The fact you are an armorer reassures me, camelkicker2000. Mind you, I still don't approve of modifying SKS internals! I'm fond of the rifles in stock, as-issued format.
As am I. My issue....the sks I got from my dad for xmas didn't have the orginal mag. I've got a metal 30 round, and a black tapco.....first time shot, tapco wouldn't feed worth a crap, but metal mag worked....next time, metal mag wouldn't work, and tapco fed fine......
This is not a helpful post and makes no sense whatsoever. The SKS will accept a good quality hi cap mag and your speel about not modifying one to do so is a waste of good text . You try telling any good gunsmith that he should never modify a weapon. Or better yet tell it to a special ops guy. I have used good quality 30 round mags in an SKS I had years ago and never once suffered a malfunction. I now have a Yugo SKS with the same Tapco 20 round mags in question here, and it is unmodified and reacts the same way. The round is hitting the shoulder of the barrel just below the taper. If the mag is properly made it seats in the same manner as the fixed mag. Remember the fixed mag is designed to swing down and open with the same pivot point as the removable mags. The issue is not with using an after market hi cap mag but rather the manufacturer of some mags not building them properly. Try some good quality steel mags and you will find that they work better. Also there is nothing wrong with modifying your bolt so you can insert the mag with it closed. I know several guys that have done this and none of them have any issues from it. For the money a SKS is a better weapon than the AK because it is more accurate. The SKS does not have the barrel flex the AK suffers from.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cyrano
It never ceases to amaze me when someone alters a rifle designed to feed from a 10 round integral magazine to take higher capacity detachable magazines, and they then wonder why the rifle does not want to function.
Here's a radical notion: Is it possible -- is it just possible -- that the rifle's designer knew more about it and how it's supposed to work than you do? When General Simonov designed his rifle, the principles of the detachable magazine were long established and well known; yet he chose not to design the rifle to use one. So you are taking a rifle meant to feed with a certain tension and mucking with it. You are taking a rifle meant to use a fixed magazine and introducing some wiggle to it because detachable magazines by their nature can't lock in as tightly as a fixed mag. I personally don't think that is terribly smart.
And fiddling with the bolt of any rifle is something to approach with caution. Just what do you mean when you say, "I trimmed the bolt," exactly? How much metal did you remove from the bolt and/or bolt carrier, and where? I think we need comparison photos here of an unaltered bolt and your trimmed bolt.
Also, I would like to remind you that a bat-brained judge and a BATFE investigator out to make names for themselves sent a National Guard sergeant up the river because his SKS with worn parts slam-fired and the BATFE decreed it was a machine gun. When you start fiddling with the internals, unless you know what you are doing you can really bugger up the gun.
If you want a rifle in 7.62x39 ComBloc with a detachable magazine, buy yourself an AK-47 or a Saiga Sporter. Don't go modifying a rifle not meant to take detachable magazines by forcing it to be something it is not.
Ignore the negative posts your getting. The gun is yours to what you want with. I have one that is unmodified and using the same mags you are I have the same issue. Tapco has a design issue I would say because years back I had a different SKS and I bought two 30 rounds mags for it and they never once jammed. The Tapcos I have are 20 rounders like yours and many times the round hits the shoulder of the barrel rather than the taper. I am also in the process of finding a fix for this. This post caught my eye while looking and it just blows my mind how a couple guys here have the balls to think they should tell anyone what to do with their property? If they have no intention of being helpful they should shut the heck up and not respond.
Quote:
Originally Posted by camelkicker2000
I understand your sore spot for this. i saw how much a all original sks from russia went for. I could of never imagained paying over 200 bucks for a sks. Like I said if mine was all original it would stayed that way. I understand allot of the measurements on how a weapon works but a armorer is not a gunsmith. They are trained with allot more knowledge. I can tweak the life out of a ar15 or some of other weapons the army uses. Ak or any russian arm is different. I can apply what I know but asking for help or advice on a new subject from somebody who has mastered that particular subject; is going to be the best way to approach it. I can tell you my current sks before I touched with what had been replaced and the lack of matching serial numbers is worth about 70 bucks. It is to bad but gives me a **** nice gun to play with.
Not sure if it's been properly answered, but I had this same issue on my standard stock, what I did was at the front of the magazine, right where the follower meets the body of the mag, I ground that down some. Granted my issue was the fact that the bullets were actually slamming into the front of the magazine body. Works flawlessly now.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by whamisrick
This is not a helpful post and makes no sense whatsoever..
sure it is.
i dont know what planet you are from.
but on mine tapco mags and modified sks's have a terrible track record.
just for fun i googled
tapco mag sks issues and got
About 1,290,000 results (0.27 seconds)
__________________ "I don't practice what I preach because I'm not the kind of person I'm preaching to."
I see no reason why somebody should be criticized for working on there own guns. Simply modifying a gun magazine isnt going to make it slam fire, and removing the useless lips on the bottem of an SKS bolt take about 10 minutes with simple tools like a dremmel and some fine grit sandpaper, and has no adverse effects on the gun considering some SKS's came from the factory already in this configuration so they could use ak mags. And I also think this is far from "The friendliest gun forum on the internet" if you dont like the ideah of not using the original 10 round magazine that came with the gun, fine dont change your sks to use detachable mags...
sure it is.
i dont know what planet you are from.
but on mine tapco mags and modified sks's have a terrible track record.
just for fun i googled
tapco mag sks issues and got
About 1,290,000 results (0.27 seconds)
Just for fun I googled: "issues with things that are perfect and have no problems whatsoever" and got:
About 26,300,000 results (0.35 seconds)
Makes a modified SKS look pretty good by comparison..
After spending many hours fiddling with my Russian model SKS and a Tapco mag, I found on the Tapco website (sneakily hidden under the specifications tab for the magazines):
Item Specifications
Will not fit in the Russian SKS without modification
Holds 20 rounds of 7.62 x 39mm ammo
Can be used in factory wooden stocks by filing the inside of the magazine well on the wooden stock, in order to accommodate the wider polymer magazine.
Counts as 3 U.S. Sec 922r Compliant Parts (body, follower, and floor plate)
Made in the U.S.A.
You'd think that "WILL NOT FIT RUSSIAN MODEL" would be front and center on the website AND on the packaging.
I send off a rather sarcastic email to Tapco for these elusive instructions on how to modify the mag to work.
Many years ago when I had my first Norinco SKS, I bought three synthetic Cobray magazines for the SKS. They were utter crap. The following problems were found:
1) The feed lips were thick and square on fron and rear edges - the bolt could not slide through forwards or back.
Fix - I filed the proper angle on the feed lips and thinned them so the bolt would slide through.
2) The follower would hang up inside the mag box, causing jams. The inside was not smooth and had 'ledges' due to the casting mold.
Fix - I sand the the ledges smooth, and sanded the sides of the followers slightly for a looser slip fit.
3) The nose of the cartridge would hit the bottom of the chamber face, jamming.
Fix - I used thin stainless steel sheet and JB Weld to reshape the follower top, to give more 'up angle' to the cartridge nose.
These mods took the mags from total non-working junk to about 80% function. Okay for range shooting but NOT good enough for serious use where my life is on the line!
I ended up getting a few steel thirty-round mags that worked perfectly.
I have avoided anything labeled 'Cobray' since.
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. You try telling any good gunsmith that he should never modify a weapon. Or better yet tell it to a special ops guy. I have used good quality 30 round mags in an SKS I had years ago and never once suffered a malfunction. I now have a Yugo SKS with the same Tapco 20 round mags in question here, and it is unmodified and reacts the same way. The round is hitting the shoulder of the barrel just below the taper. If the mag is properly made it seats in the same manner as the fixed mag. Remember the fixed mag is designed to swing down and open with the same pivot point as the removable mags. The issue is not with using an after market hi cap mag but rather the manufacturer of some mags not building them properly. Try some good quality steel mags and you will find that they work better. Also there is nothing wrong with modifying your bolt so you can insert the mag with it closed. I know several guys that have done this and none of them have any issues from it. For the money a SKS is a better weapon than the AK because it is more accurate. The SKS does not have the barrel flex the AK suffers from.
