The SKS rifle had a very short lifespan as the standard issue rifle in Russia’s military (albeit a longer service life in other countries). But this semi-auto carbine has been so useful that not only has it seen continued military use up until the present day (mostly outside the front lines), but it has also been very popular with civilians as a hunting rifle. But is it actually a good gun for deer hunting? Maybe yes, maybe no—read on and decide for yourself.
The Samozaryadny Karabin sistemy Simonova @ TFB:
Do you want an SKS for hunting?
The best way I can think of answering this is by listing the pluses alongside the minuses, and there are quite a few of both.
Plus: The SKS is reliable
This is the best aspect of this old-fashioned rifle. The SKS was designed in the final months of World War II, after weapons designers had years to see what worked and what didn’t—especially the Russians, who fought in hellish conditions on the Eastern Front. Deer camp is a joke in comparison to the house-to-house fighting that Soviet troops had to endure through the war. The Remington gas-operated 74xx series, the most common semi-auto deer guns in America, always had a reputation for jamming. Not so with the SKS. It will go bang whether temperatures are warm or cold. It will go bang if you drop it in a snowbank. It will go bank if it falls off your tailgate while you drive down a dirt road. And if something does go wrong, these rifles were issued with a maintenance kit that fits into the buttstock and a cleaning rod under the barrel. If your rifle came with all the original parts, you can easily clean a plugged barrel and solve other basic problems.
Minus: The SKS is not particularly accurate
The SKS is not as accurate as the cheap deer rifles of today. A Savage Axis with a scope will outshoot almost any surplus SKS with their basic iron sights. Expect groups of 3-5 inches at 100 yards, depending on the condition of your rifle and the quality of the ammo you’re using; a good shooter can reduce that size, especially if using good ammo. That’s still minute-of-deer, and indeed, many deer are shot at distances well under 100 yards. But don’t expect to make regular 300-yard, across-the-pasture shots with your SKS. Not unless you upgrade the rifle. Speaking of which:
Plus: The SKS is easy to upgrade
The SKS rifle has an almost infinite number of upgrades available. Before everyone owned an AR, the SKS was one of the most popular semi-auto rifles in North America and Australia. Aftermarket manufacturers came out with all sorts of parts for the SKS, and they still do. A lot of this stuff is aimed at the tactical market, but some of it is useful to hunters, including trigger upgrades, tritium front sights, receiver sights, synthetic Monte Carlo stocks, and a long list of optics mounts—a lot of junk, but some good ones too. The SKS is not inherently inaccurate, and careful upgrades will make it much more usable as a hunting rifle. Of course, that will remove the SKS’s other historic strong point, along with its ruggedness—it used to be extremely cheap. But—
Minus: The SKS isn’t so cheap anymore
SKS rifles are now five or six times as expensive as they were when I started shooting, and I don’t expect that trend to end. I would expect to pay more for an SKS than I would pay for a new budget bolt-action; the SKS became popular when it was the cheaper option, not the same price or more. And the SKS also has to contend with the AR-15 platform, which is now far more popular and can be chambered in modern straight-wall cartridges.
Plus: The SKS is still sort of affordable to shoot
While the SKS isn’t so cheap to buy anymore, it is chambered in 7.62×39, which is still one of the more affordable cartridges to shoot, if you’re using FMJ surplus ammo—not as cheap as 5.56/.223, but still affordable. You shouldn’t use FMJs for hunting, but you can still buy made-in-America hunting ammunition for the SKS, and the Serbian PPU stuff is still available, and still priced a bit better than the stuff from Federal/Winchester/etc.
Minus: The SKS doesn’t shoot a very high-powered round
The SKS is chambered in 7.62x39mm, which lags behind Russia’s full-power 7.62x54mm of World War II, as well as the loads their enemies and allies used in their rifles. Nobody but an idiot doubts the .30-06 will knock down a moose, bear or deer. You will hear some naysayers doubt the 7.62x39mm’s effectiveness on whitetails, let alone bigger game.
Plus: The SKS still has *enough* power
The 7.62x39mm round the SKS fires has often been roughly equated to the hitting power of the .30-30. On paper, they’re relatively close out to the 150-yard limit where they both start to lose some steam; the 7.62x39mm actually fares better at longer ranges, thanks to its pointed bullets. We won’t get into the decades-old, tired arguments over bullet construction and everything else that clutters this conversation; we’ll just point out that on paper, the SKS looks like it will work, and that has been proven countless times in the real world, in North America, Asia, Africa, Europe, and Australia. Big deer, little deer, big bears, little bears, big hogs, little hogs and a lot of other wild game has fallen to the SKS. And the gun is a lot easier to shoot than other full-power hunting rifles, thanks to low recoil.
Minus: There are so many other better options
Add all the yays and nays up, and you come down to this final answer. The SKS will work, but there are better options if all you care about is hunting. It’s not particularly cheap anymore and not particularly accurate. They have enough hitting power, but they’re not chambered in an impressive hunting cartridge. You can add a lot of useful upgrades, but you won’t ever turn the SKS into a tack driver. So if you have an SKS and it works for you—great! You should be happy to continue hunting with your rifle. But if you’re looking to buy your first deer gun, you should carefully consider other options on the market, as buying something purpose-built for hunting might make more sense, especially with the pricing hike the SKS has seen in recent years.
