Simonov SKS-45

[Dutch Mosin]

We can't have those in the UK, deemed far too dangerous for a private individual to own. However, it is legal to own a fully functional artillery gun such as a 25 pounder on a firearms certificate.
Regards
Peter.

What.......you can't own a SKS but you can own a 25 pounder?????
That is weird and sounds illogical Peter.
Must be a good reason for that but I can't think of one.

Met vriendelijke groet,

Martin

[M14man]

Dutch Mosin says:
"What.......you can't own a SKS but you can own a 25 pounder?????
That is weird and sounds illogical Peter.
Must be a good reason for that but I can't think of one."


My guess is because...it's Black powder, and you can't carry it around; or transport it easily.
Very slow loading....single shot....no place for a bayonet....(joke)

[Niner]

Dutch Mosin says:
"What.......you can't own a SKS but you can own a 25 pounder?????
That is weird and sounds illogical Peter.
Must be a good reason for that but I can't think of one."


My guess is because...it's Black powder, and you can't carry it around; or transport it easily.
Very slow loading....single shot....no place for a bayonet....(joke)

And... it's single shot. No mass murder involved... unless you kind of group them up some.

[Miller Tyme]

Miller Tyme
What..........you owned a dozen of them....WOW.
I'd love to add an Albanian SKS to my collection.
I don't know how you do it Miller but you keep finding gems.
I'll keep you posted and look forward to hearing how it shoots.


Met vriendelijke groet,

Martin

Thanks Martin, I really like the SKS, to me it is an all around great rifle, light, robust, fairly accurate, and cheap ammo. I at one time was starting to collect them but Mosins got in the way so when the Russian SKS's start to go up in price ( 20 yrs ago I could buy them for $149.00 for a Russian, now they are around $450/$500.00) I decided to thin the herd. I sold my Russians, (4) my Yugo's (3) and a couple of my chinese. I now have just 3 left, 2 chinese, one with the rib tickler hand gaurd and the other a D model, (takes AK mags)and my Albanian, which I kept just because it is such an oddball among SKS's.

Enjoy your SKS and let us know how it shoots.

Walt

[Dutch Mosin]

Thanks Walt,

I wanted to add an SKS to my collection years ago, but they were way to expensive in the Netherlands (if you could find one).
It was much easier to buy one in Germany, but until a couple of years ago the SKS was part of the German "Kriegswaffen Kontrol Gesetz" or "Weapons of War Control Law".
You could own an SKS in Germany but it had to be altered.
That meant the bayonet had to be removed (permanently), the rear sight had to be welded at 300 meters and the magazine capacity had to be brought back to 5 rounds.
A German collector once offered me such an SKS for €125.00 (about $135.00).
I thanked him but told him I didn't want to buy a chopped down rifle.
A couple of years ago the SKS was removed from the list and it became possible to buy an unaltered SKS in Germany.
Nowadays you can buy an original unaltered one from €375.00 ($410.00) up to €600.00($655.00).
I'm happy with mine.

Met vriendelijke groet,

Martin

[M14man]

You would have a field day Mosin, if you could live here.
I have 5 SKS's, 2 unfired Yugos in cosmoline, one unfired Russian and 1 Yugo and 1 Chinese (scoped) that I shoot.

[Niner]

I've got a Russian, a Yugo bought in "excellent" as issued condition , an Albanian that came with an extra new stock for free because the wood was pretty awful.. $90. The Albanian turned out later to be pretty rare on the open market and maybe worth more than the Russian.

The Albanian has a longer forestock than the others.

In order top to bottom in the attached photo. Yugo. Albanian. Russian.

[Miller Tyme]

The Albanian is much rarer and pricer than the Russian, IIRC only about 5,000 survived the scrappers torch and where imported. The e hand guard is longer, they have a Chinese style spiker bayonet, they have an AK style cocking handle, and 2 pockets in the butt stock for cleaning kits, and the magazine is a different shape I believe.

The only rarer SKS's are the East German, North Vietnamese, and North Korean versions.

[Niner]

As you mentioned the rarity of the North Vietnamese version... in Vietnam if a US soldier managed to gain possession of an SKS he could take it home as a trophy of war. In Cambodia, in the Incursion of 1970, I was with a platoon that uncovered a large cache of SKS rifles. Maybe they were North Vietnam origin or maybe Chinese. I have no idea. But whatever they were, we couldn't just distribute them as "trophies" we had to give them to the much higher up collectors as a special Cambodian rule because Nixon wanted to have lots of evidence of how smart he was in going into Cambodia and it added to the totals of weapons captured. However, all he did was provoke Kent State National Guard murdering students and riots and more hell than he had bargained for instead. And... that doesn't count the Americans who died doing it. Two guys I knew who were members of FO teams were killed there.

While on the subject of war capture weapons in Vietnam, AK47's weren't war trophy class. Being fully auto by selection switch they were expected to be all turned in and sent back to the rear for destruction ...or whatever they did with them. But .. more times than not... at least in my company... they were reported as "destroyed" and not turned in when acquired in combat. Whoever earned them as trophies had to figure out how he was going to send it back to the world. Wonder how many actually made it back? Now that would be a rare war trophy.

The only AK I ever had my hands on ended up with a grunt who got to it first and it was reported as destroyed....and no telling how it all ended up and if he succeeded in finding a way to send it back home.

[Dutch Mosin]

You would have a field day Mosin, if you could live here.
I have 5 SKS's, 2 unfired Yugos in cosmoline, one unfired Russian and 1 Yugo and 1 Chinese (scoped) that I shoot.

I'm sure I would M14man.
Great SKS collection you have there.
The Yugo and Chinese don't fit in my collection, but..............an East German or Albanian SKS would be a great find.
For now I'll stick to my Soviet SKS.
I'm as happy as I can be with this one.

Met vriendelijke groet,

Martin