Buying my first sks, few questions

Im about to buy a yugo sks, and I had a few questions.

How do I check if the bore on the rifle is any good?

What Yugo model should I be looking for? M59/66A1?

Any else I should be looking/checking for?

Thanks again.

shiny is good on the bore question.

Get an M-59 Yugo without the grenade launcher if they got one as they are getting pretty hard to find.

The M-59/66 are still pretty common around the shops.

Take a bore light with you or see if they have one at the store (They should) and take a look down the barrel.

Even a small Mag-light would be useful if nothing else.

Check the throat and esp the Crown of the barrel for damage.

Give the whole gun a good once over.

Look for matching numbers on all the different parts of the Rifle.

Check the action of the parts..

Its hard to tell someone what to look for really.

If I had the Rifle in my hands I would know in about 20 seconds if I wanted it, or not :laugh_sma

Hope this helps.

The Yugo SKS's like some others sometimes have sear / trigger / hammer angle issues. Not always and should be fixable. The Yugo SKS firing pins are brittle and break at the retaining shelf against the retainer pin. This will cause a pierced primer and gas in to the bolt. The weakest part of the Yugo SKS is the gas cut off valve will rust out and bleed too much gas off for the rifle to cycle. The barrel isn't chrome lined so look for a shiny one. A lot of the Yugo SKS's have been rebuilt and are in good condition. Some are rough. A very few "new" ones made it in the country but since they aren't C&R s the ATF put the stop on them. They never recalled the 250 -300 that made it through though.

The M59/66 has the grenade launcher, making it a bit more difficult to check the crown, but a good light and the right angle will give you a visual.

Any time that you can, take a 7.62X39 round and place the jacketed bullet into the muzzle end. If the bullet gets swallowed up to the casing, it's possible that the bore will be worn or "Shot out". Just another little trick.

Please look into the bore carefully, because many issued Yugos were shot with corrosive ammo. Pitted and dark bore = no good. Shiny and smooth = good.

the grenade launcher makes the bullet test pretty near impossible unless you are able to remove it. Most sellers probably don't want you to do this.

I have looked at several Yugos lately, and none have had a "dark bore" but they all seemed to have some pitting.

Is it possible to get them to shoot any groups with a pitted bore if the rifling still seems "sharp" or "strong"?

I have a bunch of yugos, one has a badly pitted bore. It will still shoot a decent group at 100yds.

how much are the pitted ones going for?

Too much!

I think I am going to go for an unissued one when I get my tax return.