Sks Carbine Views
The SKS is a Soviet semi-automatic carbine chambered for the 7.62x39mm round, designed in 1945 by Sergei Gavrilovich Simonov. SKS is an acronym for Samozaryadnyj Karabin sistemy Simonova (Russian: Самозарядный карабин системы Симонова), 1945 (Self-loading Carbine of (the) Simonov system, 1945), or SKS 45. The Soviets rather quickly phased the SKS carbine out of first-line service, replacing it with the AK-47, but it remained in second-line service for decades afterwards. It remains a ceremonial arm today. It was widely exported and produced by the former Eastern Bloc nations, as well as China, where it was designated the Type 56 , East Germany as the Karabiner S and in North Korea as the Type 63 . It is today popular on the civilian surplus market in many countries. The SKS was one of the first weapons chambered for the 7.62x39mm M43 round later used in the AK-47 and RPD.
Design-wise, the SKS relies on the AVS-36 (developed by same designer) to a point that some consider it a shortened AVS-36, stripped of select-fire capability and rechambered for the 7.62x39mm cartridge.[3] It also owes a debt to the SVT-40 and M-44 Mosin-Nagant rifles that it replaced, incorporating both the semi-automatic firepower of the SVT (albeit in a more manageable cartridge) and the small size and integral bayonet of the bolt-action carbine.
In Australia, the Chinese SKS rifle (along with the Russian SKS rifle) was very popular with recreational hunters and target shooters during the 1980s and early 1990s before semi-automatic rifles were banned from legal ownership in 1996. Since the introduction of the 1996 gun bans in Australia, the Mosin-Nagant series of bolt-action rifles and carbines have now filled the void created when the SKS was banned from legal ownership.
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Sks Carbine Images
