SKS detachable mag. fix!

duster68

Hi all, now I'll probably get slammed for being a "master of the obvious," but I think I found a fix for a problem I have been having with my SKS detachable mags. Lots of people have posted comments about the same problem. Many of you know that most SKS metal detachables don't function correctly until you tweak the feed lips. That's the easy part. The hard part, for me at least, has been getting the mag. to hold the bolt open after the last shot. On an SKS, mags that don't hold the bolt open are worthless. I tried just about everything but couldn't seem to get this to work, until today. Thinking that the trouble was with the follower, I disassembled the mag. I filed away at various sides of it, reassembled, same problem. I took it apart again and started fiddling around with spring. I knew that the problem is that the little nub on the follower that's suppose to engage the bolt lock doesn't push it up hard enough, at least not on my mags. The spring also seemed to push up on the wrong side of the follower, opposite the bolt lock. After the last shot, the follower would stick out of the mag, at an extreme angle. Consequently, the nub wouldn't even touch the bolt lock. To fix this, I stretched the spring and bent out the link that pushes on the follower so that it puts more pressure on the correct side of the follower. Now the follower rides all the way up, parallel with the feed lips, with more force and (finally) engages the bolt lock correctly. To me and all other SKS owners who have been salivating over our 30-round detachables, this is huge. I took my five mags out to the range today and for the first time since I bought them two years ago, they functioned perfectly! I know I've said many times that for absolute reliability, shoot the SKS in its stock configuration. Still true, but damn is it fun to shoot it with hi-caps! [This message has been edited by duster68 (edited 01-06-2002).]

boeboe

Thanks Duster, I've saved that info for future reference.