First SKS [help]

[WAW44]

My plans for the SKS are a truck, camping, plinking fun gun I plan on putting a good peep sight that goes on the rear of the dust cover and a better front post sight that's it

It's your money, so if you want a SKS for that, go for it. Yugo may be a bit long and heavy for those purposes. Russian, sure it will work, but you will destroy its value if you add those sights. Again, your money. Chinese, sure, it will do, but so will a $450 Ruger American Ranch in 7.62x39 and it will probably more accurate and already set up for optics without any hack jobs.

 

[aksu747]

The SKS is best left stock,not to mention the duckbill mags are junky.(IE: don't work well)
With practice reloading an SKS with a 10 round stripper clip can be done very quickly,my father taught the basic of rifle's on his Norinco SKS.
People who knock the Norinco's haven't owned a Norinco SKS. Whatever you do though stay away from the YUGO SKS,they do not have a chrome lined bore, which means clean it right away unless you want your bore to degrade from the corrosive ammo. The YUGO(and they put the UG in YUGO),also has that ugly rifle grenade mount on it and a shut-off lever for the gas system.

If you want an SKS that takes a magazine look for one of the Norinco's that takes AK magazines, but know this going in:
-The 10 round AK mags are very difficult to seat, plan on using 20 or 30 rounders if you want no trouble inserting a magazine.
-Mags might not seat fully loaded, mine needed to have one round removed to seat a magazine with the bolt forward.
-No bayonet, due to the shorter 16" barrel