Sighted-in seldom used Russki TULA SKS today. Iron sights (Tech Sights) not an issue, shooting lefty with somewhat deficient eyeglasses. Right eye lens on eyeglasses FUBAR. Left lens much better, but not what I would like. A bit of smear with the RDS, but nothing like the right eye/lens.  Front sight post a Tritium unit.  Had to bottom it out on my rifle, but all was good.

New-bought Burris RDS failed near the end of process, so substituted another, identical optic. Plan "B" vindicated.

Using the Burris optic just allowed some iron-sight "Under-Witness" with Tapco railed fore-end. Definitely not useable in a tactical situation. RDS must be dismounted to use iron sights effectively. Tapco fore-end/rail is lowest platform I could find, after looking hard.

With decent, seldom shot SKS, was somewhat disappointed in accuracy when using Russki "Brown Bear" ammo. Again, with deficient eyeglasses, and using red dot, could not achieve better than 3" group at 50 meters, rested.

Sure, "minute of bad guy", but not encouraging.

With new glasses, some of this might change, likely for the better.

With current ammo situation, unlikely to obtain better quality ammo, but prioritized, specific ammo suggestions welcomed.

Without "Plan B"--IOW a spare optic-- my sight-in session would need to be repeated.

Always have a Plan "B".

Stripper-clip modded Tapco mags worked fine, but had some issues loading the "modded" mags via ChiCom stripper clips. Mag-specific stripper-clip "mods' were OK, but turns out there's a "trick" to using the stripper clips. Will investigate.

Live and learn. Submitted for consideration, and constructive advice.

Well, yeah, new glasses may help just a bit. ;-)

Having an optic mounted on the gas tube (even if it's specifically made for that) doesn't sound like it'd ever be able to hold a decent zero. Only really solid scope mount for the SKS I've seen is a side mount that requires drilling the receiver.

Try this to make loading with stripper clips easier. With your thumb facing towards the rifle butt place it on the cartridge near it's base. Then, with your forefinger, lift up on the bullet tip slightly and smoothly push the rounds into the magazine. That should work every time with decent stripper clips.

New glasses on the way!  Current mount on gas tube (Tapco) is rock solid, and shows zero movement after extremely careful fitting of same.  So far, identical results with rail-mounted optics and iron sights, so I doubt very much the optic is moving--I've checked carefully for any movement of the optic mount, and can't detect any movement.

Much obliged for the stripper-clip tip!  Heard about it elsewhere previous to your suggestion, and will try it out after new glasses received.

Thanks!

Stripper-clip tip provided above verified, and many thanks!

Modified SKS (as described above) is a work-in-progress.

So far, so good, but crappy ammo seems to be holding back a reasonable eval of the rifle's ultimate accuracy.

It will likely be a long time until I can shoot carefully-made hand-loaded ammo through my SKS.