On Nov 18, 10:07*pm, Steve Hix
wrote:

The rifles would regularly group better off the bench at 50yds than most
of the SKS and AK-ish shooters at the range. Nothing wrong with
muzzleloaders accuracy at short- to medium range.
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Danang, 1967. They ran a trawler ashore near Chu lai. It was loaded
with small arms & rpg ammo. Anyone who wanted one of the rifles (SKS)
just had to sign in. Transfer was under the 'spoils of war'
provisions and once you had the paper-work in hand you could ship the
thing back to the States. Several of us got SKS, some opted for
AK's. We took them out to the range at Marble Mountain and found we
couldn't keep them on the paper at 100yds and got about 50% fliers at
50 yds. I gave mine to... somebody.

I figured the thing needed to be bedded but the machine work was so
bad you really had to see it to believe it. I've a hunch these
weapons were assembled from REJECTED components, since North Vietnam
and Red China weren't on very friendly terms at that time. The ammo
was okay. Steel cased FMJ, 154gr. But really, the weapons were some
kind of a joke. On some the rifling was eccentric... even incomplete
in a couple of cases. Threads that ran out of metal near the end;
threaded bores that were NOT threaded. There were something like 3500
semi-auto SK's and about 1500 AK's but the Marine Corps SAMMI at Red
Beach said he went through 20 SK's without finding enough good parts
to assemble ONE good rifle. He's the fellow who opined that they were
assembled from junked parts, probably from one of the NORINCO
factories that was noted for the low quality of their work.

Still, the things WOULD shoot, although some of them had to have the
bolt closed by hand after each round.

But you really gotta wonder about why they'd go through all the
trouble of shipping a trawler-load of junk weapons to their 'allies'
in I-Corps. Fulfilling a promise? Or did the ChiComs WANT the NVA's
to lose?

The best weapon over there -- and the one we had to worry about --
were the M1's we'd given to the French which were captured by Giap &
Company. The NVA had quite a few of them, carried only by their best
marksmen. Some of them were in Trophy condition, with new stocks,
etc.

-Bob