rep308
NES Member
My Chinese SKS was purchased at the Marlboro gun show in 1989 for $99 and I walked out the door with a 1000 round case of steel core ammo for another $99. Over the years I added a scope mount that fits over the rear cover and a $30 Chinese 3.5x scope. It was my first center fire rifle and I spent a lot of time in the early 90's learning to shoot and care for this gun.
It is very accurate but the trigger was bad, I mean really long scratchy, uneven pull bad. Since it was a $99 gun I put up with it. Having seen an SKS go full auto I was uncomfortable messing with it myself.
Seeing SKS's now in the $400 range I investigated trigger work. I searched the boards and found a person, Tom Prince, aka Kivaari, who offers a trigger job for $59.95 plus $8 shipping and handling:
http://www.kivaari.com/index.html
Taking a leap of faith, I pulled out the trigger group, thanks to those who reminded me to PUT THE SAFETY ON first, and mailed it to Tom with a postal money order on August 8th. Tom sent me the return shipping info and it appeared in my mailbox today 9/6. 10 minutes later and it was back on the assembled gun.
First impressions, Wow! I had a terrible, very bad trigger and I was hoping for an OK one after the work. What I have is a good trigger, two stage. After a slight take up, it breaks clean at 4.5 lbs as measured by my Lyman trigger gauge. I can't believe the difference.
No one will mistake the trigger for a match grade Timney but the transformation went from a D- trigger to a B+, well worth $68. I've upgraded my optics too, to a $120 Vortex Crossfire II 2-7x32 and can't wait to take it to the range.
I've heard that the Yugo SKS have a much better trigger than the Chinese but Tom's service is worth a look. I'm glad I did it.
It is very accurate but the trigger was bad, I mean really long scratchy, uneven pull bad. Since it was a $99 gun I put up with it. Having seen an SKS go full auto I was uncomfortable messing with it myself.
Seeing SKS's now in the $400 range I investigated trigger work. I searched the boards and found a person, Tom Prince, aka Kivaari, who offers a trigger job for $59.95 plus $8 shipping and handling:
http://www.kivaari.com/index.html
Taking a leap of faith, I pulled out the trigger group, thanks to those who reminded me to PUT THE SAFETY ON first, and mailed it to Tom with a postal money order on August 8th. Tom sent me the return shipping info and it appeared in my mailbox today 9/6. 10 minutes later and it was back on the assembled gun.
First impressions, Wow! I had a terrible, very bad trigger and I was hoping for an OK one after the work. What I have is a good trigger, two stage. After a slight take up, it breaks clean at 4.5 lbs as measured by my Lyman trigger gauge. I can't believe the difference.
No one will mistake the trigger for a match grade Timney but the transformation went from a D- trigger to a B+, well worth $68. I've upgraded my optics too, to a $120 Vortex Crossfire II 2-7x32 and can't wait to take it to the range.
I've heard that the Yugo SKS have a much better trigger than the Chinese but Tom's service is worth a look. I'm glad I did it.
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