Some
years back I wanted a military rifle in a semi-auto format. But, I was
not happy with the sheet metal receivers of the AK47's. At that time,
they were, however, far and away the most popular Military rifles
selling. They were inexpensive and plentiful. Yes, you can fill an "AK"
with mud and it will still shoot. However, this was not something I was
planning on doing to any of my rifles or pistols even if I could.
Owning
several "bolt action" style military type rifles, I wanted to stick
with a milled receiver for my new acquisition. All (most anyway) of the
semi auto rifles that fit my
design parameters were more than what I wanted to spend at the time. I
looked at M1A's, FAL's and the AR series platform, the Swedish Ljungman,
as well as the Hakeem and Rasheed. But alas, I'm a cheap basta*d. So, I
started reading and researching what was available that fit my
pocketbook. None of the above rifles fit the cost factor.
Low
and behold, the SKS reared it's beautiful head. It seemed to have all I
was looking for in that coveted military rifle. It was inexpensive (at
the time anyway), semi auto, battle proven, ammo was plentiful and cheap
and there were all kinds of "add-ons" available from the after market
guys.
I
grabbed one up. I bought a, I believe to be an unfired, numbers
matching, Yugo, M59/66 covered in that wonderful gunk we love called
"cosmo". Two days of cleaning and I was off to the range.
The
rifle shot beautifully. Little recoil, easy to handle, but, immediately
I discovered that I hated the internal magazine system. Oh, it worked
just fine, but, I didn't like it. I wanted detachable high capacity
mags. My Swedish Mauser M96 can be loaded with stripper clips. I
didn't like it on that rifle and I didn't like it on the SKS either.
Besides, 10 rounds just isn't enough in a semi-auto military rifle is
it?
I took my SKS to the next gun show to fit mags to her. I tried about 100 different metal mags and none would fit correctly. This guy was walking by and says, "how much for that SKS"? I say, "she is not for sale. By the way, do you know which mags work best in an SKS"? He says, "TAPCO 20's ONLY". I purchased 3 at that show. That was all I could fine.
Several Tapco mags later I was back at the range. NOW THIS IS A MILITARY RIFLE, I told myself. Hmm,
how can "IT" be improved even more? Additional homework and study
resulted in a TapcoT6 evil black stock, spring loaded firing pin from
Murray's, (we don't want any slam
fires), American made gas piston and tube from Tapco, cleaned up the
"front end", added a AR style flash hider, American made parts for the FCG, drilled and tapped the side of the receiver for a Weaver #1 scope mount and she is 922r compliant. It was ALMOST what I wanted.
I still did not like the "duckbill" mag system. Every
other military rifle I looked at DID NOT have that cumbersome duckbill.
With all the other "stuff" available for the SKS "someone" surely has
developed a duck-bill-less magazine? Well, kinda, but not really. I never intended to take this to the market place so I didn't consider how this adapter would interface with "other" mags. I was simply going to build one for me. I wanted to do it and I was going to use Tapco mags only.
I showed it to a friend, another SKS owner and he said, "I WANT ONE TOO, I'll pay you to make me one". What I showed him was far and away NOT this adapter system. That first one required some stock relief, drilling a hole in the stock and additional other minor changes. The biggest drawback was the cost to make. See the picture above of the first working adapter. I realized then I could not use that system. It was made specifically for the TapcoT6 stock and no other. I didn't want to limit my market share.
Back to the drawing boards. I had to come up with something that could be used with ANY stock or I would reduce my "buying public" to unacceptable numbers. So here we are. The G1/1 adapter was 2 1/2 years in development. It works perfectly. You can mount it with simple hand tools in less than an hour. The secret to it working correctly is, well, a secret.
Updated 4May2013
Since I first wrote this, some 6 years ago, we have been busy in the R&D department. This was written around the G1/1 adapter. We now have a G3/1, (any stock), a G5/1 (for bulpup stocks) and now our G9 adapter. We were developing a G7, but scrapped it as it would be to costly to make and that would price it out of the market. After scrapping the G7, we began work on the G9/A Adapter System which uses the ASC 7.62x39 Modified Magazines so you will be able to use the same Mag in your SKS Rifles and your AR-15 chambered in 7.62x39. Lots of fun at the range using a bunch of AR-15 style mags in your SKS platform rifle AND your AR 15 chambered in 7.62x39. Now you can use one style mag in both your SKS and AR 15 platform rifles.
It is a lot of fun when people walk up to you at the range and ask "What is that?", when they are looking at our SKS adapter system. They have never seen an SKS like this before. If you like/want something different, something that the other guys at the range don't have, you need to install a G9 on each of your SKS Rifles. Check out our YouTube Videos of the live fire on our Videos Page or search for us on YouTube.
We have redesigned our G9/A to make it easier to install. We call her the G9 model. We have them in stock. Stay tuned.
Last updated 29November2020