Yugo military SKS optics.

[teddybear1848]

I embarked on a massive project a year or so ago. I won a yugo SKS on gunbroker with a unique mount base on its side. I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I though it would be interesting to see if I could complete it. Well since i won the rifle I did about 6 months or so of intelligence gathering and reading. I discovered that the yugo's created and fielded in incredibly small numbers (my sources say 200 or less) Scoped SKS rifles that used a ON-2 mauser scope cammed in 7.62x39. My sources say they were all a little bit different and the hardware made by different arsenals and there were small discrepancies between mounts but the two I have in my possession seem to be identical. The mount base on my rifle appears to be a one of a kind type deal and I will not likely every find a mount for it. These are professionally done and not field made rifles like some of the other yugo's that were imported with various or faked by some importers (looking at you IO inc). After learning what it was i needed I decided to try and find the more common mount to develop a clone and modify it to use the unique base on the rifle pictured. After making contact with some people in the balkans one man said he could help me find one, but it would not be cheap. I promised him a good chunk of money and he said he would see what he could turn up. After a couple of months he finally contacts me and says he found what I was looking for, he would have to travel to get it though. The first ON-2 scope, mount, and hardware cost me 2,678 dollars. I was a bit nervous sending that much to a complete stranger in croatia but no risk no reward and after hearing people have been looking for years upon years for this I went through with the deal. My guy delivered on his end and i got my first unit in a reasonable time frame. After I got it I then decided to use an ON-52 scope on my replica mount and keep the one I bought from croatia whole. Then I realized i needed to find one of the original sks rifles that were imported with the ON-2 Pattern base so I could have an actual original. So i put out adds all over and offered a 100 bounty to whoever could help me out with a successful sale. Someone then put me in touch with Mark Kubes of buymilsurp.com and said he had 3 of them. One complete with the scope and two not. So I reached out to mark and we stuck up a deal where if I could set something up where he could purchase another ON-2 to complete his second rifle he would give me the third to put my ON-2 mount on. So i had my contact in croatia work his magic and he did find another mount for $2800. I called mark and told him the price and he agreed to it and told me to have my guy pick it up. My guy paid for the cost to get it out of his pocket. I had my guy send me pictures of everything in fine detail so I could forward them to mark. I emailed Mark repeatedly with the payment info and pictures of the item and got no response. I tried calling both his shop and personal phone for a week and never got a call back, he pretty much cut contact when it came time to pay. I then find out from his shop help that he said he lost interest because he never heard from my guy, even though it was agreed on that I would be handling the transaction and payment. So then I had to make up the 2800 to pay my guy because mark kubes flaked out. Guess I was to trusting but I ended up having to sell my whole navy arms SKS collection to pay my partner back. So this second scope, mount, and hardware cost me quite a bit but it is in really nice shape so thats nice. I have a deal with another collector who contacted me for two of the original rifles so I will eventually end up with two of the original ON-2 SKS rifles and one that I am doing my best to make a repro mount and scope for. Also came across a yugo refurbed k98 that the yugos drilled and tapped for m76 optics. Will hopefully have that complete next week. Sorry about the wall of text but I just wanted to share my collectors tale.

[Justin Hell]

Wow, what a tale it is too! 
I don't know whether to cry for you or applaud you...So I will just applaud. 
That is some serious dedication to seeing a project through. It makes some parts hunting I have been doing recently seem like trying to find last year's trending Happy Meal toy.

Are the guns marked in any way that indicates it as being especially more accurate than the average 59/66A1? It would be nice to keep an eye out for any indications of the fakes you mentioned. I didn't realize the real deal was that obscure.

Is there any chance you are going to fire this/these?  I would really be interested to hear about the accuracy with the scope.  I was curious about how the launcher and the general beefyness of these might help with accuracy for longer ranges.  One of my Yugo's is untouchable, and the other just never seems to fit any scope mount I have leftover to try on it...so it gets left alone too. I did find myself doing better with irons than usual, and I chalked it up to the weight. I would like to think that the top shelf would be reached for when scoping these, since they did so few of them.

Kudos on your accomplishment....sucks you got screwed over on that second setup. 

[Phosphorus32]

Very cool to have such a rare bird, or two. Looking forward to seeing them assembled into functional DMR carbines and hearing how they shoot if you go down that road.

[teddybear1848]

I will be firing all 3 when they are completed and sighted In. Will be posting range results as well. When I am feeling up to it and have all the rifles in my possession I am going to document and photograph all arsenal stamps and marks. I also have a couple people over in that neck of the woods trying to find any arsenal paperwork or documentation on these rifles.