SKS suggestion

rufrdr

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A head's up to new SKS owners: When you are cleaning your SKS there is an intermediary tappet between the gas piston and the bolt that is often overlooked. To remove it, over-rotate the handguard retainer up which will release it. Careful, it is under heavy spring pressure and may get lost in the garage if you aren't ready! To reinstall you can use the gas piston to push it back in place and then push the handguard latch down to hold it inside its position.

Cleaning residual cosmoline from my newly acquired 59/66 (thanks Jeff!) reminded me of this feature.

uktpwJRl.jpg
 
A head's up to new SKS owners: When you are cleaning your SKS there is an intermediary tappet between the gas piston and the bolt that is often overlooked. To remove it, over-rotate the handguard retainer up which will release it. Careful, it is under heavy spring pressure and may get lost in the garage if you aren't ready! To reinstall you can use the gas piston to push it back in place and then push the handguard latch down to hold it inside its position.

Cleaning residual cosmoline from my newly acquired 59/66 (thanks Jeff!) reminded me of this feature.

uktpwJRl.jpg
Don't you love playing hide and seek with those parts under spring tension after disassembling a new firearm
 
The (live) round was in the chamber and was not ejected. The next round from the magazine entered the breech when he pulled the action back. When the action went forward after if slipped out of his hand, it drove the point of round two into the primer of first round and it went off.

I can see that particular combination of problems resulting in an out of battery ignition in about any semi-auto rifle.
 
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I can see that particular combination of problems resulting in an out of battery ignition in about any semi-auto rifle.

"The detachable 30 round magazine had not been removed and the bolt was let go."


I'd put my money on this being a contributing factor, detachable mags for the SKS suck. I tried one once, had a round fire when I was not expecting it. Luckily the rifle was pointed downrange.

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My niece's husband ( a nephew by proxy I suppose) really pushed me to get tapco or other similar duck bill mags for my SKS. No way! I like to shoot mine as it was built and intended to be shot - 10 round box mag and stripper clips. I was a bit worried about the slam fire issue so I put in a Murray's spring loaded firing pin. But the blowback kept cooking the spring after about 75 rounds. So I just use the Murray firing pin as a free floating pin. Works perfectly. I have kept the original pin as a backup. I clean my SKS after every use so I shouldn't be too worried about gunk build up.

j
 
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