The SKS I shot
- Shooting a SKS -
- A lil’ background -
For a long time, I’ve been yearning to shoot something - real guns.
With my family being a guns family, guns were like food. My father taught me how to use rifles safely, me-mama-sister used every opportunity to shoot to shoot, we treat guns as a highly politicized object and love to yap on about the many varieties in just a single gun alone whenever prompted.
However, we are all politically divided on gun laws. We all agree military grade weapons shouldn’t be available to the general public and gun licenses to ensure people know how to use guns safely. If the public could get it, they need highly specialized training on how to not misuse it and be reminded what the actual fuck that weapon is.
From there we diverge: sis is still developing her politics (so still naïve), mama and me do agree on renewing a gun license to be certified that you do know how to handle weapons safely all the time and tata (dad) the equivalent of being a Ben Shapiroist in the gun camp. (Let’s save our reservations of Ben for a later date, we’re talking about guns here.)
Regarding that, I have been exposed to a plethora of guns: AK47s, 74s/74Ms, Krinkovs/AKS, AK Pistols (Scorpions as sometimes misnomered); AR-15s, M4s, M16s, SCARS, FNFAL, Sten Gun, MP5; Zigsaurs, 6-round revolvers, M1911s; Dragunovs/AK-Snipers, Bolt-Action Springfields, Mosin Nagants; MG42s; and today a SKS.
- Shooting it -
So the obvious question: how did it felt like?
Taking the bad girl out for the first time and popping a few rounds down the range, I was genuinely surprised to not expect recoil. As I was assured from my tata, this 1950s produced CCCP-produced SKS would be recoilless. So why to not pop a few dozen more rounds? Of which I most certainly did!
Now while I didn’t save fotos (photos) of my shooting today (and most certainly steel targets aren’t good for recording data other than confirming you hit something), I felt the rifle was very accurate for the distances I shot. For some context, I was using only iron sights with a scalable index for 100-500 meters for the rear sight. Also the fact that I had practically shot from 100 meters to 500 meters (the last distance was tough to land a shot, but final shot and I hit that steel alright!).
The process of reloading (we did "stripper clip" method) was very beautiful and simple. The safety easy to flick off and on. The weight of handling the weapon being so god damn light. Sights being accurate if you knew your general distance away from targets (sorry kids, CoD/Battlefield lied to you that aiming down the sights = perfect shooting no matter the distance). Lugging it as a hunting rifle (I only advocate for limited trophy hunting in benefit of reservations by the way) felt really awesome and allowed me to use compass and map to navigate my way through the forest. (When I said “range,” I meant in the loose sense of targets and plot of land - not the formalized social shooting place.) And it was wooden and felt so wildly nice to utilize, plus iron sights are cool.
Of course, since I hadn’t shot a while I was unconsciously awaiting the fateful recoil that never came. But after a few magazine reloads by stripper clips, I manage to wrestle outta that notion pretty fast with this gun. I equally should mention I was also shooting two other modified (thus recoilless) guns: AK74M and AR-15s. So I was switching in between the three (while being a spotter with a spotting scope for my sis and tata) guns and never felt a micro-burnout from using them - or my way of being dazed from the gun from extended/long usage.
Based on the “could” part of the question: no. The short reason as to why: life. The one-sentence version: Life inhibits me from regularly shooting and these opportunities are rare. The paragraph version: Not only does life inhibit me from shooting whenever I felt like it and mój tata not often shooting for fun, I couldn’t become one. Also that would require me to have some level of connections to the gun community and manufacturers. Not only that but be a big phallus sucker both literally and figuratively if I want to be on their whitelist - industry’s full of egotistical son of a buns. Have so many masks for each company and pretend to have their politics so I can access their weapons to review them at all. And shell out a lotta money for higher level gun licenses, access to “personal” gun ranges, high quality and testing ammo, video equipment not from the 90s and so much more. With my cash amount that I earn, might as well save that for paying off any possible debt I can have with Saint John’s College in Santa Fe, New México instead!~ (Got a full-ride scholarship there.)
- Concrete -
Thought I shared my thoughts on this bad girl while I am still in my away-cation with my immediate family. It was an interesting experience to reload, handle, shoot and have fun with. I would definitely recommend this rifle to anybody in the general guns community, and definitely history (and gun) fanatics. ‘Tis a very trustworthy rifle at the end of the day and another mark of quality that comes from ex-CCCP and Warsaw Pact nations (this is a whole other post I can get into, quality of goods there). Hell, even as a casual rifle I would definitely like to sling this on and use it like I would for AKSs. This would be a gun I equally recommend to newcomers as well - do expect it to jump a lil’ but absolutely no kickback/recoil!!!! <<<<3333!!!!~
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