26 Facts About SKS

SKS is a semi-automatic rifle designed by Soviet small arms designer Sergei Gavrilovich Simonov in 1945.

SKS was first produced in the Soviet Union but was later widely exported and manufactured by various nations.

Nevertheless, SKS carbines continued to see service with the Soviet Border Troops, Internal Troops, and second-line and reserve army units for decades.

SKS was manufactured at Tula Arsenal from 1945 to 1958, and at the Izhevsk Arsenal from 1953 to 1954, resulting in a total Soviet production of about 2.

The SKS was exported in vast quantities and found favour with insurgent forces around the world as a light, handy weapon which was adequate for guerrilla warfare despite its conventional limitations.

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SKS has a conventional layout, with a wooden stock and rifle grip.

The SKS represents an intermediate step in the process towards the development of true assault rifles, being shorter and less powerful than the semi-automatic rifles that preceded it, such as the Soviet SVT-40, but being longer than AK-series rifles which replaced it.

SKS firing pins that are stuck in the forward position have been known to cause accidental "slamfires".

SKS is easily field stripped and reassembled without specialized tools, and the trigger group and magazine can be removed with an unfired cartridge, or with the receiver cover.

Design-wise, the SKS relies on the AVS-36 to a point that some consider it a shortened AVS-36, stripped of select-fire capability and re-chambered for the 7.

In 1949, the SKS was officially adopted into the Soviet Army, manufactured at the Tula Armory from 1949 until 1955 and the Izhevsk Mechanical Plant in 1953 and 1954.

The SKS was the standard service rifle used by Soviet Air Defence Forces to guard Anti-Aircraft sites until at least the late 1980s.

Russian SKS's had stocks of Arctic Birch, and the Chinese were of Catalpa wood.

In terms of production numbers, the SKS was the ninth most produced self-loading rifle design in history.

The SKS has been circulated in up to 69 countries, both by national governments and non-state actors.

SKS was to be a gap-filling firearm manufactured using the proven operating mechanism design of the 14.

The SKS was used by Soviet troops and Hungarian partisans alike during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.

Thereafter, while the SKS was retained for various auxiliary duties, it ceased to have any real military significance in the Soviet Union.

The SKS was in general issue with regular units of the People's Liberation Army for thirty years as the Type 56 carbine.

The increasing ubiquity of the SKS altered the dynamics of asymmetric warfare in developing nations and colonial territories, where most guerrillas had previously been armed with bolt-action rifles.

The SKS served as one of the primary arms of the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War.

SKS found particular favour in southern Africa, where it was used by a number of insurgent armies fighting to overthrow colonial rule in Angola, Rhodesia, and South West Africa.

The SKS was used in large quantities by uMkhonto we Sizwe, armed wing of the African National Congress in South Africa.

SKS carbines captured from MK by the South African security forces were used to arm militias of the Inkatha Freedom Party during its internal power struggle with the ANC in the 1980s and 1990s.

In 2016, the SKS remained in the reserve stockpiles of over 50 national armies, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa and the former Soviet bloc.

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The SKS was first imported into the United States in 1988, and due to a high volume of Chinese imports, quickly became a cheap and desirable option, with an SKS and case of ammunition selling for roughly $150.