Hillbilly, I bought a Yugo 59/66 SKS last year for $120, but haven't used it for hunting. I will probably try it out this year. My treestand is in an area where the longest shot is probably 50 yards. I took it to the range on Monday and the accuracy is acceptable for my purposes. If you really want to know more about the SKS, I suggest you go over to Survivor's SKS Boards. There's a forum for discussing hunting with an SKS.

The biggest issues to hunting with an SKS are that it wasn't designed as a hunting weapon, so accuracy isn't real good at 100 yards (3-5" groups depending on the individual rifle) and finding suitable ammo. The 7.62x39 cartridge is suitable for deer with ballistics slightly better than the .30-30 at longer ranges, but there's not a lot of ammo choices for deer. Remington makes some 123 gr soft point ammo in 7.62x39 and I've got some Wolf ammo that is soft-point with a 154 gr bullet. However, some think that the 154gr ammo isn't the best to use because the rate of twist in the SKS barrel is designed for ammo of the 123 gr variety.

I suggest you also browse around for articles on "slam-fires" with the SKS. While I haven't ever had one with my SKS, you should be aware of this safety issue, particularly if you are going to use American brand ammo which tends to have softer primers than the Russian-made or other surplus military ammo.

If you surf on over to the SKS Boards, you'll find plenty of info on the SKS.