As the SKS lacked select-fire capability and its magazine was limited to ten rounds, it was rendered obsolete in the Soviet Armed Forces by the introduction of the AK-47 in the 1950s.

[10] Throughout the Cold War, millions of additional SKS carbines and their derivatives were also manufactured under license in the People's Republic of China, as well as a number of countries allied with the Eastern Bloc.

[10] The SKS was exported in vast quantities and found favour with insurgent forces around the world as a light, handy weapon which was adequate for guerrilla warfare despite its conventional limitations.

[7] This allows the fired cartridge case to be ejected, and as the bolt is returned to its original position by the recoil spring it strips a new round from the magazine and chambers it.

Because of this design, care must be taken during cleaning (especially after long storage packed in cosmoline) to ensure that the firing pin can freely move and does not stick in the forward position within the bolt.

The SKS is easily field stripped and reassembled without specialized tools, and the trigger group and magazine can be removed with an unfired cartridge, or with the receiver cover.

[13] Even prior to the war, the Red Army had recognized that these weapons were obsolete and initiated a program to modernize its existing small arms, although this was interrupted by the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.

[13] On 1 July 1941, the Artillery Committee of the Red Army noted in its records that the Simonov's self-loading carbine, designated SKS-41, satisfied its basic "tactical and technical requirements".

[2] Kalashnikov's carbine appeared too late to participate in the Red Army's initial evaluation, and was rejected as the decision had already been made to submit the SKS for field trials.

[14] This fundamental shift in tactics called for large volumes of automatic fire to be delivered from moving vehicles, and the AK-47, with its select-fire capability, compact size, and larger detachable magazine, was more appropriate for this role than the SKS.

[1] Small arms expert John Walter concurs in his works, noting that the SKS was "ordered into series production largely to gain experience with the new M43 intermediate ammunition and buy time while a true assault rifle was developed.

"[17] There was a proposal that the SKS could be retained as a dedicated marksman rifle, but it failed to meet the accuracy requirements and this role was subsequently filled by a new weapon, the SVD.

[22] Nearly all the Warsaw Pact member states adopted the SKS at one time or another, and technical specifications to produce the carbine were shared with the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) and Romania.

[21] While remaining far less ubiquitous than the AK, both original SKS carbines and foreign variants can still be found today in civilian hands as well as in the arsenals of insurgent groups and paramilitary forces around the world.

[24] The Soviet Army wanted all members of the rifle squad to have the ability to use fully automatic fire as needed, which played a pivotal role in the AK gaining favor as the standard infantry weapon over the SKS.

[24] The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) first noted the SKS replacing the Mosin–Nagant with front-line Soviet units in Europe in 1954, and began compiling detailed information about the new service rifle.

[32] The conflict was notable in that both sides commonly fielded the SKS/Type 56 carbine alongside AK-pattern automatic rifles, although the Vietnamese forces had largely transitioned to the latter while the PLA had not.

[35] The NVA began to retire the Karabiner-S from front-line service during the late 1960s, at which time many had their official markings defaced to minimize their intelligence value and were exported overseas to other friendly socialist states such as North Vietnam.

[37] During its own evaluation of the weapon, the IDF described the SKS as "first rate in several respects" but noted the difficulty of loading the fixed magazine quickly with stripper clips, especially during night fighting operations when visibility was poor.

[37] The Indonesian Army attempted to adopt the Type 56 carbine as its standard service rifle during the early 1960s, and ordered 100,000 from China following negotiations between Sukarno and Premier Zhou Enlai in 1962.

[39] Beginning in the 1960s, vast quantities of SKS carbines from military reserve stocks were donated by the Soviet Union and China to left-wing guerrilla movements around the world.

[11] The increasing ubiquity of the SKS altered the dynamics of asymmetric warfare in developing nations and colonial territories, where most guerrillas had previously been armed with bolt-action rifles.

[41] Captured SKS carbines were also prized as war trophies among individual US military personnel, and a number were brought back to the United States by returning veterans over the course of the Vietnam conflict.

[46] After Angolan independence, the Soviet Union delivered up to 5,000 SKS carbines to support the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) during that country's lengthy civil war.

[50][51] SKS carbines captured from MK by the South African security forces were used to arm militias of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) during its internal power struggle with the ANC in the 1980s and 1990s.

[52] East Germany and the Soviet Union both armed various factions of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) with SKS carbines from the 1950s through the 1970s; these were used against the IDF and in various internecine clashes during the Lebanese Civil War.

[56] The rebels appreciated the carbine for its relatively compact size, light cartridge, and chrome-lined bore (which made it resistant to rust and corrosion in the tropical climate) over the much bulkier Western battle rifles used by Congolese security forces.

[137] Due to the high volume of initial imports, the SKS became one of the most affordable centerfire rifles available to American sports shooters, retailing for as little as $70 per weapon in the early 1990s.

When the Canadian government introduced an amendment to the pending Bill C-21 that would have expanded and changed the basis for classifying prohibited firearms under the law, the resulting ban on the SKS was a particular point of contention because it is widely used for hunting, notably by First Nations in Canada.

[70] The bayonet must be removed, and an additional pin added to the barrel, to modify the SKS sufficiently from its status as a military arm and render it legal for civilian sales.