SKS gas valves

Parts get corroded and wear out, especially if those parts are on firearms fired with corrosive ammunition from countries where cleaning may not have been top priority. I have a Yugoslavian SKS that has severe gas leakage and causes the rifle to short stroke the bolt carrier sometimes. Now I have heard that Yugoslavian ammo tends to be a bit hotter than the Russian Tula and Wolf imported ammo but I have not shot any in my rifle so I do not know if that is necessarily true or not. I have only shot Wolf/Tula through my gun which short cycles from time to time.

If you have a SKS that is short cycling one easy way to see if you need a new gas valve is to slip a O-Ring over the gas valve and re-install it into the rifle and shoot a few rounds and see if it cycles more reliably, the O-ring will not last long as it will "blow out" or be forced out of the excess space between the gas valve and the gas tube. I used this quick test on a few SKS's before deciding to machine my own gas valves out of 5/8's Stainless.  I may choose to do other gas valves out of carbon steel in the future as the stainless is a little harder to machine as it is "gummy", that is a technical term....NOTE: I had planned to do a part 2 to my gas valve experiments however I figured it was better to just let the SKS's I had go down the road, even with the gas valves I machined and increased reliability, I realized I wasn't happy with the accuracy of the rifles and sent them on their way. Life is too short for headaches such as this.

What the O-Ring looks like after a few rounds.

Blown out O-Ring for testing purposes.