Bought my first gun/SKS and restored it the best I could. Bubba was rough with it.
Like the title says, I bought my first gun and it was a Yugo M59/66. I spotted it in a pawn shop and couldn't resist being naive. It turns out it was in very rough shape underneath the tapco stock, being full of rust along and inside the back of the reciever. I spent the next few hours cleaning as much of the weird grease and rust off of it as I could. I was told by a friend that the pitting along the side of the reciever is okay as long as I properly oil and maintain it so it will remain well oiled for now.
I already dated everything except the rear cover to be a, numbers matching, '71 production. I could not make out any numbers on the rear cover though as they were completely rusted away. So far its been de-bubba'd and returned to a wood stock, ditching the 20 round magazines for a fixed 10 round. I have since bought a bayonet and plan to replace the handguard with a Khybercustoms "Cheese grater" handguard when it becomes available.
Any suggestions on what to do further with it would be nice and I am glad to be apart of the community now.