My brother just made a nice sized investment into outfitting a Russian SKS. FiberForce dragonouv stock, neon front sight, tapco scope mount, BSA 1.5-4.5 Ill. Reticle scope, various other things, and two steel 30 rnd detachable magazines from cabela's. The magazines... 54 dollars for the pair. Thats an alright price considering Ive seen one 30 rnd magazine go for that much. Anyways, the bullets go in real loose, dont feed properly. Ive done all the tricks: tapped it on my hand before loading... everything. Bang, dammit!... work the action, bang, dammit!... work the action, bang, bang, cool... bang, dammit!... work the action, then maybe 5 shots, and another, dammit!... work the action. The bullets are being rammed forward into the metal of the barrel but below the chamber... I guess it would be called the feeding ramp. Any suggestions? I dont want to tell rob that he wasted 54 dollars, if the magazines are fualty, cabelas will send me new ones... should I do that? Could I do something with the magazine lips? I need help.

I had the same problem in a 1911, and a cheap magazine. Are you filling the magazine all the way up? Does the mag spring feel tight? And, did it do this with the original magazine? I am willing to bet that it's the mag springs, and since large capacity mags are increasingly harder to find, I might be inclined to check Brownells and see if I could find some better springs.

Hope this helps,

Sooner

My advice would be to send the magazines back and use a stock 10 round, fixed magazine. The SKS I had always fed well with that magazine. I tried a detachable 30 round magazine and it always jammed on the last round, so that went back to the store and the 10 round magazine went back on. If you want a gun that shoots 7.63x39 and has detachable magazines go buy an AK-47 (or SAR-1, the Romanian version). Here is a link to a surplus gun store.
http://www.southernohiogun.com/index.html
Go find a pawnshop that will order the gun for a transfer fee. Otherwise take the SKS for what it is, a fixed magazine gun. JMO

Ben

The mag springs feel kinda loose. And he doesnt want a fixed magazine on his rifle. Please help.

PS. I think I will check around for some replacement/stronger springs.

There was a site just on that rifle. It told how to fix the aftermarket magazinzes and had the entire manual on line also. I lost in in the last hard drive crash.

Search for it using various means and if you find it tell us it's address please.

If those are USA mags, send them back. I have heard more complaints about those mags in the SKS than all other brands combined. If it feeds well with the fixed, ditch the hicap detachables. From what I understand, you may very well be in violation of the 94 crime bill by creating an assault weapon by putting those on. If it has a "bayonet mount, and flash supressor or threaded barrel", then you have two of the banned items in addition to it being semi auto and now a detachable mag which would create an "assault rifle." Note that is says "flash suppressor OR threaded barrel". Based on who in the ATF you talk to, this can mean that putting those pin-on flash suppressors are just as illegal as the screw on type. A pin on muzzle brake is OK, but not a pin on flash suppressor.

To my limited understanding of that bill, it doesnt pretain to pre-'94 rifles, thus the ATF cant do $#!+ to me and I can put whatever I want on that rifle. I could be wrong. But I thought that was the pleasures of having pre-'94 rifles. As in our mini-14, umm folding stock, flash hider, 30 round magazines.

USAs are not good mags period. atleast not any of the high-cap rifle side of things. their mini14, mini30, ak, and sks mags are all junk. they are not heat treated.

andddtionally, with a SKS i recomend the internal 0rd mag, the gun is desinded for it. if you want detackable mags get an AK, thats what it is for.

That is a big misunderstanding of the bill. The bill says that you cannot assemble a rifle of assault rifle configuration even on a pre ban rifle or receiver. The rifle must have been assembled before the ban took affect. That is why you are in violation if you buy a AR-15 pre ban lower (stripped or lower minus an upper) and then assemble it with a pre-ban upper (you can only buy a pre-ban upper and put it on a pre-ban lower if the lower had already been assembeled into a complete rifle-regardless of what upper was on it-before the ban went into affect). Even though it may be a pre ban lower, if it was assembled into a pre-ban rifle after the ban went into affect, then you are manufacturing an assault rifle. It's a bitch, buy you could be called on to prove that you had all the the parts in your posession before the ban took affect, and even then you would be treading on thin ice. Take the SKS for example. It never came with a detachable mag, except for a very few and those took AK-47 mags so any aftermarket SKS removable mag does not qualify, so if you put a detachable mag on one, regardless of when it was made or brought into the country, you have the two main beginning criteria for an assault rifle: semi and detachable mag. Then if you add any two or more of the other listed items, "bayonet mount, flash suppressor or threaded barrel, grenade launcher, pistol grip that is extends conspicuously beneath the action of the weapon, or a folding or telescoping stock", then you have created an assault rifle. The newly imported SKS Yugo's with bayo and grenade launcher to not qualify as an assault rifle because they do not have a removeable mag, but if you put a removable mag on one, then you have created an assault rifle and removed the rifle from C&R status. It's a pain in the ass to comply with, but it is so easy to get afoul of the law; regardless of how stupid the law is, you don't want to cross the line.
All of this information is available on the ATF web page, NRA web page, and other places, but it is extremely boring reading and most people do not take the time to read all of it. One place that condences it pretty well is the NRA ILA page www.nraila.org then go to the fact sheets and look up the 1994 crime bill with semi-auto ban.

Believe me I wish it wasn't so. I wanted to assemble two rifles on 10-22s that were pre-ban actions, both about as PIC as you can get. But after I bought all the stuff to assemble them with flash supressors, bayo mounts, folding stocks and telescoping stocks... I found out that I would be in violation if I put them together (should have done a lot more homework before I bought all that crap) and had to pin the stocks, put on brakes instead of flash suppressors, and grind off the bayo lug from the front sight housing (AR-15)on one rifle and from the stock-Mauser bayo lug-on the other. It cost me dearly and in all honesty I though I was OK using pre-ban receivers, but NOOOOO, I screwed up big time. They are legal now but I put a lot of money into making what I though would be legal politically incorrect rifles only to find out that I would have been way over the line. While legal as they are assembled now, they would look a whole lot better if I could have put them together the way I wanted to in the first place.

That's the stupidest damned law ever passed and I swear, the only real design of the law was to turn otherwise law abiding people into criminals.

[ 09-13-2002, 21:18: Message edited by: Big Bore ]