The paratrooper is made to take AK mags. It is not a kalishnakov action at all but the Simonov action. So it is an SKS in every way. It just takes a detatchable mag. They are not that rare. I would see at least a few at every gun show. They seemed to be about 40% more exoensive, but that was back when the prices for Chinese and Russian SKS rifles was reasonable. I saw a chines paratrooper SKS for about 200 bucks, when the Chinese SKS was about $125.00. Of course I remeber when the chinese SKS rifles were hard for dealers to sell for 50 bucks.
okcmco