SKS or AK-47 or M1Garand

If you just want a cheap shooter, the sks would be best. It is fun to shoot. If you want accuracy then the Garand. It is hard to clean and more expensive to shoot, but also fun for many reasons. The AK is more cheaply made than the sks and not as accurate, but fun to shoot. The sks is a little more fun to me because of better accuracy. The ak has 30 rounds vs 10 for the sks if that will be important for you. My suggestion is buy the sks and a .22 and you will have a lot of fun days at the range. Add a bolt military gun for recoil and it's a perfect day.
 
PUBG made the price on every SKS raise $50-100, just like Battlefield 1 did for the M1 Garand.....good ol Video games educating today's generation of future firearms buyers :D
 
I bought a SKS as an impulse buy and after 2 range sessions that scratch was itched. Wasnā€™t impressed with its accuracy (not that Iā€™m any supreme marksman) but 3-4ā€ moa at 100 just isnā€™t my thing. They are simple, ingenious rifles though & I loved the mechanical side of it; itā€™s a fun rifle to field strip.

Iā€™ve toyed with buying a Garand the last couple years but just couldnā€™t justify spending the kind of money to get a decent one when I knew it would live mostly in the safe. A good friend has one & Iā€™ve shot a few dozen rounds thru it. While really cool, it just backed me further away from buying one. And Iā€™m a huge history buff, esp WW2, & I do think Patton was right what he said about it at that time.

Never got the AK bug. I think theyā€™re really cool and love the simplistic design, but never felt compelled to buy one. Always liked the AR platform more and that and a few bolt guns is where my interest & money have gone.

Between the 3, Iā€™d go Garand. But really ask yourself ā€˜whatā€™s its purpose?ā€™ and try to shoot someone elseā€™s. That will definitely sharpen your search & maybe save you time & money.
 
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If you just want a cheap shooter, the sks would be best. It is fun to shoot. If you want accuracy then the Garand. It is hard to clean and more expensive to shoot, but also fun for many reasons.

How you figure that?
 
Buy a bunch of Enbloc clips while you can...........
https://www.ammogarand.com/clipsmagazines.html
I agree with that suggestion and will add one more: if you think you might ever want to shoot a match with it, get the partial capacity clips along with the normal 8 rounders. I have shot mine in a couple of NRA High Power matches and I could have used a 2-round clip. You can technically load two rounds into an 8 round clip and get through a match, but it is touchy.
 
... and Google ā€œGarand Thumbā€ ... you really need to study up on that! o_O
 
I was lucky enough to get into the Garand game back when CMP still had a warehouse full of cheap Greek HXP spam cans. That was the best way to accumulate clips. IMG_20191026_222128403.jpg
 
I posted a couple quick pics of my cmp service grade garand (arrived today, super happy btw) in the mil surp photos section fyi...
 
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