Beta Arms SKS-D

[bbush44]

I figured I would start a new thread now that she is home. 
Old Thread Here ->http://sks-files.com/auctions/47/did-any-of-you-see-this/1436/
My FFL called yesterday afternoon, and told me my transfer had arrived. I picked it up right after work, but had a full night so she just rode around in the trunk of my car till I got home later that evening. I am always skeptical about buying sight unseen, because you never know what the seller didn't take pictures of.

After getting my hands on her and tearing it down, I was surprised with the condition. All the bluing is in great shape, and just a little wear where the bolt carrier travels back and forth. It appears the previous owner took pretty good care of it, and smells and feels like she is coated well with gun oil.  The gas tube and piston do not match (but they match each other), all of the remaining serialized parts do.  I am very happy with my purchase, and the project ahead of me.

The only con is I really do not like the combat exchange stock. I do not like how it fits the receiver, and the mag well when you insert the mag is less than to be desired. This SKS did not sell new with this stock with evidence of the wooden dowel used as a ferrule pin. (never seen that before)

Well enough blabbing here are the pictures. I apologize for the indoor pictures, but it was dark by the time I got to really look her over.
This is how she arrived.









Came with a partial cleaning kit.









Hopefully this weekend I can get started fitting the metal mag liner to my donor stock I have, and return her back to the wood stock.

[CARBINE]

Looks like a fun project!! Nice gun man, it will look a lot better out of that stock.

[Loose}{Cannon]

Toothpick for a ferrule rivet....  First for me.

Looks great man!

[Dannyboy53]

Lookin good bb, this is gonna turn out real nice!

[Justin Hell]

toothpick...paperclip....who said SKS repair has to be difficult. 

I wonder how long the toothpick will hold up? Seems like a somewhat viable solution, at least or awhile. The easy peasy factor is a bonus.

How well does that ATI folder lock up? If you are considering ditching it...I might be your huckleberry.  I might even be able to trade some huckleberries....although my health might have caused me to miss huckleberry season.  Ever since I broke that folder I have kind of missed it....it came on my first SKS and I really liked the compact nature of it....very backpackable.  The one I had was not any worse than the ATI Strikeforce V2 stock that replaced it in the wobbly department...and really folded to a more desirable nature with the thinner buttstock.

Does yours show indications of filing for the mag well?? The stamping on the trigger guard I previously referred to might have been BA on the backside....if so, your stock might be 'original'. For the life of me I cannot remember where I recall the trigger group stamping....but Beta Arms seems to ring a bell with imports being modified presale with those folders.....stupid medication foggin up my brainerds.

[bbush44]

toothpick...paperclip....who said SKS repair has to be difficult. 

I wonder how long the toothpick will hold up? Seems like a somewhat viable solution, at least or awhile. The easy peasy factor is a bonus.

How well does that ATI folder lock up? If you are considering ditching it...I might be your huckleberry.  I might even be able to trade some huckleberries....although my health might have caused me to miss huckleberry season.  Ever since I broke that folder I have kind of missed it....it came on my first SKS and I really liked the compact nature of it....very backpackable.  The one I had was not any worse than the ATI Strikeforce V2 stock that replaced it in the wobbly department...and really folded to a more desirable nature with the thinner buttstock.

Does yours show indications of filing for the mag well?? The stamping on the trigger guard I previously referred to might have been BA on the backside....if so, your stock might be 'original'. For the life of me I cannot remember where I recall the trigger group stamping....but Beta Arms seems to ring a bell with imports being modified presale with those folders.....stupid medication foggin up my brainerds.

Justin - I haven't decided what exactly I am going to do with the stock, I hope to get some time soon to shoot her, and I doubt I will have the wood stock done by then. So I will have to give the folding stock a try. I did not notice any filing in the mag well, but to be honest I didn't look the stock over that much. It shipped folded up, so I unfolded it, brought it to my shoulder, shot imaginary terrorists in my dining room, and then I took it out of the stock and set it aside.    I will take some better pictures of the stock alone and send them your way.

Are you thinking Midwest Ordnance instead of Beta Arms?
http://chinesesks.weebly.com/midwest-ordnance.html

[Power Surge]

Very nice! That gun will look gorgeous with a wood stock back on there

[Justin Hell]

toothpick...paperclip....who said SKS repair has to be difficult. 

I wonder how long the toothpick will hold up? Seems like a somewhat viable solution, at least or awhile. The easy peasy factor is a bonus.

How well does that ATI folder lock up? If you are considering ditching it...I might be your huckleberry.  I might even be able to trade some huckleberries....although my health might have caused me to miss huckleberry season.  Ever since I broke that folder I have kind of missed it....it came on my first SKS and I really liked the compact nature of it....very backpackable.  The one I had was not any worse than the ATI Strikeforce V2 stock that replaced it in the wobbly department...and really folded to a more desirable nature with the thinner buttstock.

Does yours show indications of filing for the mag well?? The stamping on the trigger guard I previously referred to might have been BA on the backside....if so, your stock might be 'original'. For the life of me I cannot remember where I recall the trigger group stamping....but Beta Arms seems to ring a bell with imports being modified presale with those folders.....stupid medication foggin up my brainerds.

Justin - I haven't decided what exactly I am going to do with the stock, I hope to get some time soon to shoot her, and I doubt I will have the wood stock done by then. So I will have to give the folding stock a try. I did not notice any filing in the mag well, but to be honest I didn't look the stock over that much. It shipped folded up, so I unfolded it, brought it to my shoulder, shot imaginary terrorists in my dining room, and then I took it out of the stock and set it aside.    I will take some better pictures of the stock alone and send them your way.

Are you thinking Midwest Ordnance instead of Beta Arms?
http://chinesesks.weebly.com/midwest-ordnance.html

You hit the nail on the head....that was what I was thinking of. Having a couple of wisdom teeth removed seems to reduce the wisdom functionality...I am running on lower wattage. 

Just remember that all of the terrorists are imaginary....it helps to save on ammo.

I am interested in what may have been done to the stock, when I saw that one for sale my interest was piqued, but I have never had an AK mag variant, so it was kind of a non issue. Give the stock a try, you may or may not like it...but for compactness, they have yet to be beat....a little goofy looking, but Ram Line folders are worse in that department.  If your storage compartment 'door' is missing or if you need a buttpad...I kept mine before sending off the broken stock to ATI for replacement.....lmk

[bbush44]

I made a little progress this morning on fitting the SKS-D to a standard spike stock. I took some pictures along the way.
Here she is in her donor stock. I had to trim a little bit around where the trigger assembly fits into the notch of the receiver.
After that she fit like a glove.


Measuring and marking how much of the stock I will need to remove.


I used a mix of a small dremal, files and sand paper to remove the wood. The square section wasn't to bad, this Chinese wood sands pretty easy. The angled piece towards the front was a PITA. I measured and marked, but really didn't have a tool to make that angle very easily.


After fitting, sanding, fitting sanding, it finally fit in there.


Then to drill the holes for the screws was another PITA. I measured, and measured, and measured, and finally took a chance with the smallest drill bit I have. Pretty much .005 pencil lead. For some crazy reason I measured correctly and they lined up.

Now it was time to find a piece of wood to fill the spot in front of the metal insert. I had this broken beyond repair stock, so I cut the section between the blade cut and magazine slot out.

After more measuring, sanding and fitting, I got the piece to fit pretty good. I left it a little big so after I glued it I could sand it to fit and blend in with the rest of the stock better.

After glue and some sanding. I will sand it some more when I finish the stock and hopefully it we be a little less obvious. Also installed the 3rd screw for the metal mag well. Everything lined up good.


This is how much of the stock needs removed for the metal insert to fit.  I saved it in case I chose to use some of it with glue to blend where I added the piece in front of the insert.

I don't think it turned out to bad so far, and I am sure if I did it again I would probably do things a little different. It really wasn't to difficult with simple hand tools, and a few shots of crown when I got frustrated.    It will work, and I can get this ol girl out of that damn plastic stock.  Now it is time to finish the rest of the stock. Still looking for a NOS wood hand guard in amber shellac that  used to be all over ebay for $10. Now that I am looking for one no dice.
I have to head to a birthday party tonight so finishing the rest of the stock will have to wait. But I did take a few pictures of her outside after I cleaned it up. Bore was clean after a couple of patches down it. I disassembled the bolt as I always do, and it had some caked on carbon, but not to bad. The gas tube and piston also had some carbon in it, but a pretty clean well taken care of firearm. I think the previous owner probably just ran some patches down the barrel, and wiped it out after shooting. He/she/it didn't pay much attention to the gas system or bolt.




" Well that stock looks hideous, duh its plastic!"

[running-man]

Excellent job Brian!  This thing is going to turn out darned sweet! 

[XXXSKS]

Excellent can't wait to see it finished.


 .........Joe

[Dannyboy53]

Yep, using ones imagination....this is going to be a sweet looking carbine! Danged good job Brian.

[bbush44]

Worked a little bit on the stock this morning, and I don't think it looks to bad so far. I lightly sanded the entire stock with 150 grit paper. I used 100 grit on the previous serial #, but it is still visible. I might need to hit it with some 60, or just leave it alone. There are some dark spots on the stock, but I am afraid if I sand to much it will be very obvious, and I really don't want an over sanded stock. 
According to the commercial section on the Chinese SKS guide Joe (XXXSKS) states the SKS-D came with a dull tung oil finish. If I put Tung oil on the stock in its current state, would it remain this light? Or will it darken up some?
Should I sand more to try and remove the dark spots?
Anyone ever bleach a stock?
Should I put some sort of stain on before the Tung oil to darken it up a bit?
Here it is currently. It's warming up and I am off to the lake. 

The spot on the bottom of the stock is where my sweaty arm touched it. lol

[firstchoice]

  It's looking really good! The metal looks great and the wood stock will return it to it's awesome original look. Excellent job refitting the wood stock with the mag well liner!

  Are you going to go for the original light color of the Beta Arms and China Sports' SKS-D's?

  firstchoice

[John Galt]

Brian,

You did a great job on the stock!  I refinished a donor stock on my security forces sks.  It was an fleebay stock that was very dark.  I sanded as much as I could without making obvious changes to the stock's shape.  I did sand away the original serial.  I then applied tung oil...and was disappointed with how dark the oil made the wood.  I did two applications of wood bleach and then tung oil and it came out very nice. From what I remember, the color was close to what is shown in the guide.

I was actually looking for the golden "straw" color so I sanded the stock again and applied amber shellac.

Again, very nice work!

John 

[Power Surge]

That looks awesome! Can't wait to see it finished and all back together. Jealous!

[bbush44]

  It's looking really good! The metal looks great and the wood stock will return it to it's awesome original look. Excellent job refitting the wood stock with the mag well liner!

  Are you going to go for the original light color of the Beta Arms and China Sports' SKS-D's?

  firstchoice

Thanks guys,  it has been a pretty decent project so far.

Firstchoice
I am wanting to make it look as original as possible. So the light dull tung finish is what I am after. Just not sure the donor stock will have the same color or not once the Tung is applied.

[Greasemonkey]

Just not sure the donor stock will have the same color or not once the Tung is applied.

One way to find out, just do it....

[bbush44]

One way to find out, just do it....

I know, I  know, 

[Justin Hell]

You could try out the results of the tung oil under the buttplate and see how it looks...but you have to post pics of the underside of her buttplate if you do oil her up there...makes the gun porn pornier.