Firearms

The SKS · Deep Dive

The SKS

A state secret whose manual was not classified — and a rifle nobody has manufactured in decades that has never had a better aftermarket.

The Soviet carbine that was superseded before most of them were built, and then made by everybody else for forty years — the secrecy the USSR wrapped around it, what the CIA actually learned, the whole knock-off family, takedown to the last pin, and the modern aftermarket.

Photo: Simonov SKS-45 by Original uploader BigBattles, cropped and retouched by Atirador

📚 Reference Library — 2 documents for this dive →

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    Volumes

    1. Vol 1 Overview — The Carbine That Was Obsolete Before It Was Issued
    2. Vol 2 Simonov — Twenty Years of Getting to the SKS
    3. Vol 3 The Cartridge — 7.62×41, Then 7.62×39
    4. Vol 4 Adoption, and the Second World War Combat Myth
    5. Vol 5 The Secret Carbine — What the CIA Knew, and When
    6. Vol 6 Soviet Production — Tula, Izhevsk, and How to Read One
    7. Vol 7 China — The Type 56 and the Eighty Factories
    8. Vol 8 The Other Makers
    9. Vol 9 How It Works
    10. Vol 10 Field Strip, Step by Step
    11. Vol 11 Bench Strip — Bolt, Trigger Group, Gas System, Magazine
    12. Vol 12 Slam Fires and the Free-Floating Firing Pin
    13. Vol 13 Furniture — Wood to Synthetic
    14. Vol 14 Sights and Optics — The Zero-Retention Problem
    15. Vol 15 Magazines, Triggers and the Rest of the Aftermarket
    16. Vol 16 Making It Shoot Better
    17. Vol 17 Law, Values, and the Cheatsheet