[Governor Dinwiddie]

SKS is nothing special.

[gundog]

it was a military SKS-style assault rifle made in former Soviet bloc countries, so it wasn’t from around here.

Could it have been Chinese? Like the country isn’t flooded with those...

[Pontiac]

SKS is generally junk

I remember in the early 90’s I could buy Chinese SKS for less than $100

Chech and Romanian were much better and commanded better prices.

[SauronOfMordor]

“ SKS is nothing special.”

Trump’s golfing path would have brought him right by the assassin’s hiding place, if he had escaped detection just a little longer.

[Bonemaker]

SKS certainly not a long range competition rifle. But then neither was Oswald’s Carcano.

[OKSooner]

True statement but it does launch a bullet.

[fini]

I agree that an SKS is nothing special, but most are pretty good rifles- as good as most 30-30 lever actions. I like them a lot and have shot many. Not hard to get a 3 inch group at 100 yds.

Figuring out its history is probably be problematic:

1. The SKS was made for many years by at least seven countries and the ATF's records do not account for the many duplicative serial numbers. It is possible for an expert on the SKS to get a really good idea of which country made it but if it was China all bets are off, because the Chinese did not keep good records to ensure that the different depots kept their serial numbers depot specific. So while it will be easy to recover the serial number (High tech x-ray machines can tell the pressed metal where the serial number used to be.), there may be 3-10 rifles with the same serial number.

2. Most SKS' entered the country many years ago and have passed through many owners.

Unless it has recently passed through a gun shop or pawn shop, establishing history will be difficult.

I am thinking that if you wanted to get a rifle where establishing its ownership path would be very difficult, then the SKS is about as good as it gets.