SKS rifling question?

tynimiller

New member
Okay picked up a SKS at a gun show this last week and it wasn't the best lighting. Serial numbers all matched and seemed very clean and obviously been shot because no cosmoline anywhere except under reciever box in the corners.

Well last night I decided to do a full cleaning dissembling everything and when I'd scrubbed the inside of the barrel with a proper fitting brass brush, followed by some Rem Oil on patches the thing was shiny...but crap what is that?!

I held the reciever up to a light and looked down the barrel from the front and noticed about maybe 5-7 inches down (about where the gas tube starts) I noticed what looked like a scratch in the rifling...it's hard to tell but it looks like it never interesects the rifling but runs between two rifling grooves and isn't any longer then maybe the width of a fingernail.

Researched and some people say some barrels have a gas port hole into the barrel? True? I highly highly doubt I was able to scratch the chrome lined barrel (it is a chinese SKS) with the brass brush....but now I'm concerned about it. Nothing is sticking out and would interfere with the passing of a bullet but I'm wondering what type of accuracy problems this may cause?

Any thoughts on what it may be and if it is worthy of being worried about would be appreciated.
 

macsters

New member
you'll be able to see the gas port hole if you look down the barrel. if you cannot see both the hole AND the scratch, then your scratch is probably just the gas port hole.

if it is still a concern, what you can do is field strip the gun and then get a friend, wife, offspring, etc. to shine a light into the front of the gas tube while you look down the barrel. if light is coming out of the scratch/hole, it is the gas port hole.

and no, your brass brush would not be able to noticeably scratch the barrel in one isolated location halfway down the barrel.

figure16.jpg

that is where you will want to shine the light into.

in any case, the final test is, of course, the range test. if it shoots fine, scratch or not, i would not worry about it.
 

tynimiller

New member
Thanks...and I plan on doing the light test tonight after I clean the gas tube throughly I'll just do the test then. Hopefully if it is a scratch it won't affect that much.
 
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