[Cyrano]

The manual that came as part of an SKS upgrade kit I bought from gunbroker.com advised that when first firing the rifle, to load only two rounds into the magazine. Point the muzzle in a safe direction, then release the bolt. If the round chambers normally and no slamfire occurs, you may eject the two test rounds, load it up normally and proceed with your shooting.

The thought occurs to me that this is a sound safety procedure to follow any time you are going to use ammo from a manufacturer you have not used before. I haven't tried commercial ammo in my Yugo yet, but after I've got the scope on I'm going to do as BigDog suggested and try it with commercial ammo with the gas switch set to the grenade-launch position, from a rest, and see how well it does for me. I just hope folks are wrong about the tendency of the SKS to slamfire with commercial ammo. I can't say having that happen would be a pleasant prospect.

[res45]

That why if you reload you should use the CCI #34 Mil-spec primer it was designed to use in rifles with floating firing pins. I shoot commercial ammo in my YUGO at times and never had a problem but I also clean my bolt after ever range trip or shooting session by flushing the firing pin channel out with brake cleaner by placing the little red tube in the front of the firing pin channel flush it out good then blow it out and dry with high pressure air hose. Now days I shoot reloads and use the CCI primer but I don't short cut the cleaning process regardless.

[gunnersmate]

It's beyond my comprehension why anyone who owns ANY type of SKS wouldn't go ahead with the improved firing pin and spring mod from Murray's. If you've never had a slam-fire or full auto doubles (or worse) it's because you've either been really lucky or haven't shot enough yet. When a firearm gets a reputation like the SKS has for slam-fires it's almost always well-deserved, and anyone with a lick of sense can see that the potential for malfunctions with the SKS firing pin design is pretty high. So you either live with it (or kill someone with it) or you fix it.

For about $40 you can FIX it. You don't have to wait for a problem to happen, you don't have to keep taking your bolt apart to smack the firing pin free and you don't have to be wondering if you're going to spit out more than one shot with each trigger pull at the range. The fix is cheap insurance, and when was the last time you bought insurance that worked for $40?