I don't know about you but I use long handled cotton swabs when cleaning my guns - they get into a lot of places that would otherwise be almost impossible to reach and clean. Today I cleaned my new Yugoslavian SKS, yes the type of SKS with the integral grenade launcher although I am not sure of the exact model designation M59/66 or M59/66A1 but will check on that later.
I have not disassembled my original Yugo SKS in way too long so I needed help in making sure I got things right with the new one. While I could have gone to you tube and enjoyed (or suffered though) a video about how to do it, I decided to look for my old tried and true Surplusrifle.com CDs and look for their manual on how to disassemble a Chinese SKS. Granted, it is different from the Yugo edition because the Chinese does not have an integral
grenade launcher and related parts but those parts are as easy as pie to take apart. Anyway, the CD helped me move along without a glitch. Before moving on, let me say just one thing on glitches with taking apart an SKS - when they warn you to be careful when removing the gas piston extension and its spring they mean it. I thought I had the hole covered but my grip must have shifted a bit and the darned things shot out of there with the speed of light, hit a door a few feet to my right and bounced back right on my desk where my laptop was sitting. I am happy that made the parts easy to find and am ecstatic that they did not hit the laptop's monitor cause they would have done damage. Learn from my mistake - make sure cover that hole to prevent the parts from flying out.
Otherwise, everything went well and I did 95% plus of a detail strip. The only thing I did not disassemble for cleaning was the trigger group. It seemed to be pretty clean. As for the remainder of the gun, there was virtually no Cosmoline inside if it and note I said virtually as I did find a dab of it at the back of the receiver cover. From the look of it, I would say that when first purchased by its prior owner it was in almost new condition and I do not mean factory refinished either. It may have been fired some when issued if ever issued but not much. Once the first owner had it, he evidently fired it infrequently. I am guessing it was so infrequently as to have shot with it only once, or maybe a few times at most, and then maybe he gave it a field cleaning or maybe not.
He should have detail stripped it and cleaned it after he fired it, if indeed he did fire it and it looks as maybe he did so as many as three times but apparently did not detail strip and clean it. The trigger group was clean but despite that, a lot of the SKS was a bit fouled to pretty damned filthy. The pretty filthy parts are what make me think it was fired a couple to few times or that at least a darned good amount of rounds was fired through it if only fired once. The lack of any heavy wear on most of the rifle's action parts with most wear seeming to be from banging around in a crate, or getting put into and taken out of a gun cabinet, is what makes me think it was fired only a minimal amount of times. It does not look like new now but is certainly 95% or better. My guess though would be that at least 500 rounds went down the bore of this one and that accounted for the badly fouled internal parts. Again though, it was probably not more than that or at most 1K of rounds fired through it since there is so little wear on parts in the receiver.
So where was the dirt? The bore was fouled a bit with gunpowder and primer fouling and with copper. As said above, the action was also only a bit fouled. That made me guess it was given a basic cleaning after shooting it and the remaining fouling leeched out after cleaning or that it also was fired and cleaned, then fired a subsequent time, with only a small amount of ammo going through it, and not given a field cleaning after the subsequent shooting with it.
Whether or not what I surmise is correct, it needed a good cleaning. The gas piston end was very carbonized o its face and took quite the bit of scrubbing with a brass brush and patches after several good soakings in solvent. The gas piston tube also was filthy. So too were the gas piston extension and its tube. The gas shut off valve, gas shut off button and its spring were badly fouled as was the housing for them (making me think a good number of rounds went through this one) and it just got the field cleaning of the action and bore. As for the question in this post's title and opening line - it took a lot of cotton swabs to get most all of the fouling out of parts that I could not otherwise have reached. Almost half of what I used of them went to cleaning the gas valve housing alone. That little booger hole was filthy!
If there is one set of things that can screw up the functioning of a Yugo SKS it is, I think, the gas valve assembly. Sure, other things can go wrong but when it comes to the action not operating properly it is among the first things I would check from the valve button being in the wrong position and allowing only for single shots (proper position for when using the grenade launcher) to it being so badly fouled as to not allow enough gas to get to the piston to operate the bolt assembly properly or at all.
Regardless of having to clean it, I have no cons to mention about the actual gun so far. The good things about it are that: I was able to pick it up at the Hessney Auction yesterday, I got it for an okay price as far as SKS rifles go lately, it is a Yugo SKS meaning no stamped parts, it was relatively easy to disassemble and clean, it is clean now and as I said it looks almost brand new. The metal wear is minimal and the wood is virtually pristine. It also has all matching original numbers. I said original numbers because there are also electro-penciled numbers and importer markings on the gun. It is a very nice SKS.
I made plenty of other bids at the auction yesterday but only picked up this one firearm. Sadly for me, I did not have the high bid of the Yugo SKS they auctioned off that did not have an integral grenade launcher. That was a nice gun as well as the one I got but when the bidding brought me to a point where my next bid would have been $50 above what I had set as my limit, I bowed out. It pays not to go overboard when bidding at auctions or should I say - it sucks the money out of your pocket and pays the auctioneer nicely
while putting a smile on his face and too much of your money in his pocket if you do go in over your head.
The other things I picked up were two vintage bayonets for wall hangers, a box of firearms related books, and some ammo. The ammo consisted of three boxes of Remington 38 Special +P SJHP hard to impossible to find lately and the last going price I saw for them was about $28.00 per box of 50. I figure if they get them back in stock the price will be somewhat lower - maybe around $20 per box; I got them for $14.30 per, including the buyer's premium. I wish that they had had more of it. I also picked up 5 boxes of Sellier & Bellot 8x57 JS 196 grain FMJ (8mm Mauser) ammo. I got that at a great price, much less than for half of what they go for at retail.
Now to get mine arse back to work by assembling it (nope have not done that yet). Then hopefully a range trip with it later today or tomorrow. Pause for reassembly...
OK, I got it back together and it was easier than I recall doing it with my other Yugo SKS; that is a good thing. The only part of assembly that seems to be a pain is getting the trigger group seated properly. I tried pushing it in place a few times and then just whacked it with the heel of my hand while holding it in place with the other. That worked like a charm. It is ready for the range to be test fired to make sure I reassembled it properly and that it works and that it is a good shooter. I suppose that right after shooting it, I'll have to disassemble it, clean it and reassemble it, then test fire it again and just jeep the torturously monotonous cycle going until I am out of ammo for it - that may take me years to accomplish!
All in all, it was a good trip even if just to find out how many cotton swabs it takes to clean a Yugo SKS. Oh yeah, the actual number I used today, cleaning just that one SKS, was 56 and they were the type with a much larger cotton head than the usual Q-Tip type. I should buy stock in cotton futures.
All the best,
Glenn B
 |
| My new Yugoslavian SKS, not a bad looking rifle at all. |
I have not disassembled my original Yugo SKS in way too long so I needed help in making sure I got things right with the new one. While I could have gone to you tube and enjoyed (or suffered though) a video about how to do it, I decided to look for my old tried and true Surplusrifle.com CDs and look for their manual on how to disassemble a Chinese SKS. Granted, it is different from the Yugo edition because the Chinese does not have an integral
grenade launcher and related parts but those parts are as easy as pie to take apart. Anyway, the CD helped me move along without a glitch. Before moving on, let me say just one thing on glitches with taking apart an SKS - when they warn you to be careful when removing the gas piston extension and its spring they mean it. I thought I had the hole covered but my grip must have shifted a bit and the darned things shot out of there with the speed of light, hit a door a few feet to my right and bounced back right on my desk where my laptop was sitting. I am happy that made the parts easy to find and am ecstatic that they did not hit the laptop's monitor cause they would have done damage. Learn from my mistake - make sure cover that hole to prevent the parts from flying out.
Otherwise, everything went well and I did 95% plus of a detail strip. The only thing I did not disassemble for cleaning was the trigger group. It seemed to be pretty clean. As for the remainder of the gun, there was virtually no Cosmoline inside if it and note I said virtually as I did find a dab of it at the back of the receiver cover. From the look of it, I would say that when first purchased by its prior owner it was in almost new condition and I do not mean factory refinished either. It may have been fired some when issued if ever issued but not much. Once the first owner had it, he evidently fired it infrequently. I am guessing it was so infrequently as to have shot with it only once, or maybe a few times at most, and then maybe he gave it a field cleaning or maybe not.
He should have detail stripped it and cleaned it after he fired it, if indeed he did fire it and it looks as maybe he did so as many as three times but apparently did not detail strip and clean it. The trigger group was clean but despite that, a lot of the SKS was a bit fouled to pretty damned filthy. The pretty filthy parts are what make me think it was fired a couple to few times or that at least a darned good amount of rounds was fired through it if only fired once. The lack of any heavy wear on most of the rifle's action parts with most wear seeming to be from banging around in a crate, or getting put into and taken out of a gun cabinet, is what makes me think it was fired only a minimal amount of times. It does not look like new now but is certainly 95% or better. My guess though would be that at least 500 rounds went down the bore of this one and that accounted for the badly fouled internal parts. Again though, it was probably not more than that or at most 1K of rounds fired through it since there is so little wear on parts in the receiver.
So where was the dirt? The bore was fouled a bit with gunpowder and primer fouling and with copper. As said above, the action was also only a bit fouled. That made me guess it was given a basic cleaning after shooting it and the remaining fouling leeched out after cleaning or that it also was fired and cleaned, then fired a subsequent time, with only a small amount of ammo going through it, and not given a field cleaning after the subsequent shooting with it.
Whether or not what I surmise is correct, it needed a good cleaning. The gas piston end was very carbonized o its face and took quite the bit of scrubbing with a brass brush and patches after several good soakings in solvent. The gas piston tube also was filthy. So too were the gas piston extension and its tube. The gas shut off valve, gas shut off button and its spring were badly fouled as was the housing for them (making me think a good number of rounds went through this one) and it just got the field cleaning of the action and bore. As for the question in this post's title and opening line - it took a lot of cotton swabs to get most all of the fouling out of parts that I could not otherwise have reached. Almost half of what I used of them went to cleaning the gas valve housing alone. That little booger hole was filthy!
If there is one set of things that can screw up the functioning of a Yugo SKS it is, I think, the gas valve assembly. Sure, other things can go wrong but when it comes to the action not operating properly it is among the first things I would check from the valve button being in the wrong position and allowing only for single shots (proper position for when using the grenade launcher) to it being so badly fouled as to not allow enough gas to get to the piston to operate the bolt assembly properly or at all.
Regardless of having to clean it, I have no cons to mention about the actual gun so far. The good things about it are that: I was able to pick it up at the Hessney Auction yesterday, I got it for an okay price as far as SKS rifles go lately, it is a Yugo SKS meaning no stamped parts, it was relatively easy to disassemble and clean, it is clean now and as I said it looks almost brand new. The metal wear is minimal and the wood is virtually pristine. It also has all matching original numbers. I said original numbers because there are also electro-penciled numbers and importer markings on the gun. It is a very nice SKS.
I made plenty of other bids at the auction yesterday but only picked up this one firearm. Sadly for me, I did not have the high bid of the Yugo SKS they auctioned off that did not have an integral grenade launcher. That was a nice gun as well as the one I got but when the bidding brought me to a point where my next bid would have been $50 above what I had set as my limit, I bowed out. It pays not to go overboard when bidding at auctions or should I say - it sucks the money out of your pocket and pays the auctioneer nicely
while putting a smile on his face and too much of your money in his pocket if you do go in over your head.
The other things I picked up were two vintage bayonets for wall hangers, a box of firearms related books, and some ammo. The ammo consisted of three boxes of Remington 38 Special +P SJHP hard to impossible to find lately and the last going price I saw for them was about $28.00 per box of 50. I figure if they get them back in stock the price will be somewhat lower - maybe around $20 per box; I got them for $14.30 per, including the buyer's premium. I wish that they had had more of it. I also picked up 5 boxes of Sellier & Bellot 8x57 JS 196 grain FMJ (8mm Mauser) ammo. I got that at a great price, much less than for half of what they go for at retail.
Now to get mine arse back to work by assembling it (nope have not done that yet). Then hopefully a range trip with it later today or tomorrow. Pause for reassembly...
OK, I got it back together and it was easier than I recall doing it with my other Yugo SKS; that is a good thing. The only part of assembly that seems to be a pain is getting the trigger group seated properly. I tried pushing it in place a few times and then just whacked it with the heel of my hand while holding it in place with the other. That worked like a charm. It is ready for the range to be test fired to make sure I reassembled it properly and that it works and that it is a good shooter. I suppose that right after shooting it, I'll have to disassemble it, clean it and reassemble it, then test fire it again and just jeep the torturously monotonous cycle going until I am out of ammo for it - that may take me years to accomplish!
All in all, it was a good trip even if just to find out how many cotton swabs it takes to clean a Yugo SKS. Oh yeah, the actual number I used today, cleaning just that one SKS, was 56 and they were the type with a much larger cotton head than the usual Q-Tip type. I should buy stock in cotton futures.
All the best,
Glenn B
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