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As the fates would have it, turns out that this master of SKS trigger jobs lives a mere few miles where my folks live in Texas.  So, of course, on my last trip down for a visit, I arranged to meet with Tom Prince (aka Kivaari) to meet face to face with this Surplusrifle.com sponsor and do a mini interview with him as he worked his magic on my 59/66 SKS trigger group.

Now my very first question was…what does his forum name (“Kivaari”  pronounced KEY-VAR-EE) mean?   The answer was that it is Finnish for “rifle”.  That should give you are REAL good hint what one of his collecting interests lies in.  Tom says he enjoys all firearms, but he really has an interest in the Finnish Mosins and British Enfield rifles.  Of course, when I asked him what his most favorite was, his answer was tongue in cheek…whatever he has ammo for….    Matter of fact, as we were talking at the kitchen table, he showed me his latest project.  He had picked up an Ishy Enfield from AIM and was in the process of cleaning it up and working it over.  I should explain what I mean by working it over. 

A lot of what he likes to do with his collection is restore it, not just to its original shine and gleam, but also bring back its shooting potential.  For example, the aforementioned Ishy had several screws that were just plain buggered up.  One of which he showed me was the screw holding in the rear sight.   I looked at the screw and said, “Oh, I see you changed the screw out.”  No it turns out that he has come up with a process using hammer and file where he is able to resurrect the buggered up screw back to near newness.  Quite impressive (and hopefully a topic for a future article). 

Tom showed me some of his stock resurrections.  Remember, I did not say refinishing.  He prefers to retain as much of the original color of stain as possible, perhaps only touching up here and there with some new stain that matches the old, but no wholesale reworks here.  By the way, his favorite way of removing oil, grease and cosmoline from wood is the Texas oven method.  Wrap it in a towel and toss it in the trunk of his car.  Believe me, with highs that week hovering at 104 degrees, you can imagine what the temp would be in a car trunk.

His work with SKS triggers came about more as a necessity than anything else.  As many of us have found out, many gunsmiths are not too keen on working on SKS rifles, and many still are not interested at all in working on the old mil surps that we collect.  Basically, Tom taught himself to do the things that the smiths did not want to do.  It took a while to work out the details, but he knows what he is doing with the SKS and 600 odd triggers later he showed me just how he does it.

Tom points out Sergei Gavrilovich Simonov’s SKS rifle’s trigger group has an excellent design to it.  It is the manufacturing process that makes the common SKS trigger gritty and ratty and leaving a lot to be desired.  He has worked out a process that makes the trigger into something every SKS owner would desire.

We stepped out into his workshop area and I handed over my 59/66 to him.  I think I must of looked down to check the batteries in the camera, but a second later, he was holding only the trigger group in his hand.  Each job is unique and he looks at any trigger group as an individual, that is, each gets its own custom work over.  No “slam this part in here, file a bit there and off it goes” sort of work goes on. 

Although I was able to bring my whole rifle to him, you cannot send him your whole rifle.  Only the trigger group of your SKS is needed.  Here he does an initial evaluation of the trigger group.  Mine actually was not that bad off.  Others he was seen where really mucked up.

My particular trigger was very crappy (in my own words), but Tom said that he’s seen worse…much worse.  He works on all the different types of SKS triggers, Chinese, Russian, Yugos etc.  If you go back and read my review on the BSA PMDS red dot sight I use this same rifle for the review and mention there that I am not all too pleased how the trigger operates.  I was looking forward to seeing a lighter and smoother (and consistent) trigger after Tom got done with it.

After some initial inspections, the entire group gets a liberal cleaning in his cleaning tank, a mixture of Simple Green, water and a bromide tablet (as he puts it, it’s probably still a staph infection waiting to happen)

Internal parts are adjusted to make sure they are true and straight and do not bind.

Light and easy.  No massive cutting going on here.  He continually reassembles the group to try out the trigger, not just to make sure it becomes smoother and lighter but, most importantly, remains safe to use.

In addition to judicious use of the file, a very fine stone does some final smoothing touches.

In addition to the metal work that Tom does on the internal parts, he also replaces the main springs with new Wolff springs, and the old springs are returned to you.  Once the metal work has been done and the trigger group behaves as he wants it to, a very light application of moly grease goes on the moving parts.  In all, it took probably an hour’s time of working (figure two hours with us jawing about this and that gun topics) and the results were quite gratifying to say the least.  He popped the trigger back into place and he let me try it out.  Very nice.  Distinct two stages.  Smooth and consistent.  The pull was cut in half pretty much down to a very nice four pounds (by RCBS trigger gauge).  And, of course, the safety worked still.  Not all that bad a deal for $60.  Figure the Wolff replacement springs alone would cost you $15 or so for springs and shipping.  And he installs and adjusts them for you to make sure they are safe.

You can get a hold of Tom at his web site (http://kivaari.com/index.html) and learn how you can send your SKS trigger group to him for re working.  I really think that my shooting experience with my SKS will be vastly improved when I do not have to gripe and BI*CH about the trigger!

After we went back into the air conditioning of his kitchen (it was about 104F that day), we started talking about other things SKS.  It was always his thought that people would gain a better shooting experience if (instead of buy replacement stocks and other add ons) that they have the trigger smoothed out and spend more time practicing with the rifle.   Now my idea was to test out his work by shooting my SKS at the local range’s mil surp semi auto match that is held twice a month here in Oakdale, MN.  I had recently found out about these matches and had already fired two of them using my AR-15A1/2 rifle (it is a cross between A1 and A2 configs) and I thought it would be a great way of testing the trigger/rifle.  I had not (at the time of meeting with Tom) thought anything about a sling set up to use for the match where one shoots offhand, kneeling and prone and a sling is practically required for decent position shooting.  Tom showed me his idea for a sling to use.  It required the use of a USGI web sling of the type used on M-1 Garands or M-14 rifles, it will need to have on both the buckle and the length adjustment piece.  The clip that normally goes through the sling swivel you will not need, take it off but don’t toss it.  You will also need one of the Russian style dog collar belts that are used on the Mosin Nagant rifles.

Okay, now the tricky part explaining it.  Take the sling apart.  Run the metal ended part of the sling back through the metal loop at the other end of the sling.  This will form a loop that will slide down tight on your arm.  In the photo above, Tom is holding the loop formed in his hand.

The Russian dog collar you run through the forward sling loop on the left side of the barrel.  Buckle it so that it forms a loop and make sure the buckle is facing the muzzle.

Run your GI sling through the loop formed by the dog collar.

Run the metal end of the sling through the loop and then back through the locking buckle.  You will be able to adjust for tightness/length using this locking buckle.

When in use, you place the loop around your arm as seen above.  A heavy sweater/jacket/shooting jacket works well to keep the blood flowing in your arm and cut down on your pulse coming through the sling.

With the sling attached to both your arm and the weapon, place your hand sort of on top of the taunt sling.  Note that there are no twists in the sling, he is resting his hand on top (outside) of the sling. 

Then you simply reach through and place your hand under the stock.  Do not grip the stock, instead allow the tautness of the sling to make it feel tight.  If you find yourself slipping or gripping, take your hand out, tighten the sling up and try again.  Conversely, if you find that you cannot get your hand onto the stock or you cannot shoulder your rifle, make the sling longer.    The key is that you should not have to grip your rifle at all with your hand, instead it should form a shelf of sorts.  Also, a glove will greatly aid in comfort of your hand as well as cut down on pulse issues.

As you probably noticed, the length of the sling will be dependent on what position you are shooting.  It is a simple matter of opening the locking buckle and either shortening or lengthening the sling to make it comfortable.  Beware if you over tighten it, you may run into the issue of forcing the barrel to the left, which will make the rifle shoot left.   Also, note in the above photo, Tom’s elbow is directly under the rifle.  The closer to this position you are, you will find the rifle is more stable to use.  Look very closely at Tom’s elbow.  Notice that he is NOT resting it on the “point” or bone of his elbow, but rather is resting it on the “flat” of his elbow.  This will not only feel a whole heck of a lot more comfortable, but well also led itself to being more stable as well.

Another trick is to make sure you remove your watch! 

Quite ingenious and very simple (not to mention cheap) to do.  My intentions at this point are to combine another fine item of interest to SKS owners and then go and shoot some semi auto matches.  I have gotten a hold of the new TS200 rear sight replacement from Tech Sights (http://www.tech-sights.com/).  This sight is an improvement over their TS100 model in that it has both windage and elevation adjustments on it.  Because what is the other thing that SKS owners moan about…..?   The sights of course! (like most of the mil surp weapons out there).

Look for an upcoming article where I take the improved 59/66 out to the match and try it out in real competition, ala non-bench shooting! 

In the mean time, contact Tom at skstrigger@comcast.net if you have any further questions on his work or what he can do for your SKS trigger group.  It will be worth it.