About 15 or more years ago I bought one from a dealer at a gun show. Other than a shorter barrel it is the same as any other SKS. This one has a milled receiver and a screw in barrel with the blonde wood stock.

I've maybe put a couple hundred rounds through it over the years, used to toss it in the truck when ever heading to the woods.  Seems plenty accurate within the 50-75 Yds shooting - never tried targets beyond that.

I did swap out the fixed 10Rd mag for a Tapco 20Rd "detachable" a while back and it worked well.  Wish I'd have bought two of them  - this one has been a great little accurate carbine.

Correction:  it was in the mid 90's - so like 25 years ago

I have a Para that I bought at a gun show when they were first being imported. It even came with the spike bayonet already attached. NIB with 200 rds of ChiCom ammo in a ziploc bag for $99.99, IIRC. I put about 1000 rds through it before I got into AKs. Like you, I never shot it at long ranges, but out to about 100 yds, it was accurate enough and was as reliable as the day is long. I left mine all stock and, at one time, was pretty good at loading with stripper clips. I haven't shot it in years at this point, but I plan on keeping it anyway. Just a nice, relatively light, relatively short and handy carbine that I paid peanuts for. Why not keep it?

Keep it? No argument there.  Hard to beat the reliability and accuracy for what we paid for  'em.

I guess those were the "good old days".

I have three short-barreled chicom sks rifles: a paratrooper, and M and a polytech hunter.  The first two have horrible triggers.
But I always shoot my mak 90, never the sks.  Better truck gun..