One thing I love about working in a large and reputable purveyor of firearms is that everything, and I mean literally everything, eventually comes through our door. The rare, the valuable, the oddities, the junk, and yes, the absolutely weird guns of this world all trundle through our shop at some point. I’ve seen $150,000 guns, pinfire revolvers, Scottish dueling pistols, cringe-worthy derringers that would barely rate as a decent paperweight, and everything in between. Today we’re going to dive into something that I was initially tempted to categorize as junk, but have upgraded to oddity. Don’t stop now. Keep reading.
Ladies and Gentleman, in this week’s edition of “What the Heck?” we have an SG Works bullpup conversion of an SKS rifle, that looks rather like a Steyr AUG. If you need to read that again go ahead. I’ll wait.
I don’t keep a tight finger on the pulse of the assault rifle community, and don’t frequent gun shows, so maybe everyone else in the firearms world was privy to this idea, and bullpup SKS conversions are growing on trees in other parts of the nation, but it was a first for me.
As previously stated, I’m not much into assault rifles. Sure, I own an AR, because I’m a gun-owner and you kind of need to own one for pending apocalypses, fictitious or otherwise, but in reality I use it kind of the way I use Thai restaurants – about once every couple years just to try something different.
That being said, the SKS rifle has always appealed to me, and I've certainly owned and shot several of them over the years. I think in design and function, it’s about perfect for its intended purpose, and I really love the original Russian Tula Arsenal guns from the 50’s. Those are darn nice rifles, and I find they are quite accurate out to their intended range with the open sights.
As a modern assault weapon, the SKS has two viable strikes against it: the relatively limited 10-round capacity, and the fact that there’s really no great way to scope the thing without rearranging the gun into something else with crazy custom parts that are lacking in aesthetics, and usually at unjustifiable expense. I am constantly amazed at the lengths people will go to in their attempts to turn an SKS into an AK-47 or an AR-15. It’s neither of those things. For my money, the darn thing was fine just the way it left Russia. If you want an AK or an AR, then buy one. Just my bemused $0.02.
So, I said all that to say this. I’ve encountered something beautifully weird and odd, but that actually works. I… I shot the gun, and I liked it.