"New" SKS (first one)

[IdahoSkies]

Well I bought my first sks (and first milsurplus). It’s a stock yugo with the blade bayonet, “grenade launcher” and flip up sights, cleaning kit was not included though the rod threaded through the sights was. I picked it up at a gunshow Saturday for $175 which I thought wasn’t bad. (He was asking $190). I need to take it down to components and clean it, its bluing is pretty well gone on the barrel and grenade launcher and its got a bunch of almost tacky stuff on the furniture and in the grenade sight pivote pins. I know I need to take a look at the firing pin to see if its still a free floating pin or if its been converted to a spring loaded pin.

Can I use my .30 brushes to clean the bore or do I need to get something else?

Anything else a new SKS owner needs to know?

Thanks for the help.

 

[dobeman]

yeah, give it a good cleaning. maybe still have cosmoline plague on it. .30 brushes should work fine. I bought one that actually had 7.6mm on it, but about the same. Not a whole lot to these things. Important thing is have fun shooting it and be safe.

 

[ScratchnDent]

Yeah, you need to clean it thoroughly, especially the bolt and firing pin channel. Lacquer thinner or brake cleaner from the auto parts store works well on the metal. Be careful with them around the wood, though, unless you want to strip off the finish completely.

A tip for cleaning the cosmoline off the stock, lay it out in the sun for awhile to warm it up, that stuff will ooze out of the wood pores seemingly forever!

 

[Frankl03]

Also with the yugo clean the gas port well. The gas port has allot to do with proper cycling on the rifle. It also needs to seal well.

 

[IdahoSkies]

Thanks for the input. I'm planning on stripping everything down so I can work on the stock separately.