Verified answer

I had a Yugo SKS, and mine never ejected the spent casings until the day I sold it.

Here's what you should do:

1) Take off the gas tube and piston, and check for any damage, just to be sure.

2) Look at the gas valve (where the semi-auto switch is)- look specifically at the "female" part- this photo shows the valve, and what you should be checking is the part sticking out to the left: http://cdn.firearmstalk.com/forums/attachments/f18...

3) If that valve is corroded or pitted, you are probably leaking gases out that gap when you shoot. Get some 18 gauge solid copper wire, and make an o-ring that fits that "female" part. Install the o-ring, reassemble the gun (you'll have to force the gas tube back on, most likely- it will be a tight fit, but that's what you want!), and try shooting it a few times. If it ejects properly, you're all set. If you want a more permanent solution, buy a new gas valve. Here are a couple of websites that sell it:

http://www.cncwarrior.com/shop/20852-5966-yugo-sks...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Stainless-Steel-SKS-Gas-Va...

That SHOULD fix your problem, assuming you didn't just forget a part or otherwise reassemble it incorrectly. The copper wire trick is what I did, and it worked perfectly. I almost didn't want to sell the gun after that, but I had already made the deal and I wasn't going to back out!

EDIT: I never had a single problem that was caused by brass case ammo. It should be fine with modern US-production ammo.

Yugo Sks Gas Tube

Your question is hard to interpret. Ambiguous would be a blessing. You cleaned your SKS that was shooting fine until you took it apart and cleaned it? OK, so far?

Now, you have reloaded it, fired it ,and the action won`t cycle and eject the spent cartridge or your action is cycling and won`t eject the spent cartridge? Which one?

When you took it apart, did a little rod and spring go bye bye when you flicked the lever in front of the gas chamber? So now you are concentrating on the gas valve which was working fine before disassembly. right or wrong.

I may be wrong, but I think that little rod about 3 inches long and a spring is close by and that needs to be there to transfer the energy to force the bolt carrier back. If the cartridge won`t eject after manually operating the bolt then you somehow have damaged the extractor which I doubt.

I am going to try my best with this. I have a Russian SKS. Regardless of where the SKS is made they all break down and clean the same way.

When you clean this, you need to clean more than just the gas tube, barrel and action. You also need to clean the bolt and bolt carrier.

The soviet ammo is really dirty. Not necessarily corrosive, (modern production), but it is rather heavy on the soot.

Sweets 7.62 Solvent is what I normally start with to clean the piston, tube, action, push rod, (located under the rear sight), bolt carrier, barrel, gas block, bolt housing, trigger group, (which contains the ejector), and the bolt. All of this needs to be cleaned every time you return from the range.

After cleaning with the Sweets, I normally then clean with Brake Free CLP to finish the job.

On this particular rifle, I normally give it a shot of Brake Free just before I head to the range. On this rifle I like a little extra lubrication, just because of the soot factor from the soviet ammo.

Also a word on using brass cased ammo in these rifles. They were never designed to use brass cased ammo. I have had trouble with case necks splitting, and failure to extract. Stick with the Steel Cased Berdan Primed ammo with the lacquer finish. This seems to work the best.

Good Luck and Happy Shooting!