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(1/7/2005 Ryan Jones) The SKS rifle in a lot of ways reminds me of a classic Rodney Dangerfield act, it gets no respect. No respect from the “mainstream” Gun press. No respect from the guys who hunt deer once a year. No respect from gun collectors. No respect from the Mainstream media. Sometimes it even gets no respect from the people who own them. Most of the above mentioned people don’t get my respect anyway, the mainstream media for instance. I swear, the next time I hear of another terrible gun crime committed with an “SKS Assault Rifle” I’m going to pitch my TV right out of the window. Most of the press could look at a stock, unmodified Norinco SKS and not think of it as anything but an “old wooden rifle. ” Most of these idiots couldn’t even recognize an SKS if it was right in front of them but if it gets used in a crime it’s an “assault rifle.” But anybody reading this editorial probably already knows that. What really gets me going is the people who should know better. I have seen exactly five instances mentioning the SKS rifle in America’s most popular gun magazine, Guns & Ammo, since I have been reading it for about seven years now. Out of those five exactly ZERO were positive. The one that really gave me pause (and made me cancel my subscription) was when the CZ 527 carbine was being evaluated. It was chambered in 7.62x39mm, and was getting (of course) a positive review. The 527 was shooting three inch groups with optics at 100 yards, the article said that for a sporting carbine that wasn’t all that good. Then the article goes on to say that “whoever owned one [of the 527s] would have no problem out shooting anyone with an SKS”. No kidding? Lets see, the SKS is a semi auto, holding ten rounds that routinely delivers three to five inch groups at one hundred yards with iron sights offhand (for me at least). The 527, a bolt action, holding five rounds, shooting three inch groups OFF THE BENCH at one hundred yards, WITH OPTICS. Which one would you rather be shooting? I have a customized SKS that I can shoot off the bench at one hundred yards with optics and do just as good as and often better than, the 527 mentioned. But you won’t hear about it in Guns & Ammo. In fact, most gun magazines, besides maybe Shotgun News, even bothers to say anything about the SKS at all. Now let’s move to deer camp. The fact is that most of the “dedicated” deer hunters who take to the field every year shoot maybe half a box of cartridges through ANY gun all year long. If they hunt small game, they might shoot a .22 a bit more. Most of them go and get the latest and greatest rifles, or maybe shoot the same old .30-06 Remington over and over again every year. I personally know of more than one hunter in my party who literally is on the same box of cartridges they bought with the rifle, several years ago. Now, these guys look at my SKS that I took down to deer camp this season and go, “What is that?” I tell them it’s an SKS and one has the nerve to say, “Oh, you too broke to get a Savage?” I ask him if he even knows what an SKS is, and he says, “Yeah, a cheap Chinese gun.” I didn’t say anything else, mostly because I already bought my tag and was there to hunt, but you get the point. Incidentally this guy missed three shots that season I didn’t get one. But I know the SKS is a perfectly good whitetail rifle and if I had got a shot, I wouldn’t have missed. Maybe that’s because I can afford to shoot two or three thousand rounds through my deer rifle every year, instead of two or three. Now I will admit right off the bat that there has been a bit of a renaissance as far as SKS collecting in the last few years. This is mostly due to the more and more rare varieties of SKS that have come out over the last few years from the former communist block. There is enough variety in the SKS world nowadays to have a good time collecting them. However, try telling that to the guy that collects M1 Garands, Smith &Wesson revolvers or even Glocks for that matter. Most of these guys look at the SKS as a piece of pipe with a stock attached to it. I, as an SKS collector, respect the guy who collects the Garand, or the Smith & Wesson (and even the guy who collects the “Tactical Tupperware”). For that matter I respect the guy who collects Coleman Lamps or old fishing reels or even Beanie-Babies. When I take My SKS to the range, I get looked down on as just another wannabe Garand collector who can’t afford it. I have had a guy try to convince me for twenty minutes that the Garand is far superior to any other rifle and I should go and get one of them. I outshoot him with a “cheap Chinese” SKS consistently. If all of this wasn’t enough to make the SKS enthusiast think that he is all alone out there, there are the guys who own one of these rifles and don’t respect them. One case comes to mind for me. While at the range shooting a G3, with no SKS in sight, a guy walks up to the line and introduces himself. RANT: I don’t know about you, but I try to be as nice a guy as possible when on the range, one because an armed society is a polite one and two because we are all shooting ambassadors on the range. If we can’t be nice to one another there, then we might as well all hand in our guns right now. If we can’t get along amongst ourselves, the other side will rip us apart piece by piece: END RANT. So anyway, this guy pulls out a Chinese SKS and settles in on the fifty yard line, trying to sight it in. He’s not having much luck so when there’s a lull in the shooting, I go up and ask him what the deal is. He says, “Oh, this cheap ass piece of junk won’t shoot strait at all. I don’t even know why I keep it. ” I reach in to my range bag and pull out my sight adjustment tool. I hand it to the guy and say, “Hey man, you have one of these?” He looks at it and says no. I ask to shoot his SKS and find out it is shooting about three inches low. I adjust it and low and behold, I fire off ten shots almost on top of one another. “It’s a good gun if you give it a little respect. ” I tell him. Look, I know that the SKS is not expensive. I know it does not have graceful lines. I know it is heavier than it needs to be. I know that it doesn’t have any picattiny rails all over it. It does not have a fancy super diamond rock coating finish, or a super high output flashlight on it. It gets no respect. And maybe that’s why I respect it the most. |
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