have everything coming from S&B. The PPU "Winchester" ammo may be a thing of the past.

Tula is very low quality, and terribly inconsistent, in my opinion.
If it works for you, that's fantastic. But it is a shadow of the quality we were getting with true surplus ammo.

I don't mean to insult anyone with my opinion. I just wanted to share what I consider to be the current state of the most commonly used 7.62x39mm ammo.

When I bought my Russian SKS, you could get 1,000 rounds of surplus ammo for $39*. I took full advantage of that. I went through at least 20 different types of surplus ammo, until the supply ran out. Then, we got stuck with the commercial production stuff that was being passed off as "surplus". From that point on, quality just went down hill; and I haven't seen it improve.

I tried to find something out there, that was affordable but had the same quality as the old surplus ammo, but I never found it. I weathered the storm all the way through the death of the original Wolf, and appearance of TulAmmo. But I couldn't take it any more. The SKS had to go, because there was nothing worth shooting in it (and reloading is a joke, with the way SKS eject cases).

*(Someone always argues that that price point never existed. Please don't bother. I don't care what you may have run into in other parts of the country, or if you missed out on the sales. But, that's what I paid. A crate (1440 rds) was only $59; but the 1,000 round re-packaged deals were priced better and I didn't care about spam cans or battered wooden crates.)

Unlicensed Dremel · June 10, 2014, 01:36 PM

His "97 yard" range is about 35-45 yards, so you tell me.

Still, not bad at all for 40 yards!

tahunua001 · June 10, 2014, 02:00 PM

I regularly get that accuracy from my SKS and I'm a terrible shot.

my brother in law brought out some tannerite and filled a few pill bottles and laughed at me when I brought my open sighted SKS out to do the shooting at about 75 yards. I just posted up using a water trough as a rest and every shot gave one of those satisfying explosions.

because the SKS was made by the same people that made the mosin nagant and the AK, many people like to lump all of them together in terms of accuracy and reliability without ever taking time to actually see for themselves. with all that said, that's still about a 1.5 inch group which is not outside the realm of most off the shelf hunting rifles.

spacecoast · June 10, 2014, 02:07 PM

Here's a <1.6" 5-shot group from my AK with cheap Tula ammo, std. iron sights and my 50+ year old eyes.

What impresses me about the video is that he simply shot for the middle of the head without a clearly defined aiming point. I don't believe he likely could have resolved the first shot at 100 yards unless he has phenomenal vision.

A 5-shot group would be a lot more convincing that it wasn't a statistical anomaly or one of a large number of tries.

P5 Guy · June 10, 2014, 03:31 PM

I have a nice Russian refurb that from a bench and sandbags with me on the trigger will put 10 rounds of Red Army Standard into a 6 inch bull at 100 yards. Nobody ever said I was marksman material.

jimbob86 · June 10, 2014, 06:53 PM

Quote:

That's one of the biggest reasons I got rid of my SKS. I absolutely loved the rifle and what it was capable of, but there just wasn't any more affordable ammo available that wasn't absolute garbage.

You can make whatever quality ammo you wish to...... if you roll your own.

Mosin-Marauder · June 10, 2014, 07:03 PM

Bingo^^^^

Bill DeShivs · June 10, 2014, 09:51 PM

And I didn't say anything about an SKS.
I said 1" groups at 100 yards is not unusual.
You guys act like hitting a target is difficult. I see people practicing at 7 yards for all their SD shooting. Rifles being shot at 25 yards. People need to learn to shoot. I mean REALLY learn to shoot.

tangolima · June 10, 2014, 09:52 PM

SKS shooting close to 1 moa? Possible, but not probable. I'm not saying the guys faked it. I'm saying the sks that you are going pick up very unlikely will NOT shoot as well. The design, the material used, and the workmanship make it intrinsically handicapped.

Most hand loader don't want to load 7.62x39. They regard that as a waste, simply because most guns shooting that caliber are unable to deliver the sort of accuracy that warrants careful hand loads.

Like a fool I keep on hand loading for my sks. I recently bought a micrometer, and found the probable cause for its poor accuracy. It has bore size of .3126"! I'm going to load it with gas checked .32 cal cast bullets. Maybe that will make it shoot.

-TL

Tamara · June 10, 2014, 10:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by P5 Guy

I have a nice Russian refurb that from a bench and sandbags with me on the trigger will put 10 rounds of Red Army Standard into a 6 inch bull at 100 yards.

There's about a 5" difference between 6" and 1".

Tamara · June 10, 2014, 10:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bill DeShivs

You guys act like hitting a target is difficult.

No, Bill, I don't. I hit targets all the time at all kinds of ranges.

It's the small amount of knowledge I've gathered from doing so that causes me to call bullhockey on implausible internet marksmanship claims. There are lots of people who shoot great with a keyboard, Bill. (You may remember that it used to be called the "M1 Pencil".)

Mosin-Marauder · June 10, 2014, 10:40 PM

I'll just leave this here...
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_..._United_States

FrankenMauser · June 10, 2014, 10:59 PM

Quote:

You can make whatever quality ammo you wish to...... if you roll your own.

I mentioned the reason for not handloading for the SKS in my previous post:
Except for one Yugo SKS, everything that I have handled, and especially my Russian..... ejected cases at 900 billion miles per hour, nearly vertical, and 20+ feet forward of the shooter.
Case recovery was often only 30-50%, if you really tried. In tall grass, dead grass, rocky terrain, or under rushed conditions, the recovery rate could be below 10%.

And, adding a shell deflector never worked on the SKSs where we tried that. The brass just got slammed into the shell deflector so hard that 50% or more of the case mouths were creased; so they would crack and split during sizing or upon being fired again.

Mini-Thirties, or even AKs.... Yea, you can reload for them, all you want.
But SKSs... not worth the trouble, for most people.

tahunua001 · June 10, 2014, 11:28 PM

Quote:

I have a nice Russian refurb that from a bench and sandbags with me on the trigger will put 10 rounds of Red Army Standard into a 6 inch bull at 100 yards.

Quote:

There's about a 5" difference between 6" and 1".

my thoughts exactly. I was wondering how we went form the guestimated 1-2 inch group to a 6 inch bullseye, granted the 6 inch group is a 10 shot group and this is a 3 shot group but still a huge leap in terms of accuracy.

Quote:

You can make whatever quality ammo you wish to...... if you roll your own.

generally in order to do this you have to either buy the more expensive stuff and shoot it up to begin with or buy the brass which in many cases is just as spendy as the more expensive higher quality ammo so either way you are stuck making a large investment and the reloading components are no longer cheaper than the cheap ammo.

kraigwy · June 10, 2014, 11:36 PM

I'll ask again:

How come you never see those groups fired at a rifle match????

tahunua001 · June 10, 2014, 11:41 PM

because all the CMP matches I've been at wouldn't let me shoot from a bench with sand bags.

tangolima · June 10, 2014, 11:42 PM

Because most sks can't do it. I haven't seen one myself.

-TL

kraigwy · June 10, 2014, 11:45 PM

Poor excuse.

You can shoot SKS in CMP Modern Military Matches along with ARs FALs, M1As (all non-match rifles) under the same conditions.

You don't see SKS's nor AKs used by the leaders. They cant compete.

Sand bags are not necessary a benefit. In the Vintage Sniper Match you can use the sling or sand bags, not both. The Slung shooters seem to don't care that they don't use sandbags.

June 10, 2014, 02:00 PM	#35
tahunua001 Senior Member Join Date: July 21, 2011 Location: Idaho Posts: 7,839	I regularly get that accuracy from my SKS and I'm a terrible shot. my brother in law brought out some tannerite and filled a few pill bottles and laughed at me when I brought my open sighted SKS out to do the shooting at about 75 yards. I just posted up using a water trough as a rest and every shot gave one of those satisfying explosions. because the SKS was made by the same people that made the mosin nagant and the AK, many people like to lump all of them together in terms of accuracy and reliability without ever taking time to actually see for themselves. with all that said, that's still about a 1.5 inch group which is not outside the realm of most off the shelf hunting rifles. __________________ ignore my complete lack of capitalization. I still have no problem correcting your grammar. I never said half the stuff people said I did-Albert Einstein You can't believe everything you read on the internet-Benjamin Franklin

June 10, 2014, 09:51 PM	#40
Bill DeShivs Senior Member Join Date: April 7, 2006 Posts: 11,107	And I didn't say anything about an SKS. I said 1" groups at 100 yards is not unusual. You guys act like hitting a target is difficult. I see people practicing at 7 yards for all their SD shooting. Rifles being shot at 25 yards. People need to learn to shoot. I mean REALLY learn to shoot. __________________ Bill DeShivs, Master Cutler www.billdeshivs.com

June 10, 2014, 11:41 PM	#48
tahunua001 Senior Member Join Date: July 21, 2011 Location: Idaho Posts: 7,839	because all the CMP matches I've been at wouldn't let me shoot from a bench with sand bags. __________________ ignore my complete lack of capitalization. I still have no problem correcting your grammar. I never said half the stuff people said I did-Albert Einstein You can't believe everything you read on the internet-Benjamin Franklin

June 10, 2014, 12:41 AM	#26
jeager106 Junior member Join Date: November 24, 2006 Location: N.E. Oh. Posts: 527	Just go over to the SKS boards & do a search on accuracy and read the posts. You will find average accuracy will run about 4 inches & that's considered acceptable for the SKS. And it is acceptable for what the rifle was made for. An SKS that regularly shoots 1 inch groups at 100 yards would be a rare rifle indeed. When I was on the police dept the SKS was introduced to the U.S. civilian world & could be had for $90 bucks. Like I said I've probably owned 5 of them & several officers on my dept. bought them. I'd say at least 12 guys had them & we often met at the range for a shooting session. Ammo was cheap at about $70 bucks for a 1200 round case. Not one rilfe would do better than 3 or 4 inches at 100 from a solid bench rest. Over the years I've like shot up 5K rounds of Russian & Chi-Com ammo with the SKS & AK rifles. The very best AK rifles were made by Norinco & I'd love to have one. I even have 100 pcs of reloadable brass & have tried handloads with good commercial bullets and never saw a group better than 3 inches.

June 10, 2014, 01:13 AM	#27
Brotherbadger Senior Member Join Date: November 10, 2010 Posts: 1,149	Doesn't seem right. I'll say it's fake.

June 10, 2014, 08:15 AM	#29
Garycw Senior Member Join Date: May 27, 2011 Location: Ohio-Kentucky - florida Posts: 1,221	Maybe he was a bad shot and that's where they landed? He even seemed surprised

June 10, 2014, 10:17 AM	#30
DPris Member Emeritus Join Date: August 19, 2004 Posts: 7,133	My Chinese "government" SKS won't come anywhere near that & it was bought un-fired in cosmoline in '88. Not beat-to-hell, not one of the later tourist models, so fairly representative of Chinese SKS production. Denis

June 10, 2014, 12:16 PM	#31
mavracer Senior Member Join Date: February 27, 2008 Location: midwest Posts: 4,209	I've never seen one that would do that on demand. It's either fake or he got damn lucky. I'd bet $$$ he can't repeat it on demand.

June 10, 2014, 12:55 PM	#32
psalm7 Senior Member Join Date: March 7, 2014 Location: Middle TN Posts: 543	I know some good shooters that added SKS's to their collection and most say they were surprised by how well they shoot . I'm not a fan of them but wish I had of bought one several years ago when they were plentiful and cheap . The argument could be made that the only time we were out gun by the Soviets was when they used the SKS and we still had the Garan .

June 10, 2014, 01:36 PM	#34
Unlicensed Dremel Junior member Join Date: February 13, 2014 Location: Flathead Valley, MT Posts: 2,187	His "97 yard" range is about 35-45 yards, so you tell me. Still, not bad at all for 40 yards!

June 10, 2014, 02:07 PM	#36
spacecoast Senior Member Join Date: October 14, 2009 Location: Sunshine and Keystone States Posts: 4,461	Here's a <1.6" 5-shot group from my AK with cheap Tula ammo, std. iron sights and my 50+ year old eyes. What impresses me about the video is that he simply shot for the middle of the head without a clearly defined aiming point. I don't believe he likely could have resolved the first shot at 100 yards unless he has phenomenal vision. A 5-shot group would be a lot more convincing that it wasn't a statistical anomaly or one of a large number of tries.

June 10, 2014, 03:31 PM	#37
P5 Guy Senior Member Join Date: December 1, 2005 Location: Tampa Bay Posts: 1,804	I have a nice Russian refurb that from a bench and sandbags with me on the trigger will put 10 rounds of Red Army Standard into a 6 inch bull at 100 yards. Nobody ever said I was marksman material.

June 10, 2014, 07:03 PM	#39
Mosin-Marauder Senior Member Join Date: April 18, 2014 Location: North Carolina Posts: 2,320	Bingo^^^^

June 10, 2014, 09:52 PM	#41
tangolima Senior Member Join Date: September 28, 2013 Posts: 5,178	SKS shooting close to 1 moa? Possible, but not probable. I'm not saying the guys faked it. I'm saying the sks that you are going pick up very unlikely will NOT shoot as well. The design, the material used, and the workmanship make it intrinsically handicapped. Most hand loader don't want to load 7.62x39. They regard that as a waste, simply because most guns shooting that caliber are unable to deliver the sort of accuracy that warrants careful hand loads. Like a fool I keep on hand loading for my sks. I recently bought a micrometer, and found the probable cause for its poor accuracy. It has bore size of .3126"! I'm going to load it with gas checked .32 cal cast bullets. Maybe that will make it shoot. -TL

June 10, 2014, 10:40 PM	#44
Mosin-Marauder Senior Member Join Date: April 18, 2014 Location: North Carolina Posts: 2,320	I'll just leave this here... http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_..._United_States

June 10, 2014, 11:36 PM	#47
kraigwy Senior Member Join Date: June 16, 2008 Location: Wyoming Posts: 11,060	I'll ask again: How come you never see those groups fired at a rifle match????

June 10, 2014, 11:42 PM	#49
tangolima Senior Member Join Date: September 28, 2013 Posts: 5,178	Because most sks can't do it. I haven't seen one myself. -TL

June 10, 2014, 11:45 PM	#50
kraigwy Senior Member Join Date: June 16, 2008 Location: Wyoming Posts: 11,060	Poor excuse. You can shoot SKS in CMP Modern Military Matches along with ARs FALs, M1As (all non-match rifles) under the same conditions. You don't see SKS's nor AKs used by the leaders. They cant compete. Sand bags are not necessary a benefit. In the Vintage Sniper Match you can use the sling or sand bags, not both. The Slung shooters seem to don't care that they don't use sandbags.