The gas shut off (you know, the one that you switch when you want to shoot grenades) on my Yugo SKS doesn't want to move at all.

When I take the gas tube off the gun, then I can move the gas shut off valve easily.

But the gas tube - gas valve interface is very tight... and quite honestly, it seems it is impossible to push the gas valve into the gas tube a quarter inch (when locking it back to fire grenades) and even rotating it for that matter.

What's the deal? Obviously I'm not going to fire grenades but apparently I cannot flip the switch without removing the whole gas tube... which is very uncool when you want to show friends the grenade sight.

Any suggestions?

Howdy Sky!

The gas valve is made to only move laterally while the weapon is assembled.  The lower center position is to remove the valve, spring and button for cleaning.  That said, if the button and valve do not move freely between the left and right positions while the button is depressed, something is impeding its progress.  

The only suggestion I can offer is to remove the gas tube, then move the gas valve to the left lower position and remove the valve, button and spring.  There may be a burr or something in there impeding movement.  Since most of these units were put into storage godawful long ago there's no telling what could have gotten in there.

I hope you get this resolved, 'cause these things are an awful lot of fun to shoot, even if you're fresh out of grenades!

Thank you!

Well there is a lot of friction but that explanation helps a lot. I had thought that the valve was also supposed to move toward the rear.

Now if I can only get it to move side to side...

Im having the same problem. I can get the button pressed but i cannot get it moved over to the left to raise the grenade sight. Ive tryed every thing i can imagine,its not moving.

I got it unstuck! I basically smoothed out the gas valve with a file. It took a few minutes and a few tries (I didn't want to remove too much metal) but now it works!

It appears there was a lot of carbon build up on the valve, so that could have been the problem.