SKS and the media
The SKS, being an affordable rifle, is often under fire from anti-gun groups because of its popularity. But it is not an assault weapon by any definition, including the made up definition under the expired assault weapons ban. But there’s still a lot of misinformation about them in the press:
A man looking for aluminum cans in school trash cans found a backpack bulging with guns on Monday, a discovery that triggered a campus lockdown while authorities searched for more weapons.
According to Merced County Sheriff’s Deputy Ed Katen, a man found a backpack containing one SKS automatic weapon and three hand guns just after 9 a.m. Monday.
The unidentified man found the bag on the edge of the Delhi Educational Facility, a combined high school and middle school with about 1,000 students.
The SKS is a semi-automatic weapon.
September 12th, 2006 at 8:51 am
“The SKS is a semi-automatic weapon.”
Maybe it had a bad firing pin and was using commercial ammo?
September 12th, 2006 at 9:22 am
heh, an SKS wouldn’t make a very useful auto even if the firing pin were malf’ed. 5-8 shots? “Bip” “hand me that stripper clip” “Bip”…
September 12th, 2006 at 10:03 am
Hate to break the news to ya but the SKS was made in select fire versions. There was an additional flip lever, similar to the safety, located on the front of the trigger guard that was the selector.
September 12th, 2006 at 10:05 am
And how many of those have been imported into the US?
September 12th, 2006 at 10:21 am
No, you see … after you pull the trigger, the bullet automatically flies down the barrel. Or maybe it automatically “goes off at any time” or automatically kills children.
September 12th, 2006 at 11:09 am
I don’t know exact numbers of these in the US but it is at least >1. The class 2 manufacturer I know was holding it in transit to a new owner. He usually calls me when he has something new and different coming through so I can get a look at it. He understands my engineering curiosity.
September 12th, 2006 at 12:40 pm
How big was this backpack to have an SKS inside?
I’m told that the SKS can be altered to make it full auto-I believe full auto only, unless you’re good with the trigger.
September 12th, 2006 at 3:26 pm
Who wants to bet? It was a semi auto and the writer wanted to make this (largely non story) story sound juicy.
September 12th, 2006 at 4:36 pm
Maybe he meant “autoloader”.
September 12th, 2006 at 6:54 pm
That must have been one honkin’ big backpack. My SKS “carbine” is over 40 inches long, and is about as easy to conceal as a quad 40.
September 12th, 2006 at 11:20 pm
I know it’s already been said, but that must be a huge backpack! Even for the chinese paratrooper variation!
September 14th, 2006 at 12:09 am
There’s an SKS variety that takes AK magazines. That COULD be a nice FA weapon, but cripes, it’s about as much as an AK clone . . . which is easily converted to FA.
But cripes guys, a Glock can be converted to FA. They even make a “stock” FA version. Almost ANYTHING can be FA given some work.
The SKS USED to be cheap. Now, eh, they’re $180 for the fixed mag versions. Honestly, I don’t see much use in a FA rifle with a 10 round fixed magazine.
Besides, I think FBI numbers show that more people are killed by golf clubs yearly and all rifles combined.
September 18th, 2006 at 1:14 am
If you do modify it to fa even if you sqeeze and let go it empties the mag.