r/canadaguns • u/Big_Ladinio • 12d ago
Feets / Collection / My build Making my own SKS rear-sight Pic rail instead of spending $90+ on a BadAce
Been wanting a rear-sight Picatinny rail for my SKS for a while, but I couldn't really justify spending around $90 on the BadAce one, especially for what is ultimately a fairly small piece of metal, not that i dont value their product, I just like tinkering i suppose. Anyway I figured I'd have a go at making my own.
It's definitely not finished yet, but so far it's actually going a lot better than I expected.
I started with a cheap generic Picatinny rail from Amazon. Nothing special about it at all — basically just picked something inexpensive that looked like it had enough material for me to work with. From there it's mostly been a ridiculous amount of sawing, filing, checking, filing some more, and dry fitting it to the rifle over and over again.
I'm deliberately taking material off slowly because it's obviously much easier to remove another little bit than somehow put it back on afterwards. I've probably had the thing on and off the rifle more times than I can count at this point.
Tool-wise, I've kept it extremely basic. Mostly just hand tools — hacksaw and files. I've occasionally used a Dremel to speed up a couple of areas, but honestly I find the Dremel almost too aggressive for this. It can go from "needs a little more taken off" to "well, shit" pretty quickly, so I've been much happier doing most of the shaping with files even though it takes considerably longer.
The biggest part has just been getting everything to sit
where I want it and gradually shaping the Amazon rail around the rear-sight area. There has been a LOT of dry fitting. Fit it, see where it's touching, take it back off, file a little more, clean it up, fit it again... repeat about a thousand times.
Still plenty left to do. I need to finish the fit, clean up the rough cuts/file marks and generally make the whole thing look less homemade. I'm not calling it successful until it's completely finished and I've actually had a chance to see how well everything holds up.
But as a cheap little project, I'm pretty happy with how it's progressing. It has taken way more time and filing than simply ordering the BadAce mount obviously, but that's half the fun of making something yourself.
I'll post the finished result once I've got it cleaned up and completed. For now, this is very much the "trust the process" stage.
Note for reddit: Nothing in this post is for sale. This is a personal project and is being shared for informational/discussion purposes only. Please do not message me asking to buy anything.
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u/DougMacRay617 12d ago edited 6d ago
Happy to spend the 90$ after seeing all the shit you just did. But good for you
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u/Big_Ladinio 12d ago
Haha, dont worry. Every part of my in every stage questioned myself... if you have time, enjoy tinkering and figuring shit out, this is for you. If not, Badace make an good product! Definitely one of those, how do you value your time / do you enjoy doing XYZ
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u/Iokua_CDN 12d ago
Me with a cheap Chinese ak47 rail, and still too lazy to modify it to fit.... well done mate!!! Great dedication!
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u/swhissell 10d ago
You sir are my kinda guy! Great job and good on you not being afraid to do it yourself.
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u/Strong-Owl-55 12d ago
I bought a sks sight off ebay and just had to grind the bottom off a bit way less work then what you did
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u/GFN_good_for_nothing 12d ago
Lots of ways to save money on stuff like this if your time has zero value to you
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