shooting norinco sks without gas piston

[eajonesyk2]

I am getting ready to hit the range with my chinese built sks. Has anybody here shot their sks without the gas piston installed and suffered any ill effects? I want to be able to operate the bolt manually to save my brass and open up my reloading options.

[running-man]

Welcome to the boards! 

You should be ok, make sure you wear a good set of safety glasses though.  Depending on the ammo you might get a bit of soot down the gas tube, on your op rod face, and leaking out of various joints that typically wouldn't see the combustion products.  If using M67, make sure to throughly clean all areas inside and outside that gas tube to keep corrosion at bay. 

[eajonesyk2]

thanks running-man

I blew through 70 rounds and no problems with anything blowing back on me and it worked like a charm. I might pull the gas tube and check for crud before next outing. Defeating the semi-auto function will really open up my options for lower power cast bullet loads. It will make this rifle much more versatile.   

I shot some herters steel case fmj today and had one split more than half way down the case. I have shot lots of steel case ammo in ak style rifles and never noticed this before. Hopefully it doesn't indicate a problem with rifle?

[Loose}{Cannon]

You may find it hard to extract the castings manually because the casing has swelled.  Likely get worse the more lacquer coated rounds you run through it. 

Split casing is the ammo, not the gun.