Author Topic: First SKS  (Read 3693 times)

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Offline Vet47

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First SKS
« on: January 28, 2018, 10:57:31 PM »
 I just got my first SKS one week ago today.  It was an impulse buy, something I did not know I would be doing that day.  The seller advertised it as an /26\ rifle that he had only shot a little and that still had some cosmoline to clean out.   He also claimed it was from the 1950's.   Here is the gun.

    The seller was wrong, it was an /136\  gun.   
 
     As I researched further it appeared that my gun dates from 1973, so the seller was wrong again.  I learned about the dating of non-/26\ guns in the section of the Chinese SKS Guide called Dating the Chinese SKS.   By a large coincidence, figure 2 there showed a 1.8 million serial numbered gun that looked like it might be a /136\ from the same year as mine, since mine is also a 1.8 million serial number.  The arsenal stamp is hard to read so I may be wrong on that.  The caption to the picture said that that gun had the late features to include a pinned barrel.  I thought that was interesting because my serial number is only a couple of thousand numbers earlier than the one in the photo, but my barrel is threaded.   The guide picture is below, followed by my gun.


 

   
    Anyway, for what it is worth, it might narrow the time frame for the switch from threaded to pinned or it might not.  I am quite new to the SKS so I could easily be missing something here.
     I got out to shoot my new gun today, and I may have found why the seller got rid of it.  Ejection was weak, with a couple of empties barely getting out of the gun and one stovepipe.  Upon disassembly I found that some of the extractor spring was in tiny pieces and the remainder barely stuck out of its hole.   I have a new one on the way.  I hope that fixes it.
      That is my story on my entry to the SKS community.  I doubt that I will stop with only one SKS.  Those Russian ones look pretty cool.   :)



Offline running-man

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Re: First SKS
« Reply #1 on: January 28, 2018, 11:53:30 PM »
Great post vet!  thumb1

Glad to have you on the boards.  The gun on the guide and in the Chinese dating thread here at SKS-Files is indeed a /136\ arsenal.  Let me pull all photos of that gun and verify it is indeed pinned. (I've been known to make mistakes before!!)

Hopefuly the extractor spring works wonders and you wind up with a very nice shooter.
      

Offline Stoned_Oli

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Re: First SKS
« Reply #2 on: January 29, 2018, 08:45:10 AM »
Very sharp first SKS!  fortunately the extractor spring is pretty easy to get to on these.
BTW your bayonet is on upside down. The single lobe should be on top when it is folded.

Offline Loose}{Cannon

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Re: First SKS
« Reply #3 on: January 29, 2018, 09:28:12 AM »
Interested in what RM turns up.  I think if it is indeed pinned, this could be the transition point from threaded to pinned for this arsenal which is good data! 

Also, have you made sure your return spring is in the carrier correctly?.. squiggly end forward? 
      
1776 will commence again if you try to take our firearms... It doesn't matter how many Lenins you get out on the street begging for them to be taken.

Offline carls sks

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Re: First SKS
« Reply #4 on: January 29, 2018, 09:31:16 AM »
good looking sks  Vet and nice info. thanks for sharing.  thumb1
ARMY NAM VET, SO PROUD!

Offline Lmbass14

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Re: First SKS
« Reply #5 on: January 29, 2018, 10:33:14 AM »
Good looking SKS
In war, there are no winners or losers.  Just survivors. DR

Offline Luke2236

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Re: First SKS
« Reply #6 on: January 29, 2018, 11:17:58 AM »
Very nice, congrats!
Canadian...eh!

Offline running-man

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Re: First SKS
« Reply #7 on: January 29, 2018, 11:37:05 AM »
I was sure I was going to find that I had made a mistake.  The pic doesn't lie though:



Other 18 mil /136\s with pressed and pinned barrels, 180186x & 180695x:



Then theres this one with a short threaded lug, 180462x:


24 mil with a pressed and pinned barrel:


The 15 mil series has short lugs too:


I only have a single year 16 gun and the photos don't show the lug.  No 17's, but they could be either I suppose.  It looks like there is no hard and fast cutoff for the pinned barrels from this arsenal.  Very interesting observation!  thumb1
      

Offline Phosphorus32

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Re: First SKS
« Reply #8 on: January 29, 2018, 12:57:33 PM »
Nice looking Type 56! Looking forward to you posting your next SKS ;)

Offline Vet47

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Re: First SKS
« Reply #9 on: January 29, 2018, 04:33:09 PM »
Thanks to everyone for the replies.   
     running-man,  it is interesting that the cutoff for threaded is not at a specific number.  I was surprised and a little disappointed to see you have a record of a threaded gun some 4,000 numbers past mine.   I had hoped mine was close to the end.   Thanks for checking it out.  Is /136\ a pretty common arsenal number? 
     Stoned_Oli, I would have never known that the bayonet was upside-down.   I will have to see about correcting that.  I wonder how it got that way.   It doesn't seem that the factory would do it, so some previous owner must have been the culprit. 
     Loose}{Cannon, thanks for the reminder about the return spring.  I just checked and it was OK.  I hope the extractor spring does the job.  With luck, I'll know by the weekend. 

Online Justin Hell

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Re: First SKS
« Reply #10 on: January 29, 2018, 05:27:34 PM »
Bayonets often were removed for import and left in the box...if you don't know any better...it is a 50/50 chance you will install it upside down once it gets home. That is likely what happened.

Simply open the bayonet halfway, use a flat head screwdriver to remove the screw, try to put a little forward tension on the handle as you do this, and then once it is off take the bayonet out of the handle, flip it 180 degrees and reinstall.   You should notice a small groove in the stock ferrule below the cleaning rod hole, the bayonet lobe should tuck right in there...and the flat spot between the other two should be nice and flush with your stock.

It is possible that /136\ was set up for pinned barrel manufacture, but still would assemble parts possibly made elsewhere. My earliest pinned barrel is a 1.6 million /906\ and two others from small arsenals seem to be 72 as best as can be determined.  Many of the smaller arsenals used a variety of older era components here and there.  It seems that various parts would be in surplus and get used up before they would resort to making their own components. Many of which would be cast rather than milled.   Some would exhibit unique compenent features not seen elsewhere.  It is really cool to see where /136\ may have been making the switch to pinned barrels.  Every little bit of data paints a clearer picture....nice carbine with some coolness factor added you might not have learned about elsewhere.

Welcome abord!  Hope your new extractor spring does the trick...it most likely will.

Offline Vet47

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Re: First SKS
« Reply #11 on: January 29, 2018, 08:04:24 PM »
Justin Hell,
     Thanks for the explanation and the instructions on how to correct it.  I'll hope to get to it and my extractor spring by the weekend.  Now that I know the bayonet was upside down, I can see a small mark on it where I am sure the lobe on the bayonet hit in the groove of the stock ferrule when it was closed in the correct orientation.
      It is surprising that there are guns with pinned barrels a year or more before mine was built.  I guess change moved slowly through the various factories.  I really appreciate you taking the time to explain how things worked there in China, and for the cause of the bayonet being upside down in the first place.