Yeah, everybody has the question marks for some reason.

Anyway, welcome aboard from Kentucky! You're in the right place to learn about pretty much anything, but the SKS especially.  It sounds like you have a nice family and are a proud father. Being a good parent is the most patriotic thing we can do aside from service in the military. Good on you for doing both!

Great introduction,  most folks just say  "my name is Bob and I bought a gun."

My dad used to fix a big country breakfast on Sundays and we would kick back and watch Westerns. Good memories!

Glad to have you along for the ride Alex, you're in good company sir.

 . . . it's all coming back to me now and I'm starting to remember why I sold off my small frame 10mm Witness all those years ago . . .

It turns out the issue is the way the guide rod connects into the frame.  The lack of metal at this point can cause battering and eventual failure of the frame.  However in the years since, Henning has started selling an improved guide rod that distributes the force across a large area and prevents full power loads from battering the frame.  I'm kind of surprised that in the interviening 20 years Tanfoglio didn't just update the guide rod when they updated the 10mm frame size.  Oh well, $40 for a new guide rod wasn't that bad . . . I was already ordering some heavier Wolfe recoil springs anyway to play around with.

To see exactly what I'm talking about, see the photos and video linked below.

Larry

Video (see 4:35 to about 7:00):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJ7vFFB3rHY

Hi, my name is Alex Lich and I?m relatively new to firearm restoration. I?m 28 years old and am married to my beautiful wife and have two beautiful daughters (3 years old, and 1 year old). I?ve grown up around firearms my whole life and over the last few years, I have recently became very interested with restoring older guns to their former glory. I served in the National Guard for 6 years as a Combat Engineer (12B).

 My favorite memories growing up are watching old westerns with my dad and I think because of that, I?ve grown to enjoy older/simpler firearms much more over newer ones. Its something about the history that older fire arms are able to collect and it think they have more of a ?soul? and a story because of that. Now don?t get me wrong, newer or modern firearms are pretty cool and have their purposes, but there?s just something about racking a bolt back to eject a shell or breaking a double barrel coach gun to load two more that I just have fallen in love with. I recently became an owner of my first SKS and I?m excited to ask questions and learn al that I can from you all.

If you have any questions for me, shoot away.

Editorial:

Here's a great video from the late Paul Harrel about 10 versus 40 ammo:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydwXJ2yhfnU.

Note that in the video, the conclusion is that some 10mm loads barely edge out .40 S&W -- even in the premium brands.  In fact, muzzle energies can range from the mid 400s to the mid 700s.  Quite a range.  For brands comparisons, see:  https://ammo.com/ballistics/10mm-ballistics.

So what's the conclusion?  If the intent is to feed your 10mm pistol a steady diet of lower power loads, most any pistol will do.  However, if your intent is to feed your 10mm pistol a steady diet of "full power" loads, you'll have to be allot more particular about your pistol.  So will your polymer frame (or even 1911-style) pistols take a steady diet of 10mm loads?  Certainly they will, especially if those loads are of the "downloaded" variety.  Will they take a steady diet of full power loads?  Well, now your in YMMV territory.

This is where I'm going to torque off a bunch of Glock / 1911 / P320 fanboys:  Such pistols might shoot themselves apart on a steady diet full power loads -- in fact, there are enough reports from around the web to throw suspicion on all but the stoutest of 10mm pistols.  For example of the three 10mm handguns I own, I am only confident in the Megastar's ability to handle a lifetime of full power loads.

As always, YMMV . . .

Larry

I'm sure one of the admins will come along, see this post and check it out . . .

In the meantime, it might be a bad cookie on your end.  Try deleting your cookies and see if it's better.

Larry