Why I'm here.

I grew up in a somewhat liberal, extremely pacifist household in the equally liberal Washington state. I had some good friends who introduced me to the errors of my upbringing. Guns (any weapons really) were a forbidden topic in my house, so when I was first introduced to shooting sports I fell in love- kind of a forbidden fruit thing I think. My mother still wonders where she went so wrong.
Because of my upbringing, and my poverty in college, I am not your average gun guy. Most “gun people” buy a gun and it stays in the family, passed on through generations when the owner goes to their heavenly reward. I, on the other hand, go through guns like they were work pants. I get bored, or I look too close, or I shoot them till I don’t like them anymore. Over the past five years I have bought, shot, and sold or traded More than 50 firearms. Along the way I have learned TONS, established opinions, and had a great time. Now some will ask, “Why” ? It all comes down to a deal I made with my incredibly beautiful, and patient wife. When we were first engaged we talked about lots of important things in great detail, and one of those was firearms. She knew I liked guns and enjoyed shooting (though at the time neither of us had any idea how big this would become). She was worried about having hundreds of guns strewn everywhere around the house. We set a four gun limit at any given time. Over the years that deal has been revisited and modified, but the rule made me sell a gun before I could get a new one. It also has led me to play with a ton of platforms and a ton of accessories. This review blog is based on the experience gathered along the way. I have also figured out how to self-fund my gun addiction. In our house “gun money” is a separate entity, though I have on occasion used it to spoil my wife. “Gun money” is money made from a gun sale that is used for buying another gun or ammo. (Gun money also magically accumulates when I let my wife pick our sons names). Guns have become a real investment to mee, they hold their value very well. I have made a lot of additional “gun money” along the way. My addiction started with a $550 initial investment and has grown to around $15,000 in guns, and around $8000 in ammo (though little of that is left) in the course of five years.

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The sks (7.62x39)


This was a gun I never planned to buy. I don’t like the sks as an entity. They are too crude, too ugly, too awkward, and known for being both unreliable and inaccurate, but when I saw it list while I was online and he only wanted $150 when the going rate was well into the $300+ range, I would have been a retard not to buy it. It had a broken stock but with the aftermarket support I wasn’t worried. I got it home and cleaned it, then bought a tapco stock for it. Now call me weird if you must but I thought it would look cool if I painted it white, so I did. I left the metal factory black but the stock went white. It looked great! Until I shot it, then it looked horrible. The paint peeled when it got hot and the carbon from shooting it made it look tarnished, so I set to work stripping the paint back off. It was back to being black when I sold it. I tried two different kinds of aftermarket extended magazines that didn’t work at all. I sold it for $400 after about 200 rounds, and about 40 jams. I also cut the barrel down to 16 inches (it was about 19) and re-crowned it, it made it far more handy, but still not a good gun.


THE GOOD:
The Tapco stock is a lot better than the factory one
I like a white gun, they look clean.
THE BAD:
I tried tapco, and Pittsburg, mags and none of them would run a full mag without a jam or 7
This is a very crudely built gun.
Accuracy is not testable without a 20 square foot target.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
A friend of mine was recently given an SKS by his father in law. He came to me soon after and asked what he should do to make it cooler. I told him to shoot it and then we can talk. He took it to a range and then the next day gave it back to his father in law.
sks is not a good platform, I didn’t like charging it, and it was too unreliable, not accurate, won’t shoot soft points at all,  it’s hard to change mags, and the trigger is long and hard, but with the factory ten round mag I would trust my life to an sks if I had no better options. (I would however keep the bayonet on it at all times, because when it jams you need something.)





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