Yugoslavian SKS M59/66 Century Arms

So, I have been shooting the Yugo SKS for nearly a year now. I had initially wanted an SKS to test how the 7.62x39mm fared with handloads but unfortunately that never happened. what I was able to do however was compile some decent experience with the weapons system and more of an understanding of the long stroke gas piston system. This Review is on specifically the Yugo SKS as it varies from other SKS variant carbines. The Yugo SKS is like any Yugoslavian-Soviet Weapon; Unique, in that they were almost all a particularly different compared to the mother countries variants of the same weapons. The Easiest way to spot a M59/66 is through its rather unique features:

Every Yugo is equiped with:

- NATO rifle grenade launching attachment pinned to the muzzle of the rifle
- NATO rifle grenade folding sight leaf
- Gas cutoff switch
- Tritium flip up night sights
- A 20" (50.8cm) barrel (not chrome lined)
- Blade bayonet

Other features that are different about the Yugo SKS are its thicker receiver, and different triangle free floating firing pin. The Yugo in its intended format has a 10 round fixed box magazine and is fed by standard AK stripper clips.

PROS: 

The Yugo is truely the most modern and more refined of all of the SKS variants a new production rifle with most of these specs would easily be in the $1000-2000 range.  This rifle really brings to the table most of the desired features for a early 20th century battle rifle. This rifle will shoot anything you put through it from wolf Steel cases all the way to Hornady Zmax, and will function flawlessly. Having a longer barrel makes this rifle a little easier to take out to 300m putting rounds in the kill zone on a silhouette target. The Yugo variant is actually re-enforced to shoot a higher pressure 7.62x39mm that shares a bullet design similar to the 5N7 (5.45x39mm). This rifle has nearly no felt recoil mainly due to the weight of the weapon. 

Cons:

Unfortuneatly nearly every tritium lamp on the Yugo SKS rifles has gone out. Making the night sights no more than a cosmetic appearance. The Grenade launcher attachments are unusable as the US has never issued NATO rifle grenades and they are quite rare to find in the US. As stated in the Pros section this rifle really is a "modernized" battle rifle. What holds this rifle back is the technology used even in as late of a production rifle as the M59/66. by that time Stripper clips were almost completely taboo and non-existent in rifle designs of the time. the fixed bayonet and grenade sights add unnecessary weight to the rifle. The limited 10 round fixed box mag paired with a semi-auto rate of fire really makes this rifle feel under equiped as a military rifle seeing as they went as far as to re-enforce the receiver and add night sights. 

Conclusions:

This rifle is what I would call a fun gun, This rifle was replaced in the soviet union rather quickly by the AK47  and variants for a reason. As a military rifle It is really lacking. This rifle however makes a good plinker, or hunting rifle. It has a decent after market presence and new stocks, detachable box magazines and other attachments can be purchased. As far as a "bug out" or SHTF gun I think this gun is highly overrated. This rifle only fares slightly better accuracy-wise than an AK variant but is larger, weighs more, and needs to be extensively modified to even meet half of the out of box function AK variant can provide. If its what you have it can be useful, but I would not make this my go to gun for SHTF.

Simply put its the epitome of an early 20th century battle rifle lacking all of positives of battlerifles invented afterwards. It simply served as a stepping stone for the AK platform.