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General Milsurp Weapons => Milsurp Hand Guns & Sub Guns => Topic started by: Greasemonkey on August 06, 2021, 03:09:14 PM

Title: Pair of Norinco Type 54s
Post by: Greasemonkey on August 06, 2021, 03:09:14 PM
I ordered 2 these Type 54 Tokarevs C&R back in March from Aim Surplus, each came with 1 magazine. I did get lucky and get both with matching star grip panels, some didn't have matching ones. I wasn't disappointed, looks like they have both been refurbed...somewhere, they are very tight to work the action on. Of course they had the safety feature installed on the trigger...kind of like a Glock..only even more pointless/useless in my opinion.. The serial number range I got was a 5 million from Factory 66 dated 1958 all the way to a 31 million series with no factory or date. The finishes between the two are also different, the early one is more of a parkerized finish, the later is more blued. Slide serial font and symbol impression changed as well. Both bores are good with some slight haze in the grooves. RGuns was the importer, they used a small mark on the bottom, not a huge billboard.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/yye9dlugnjys0tj/SAM_3830.JPG?dl=0)
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/wvciobthp8cf674/SAM_3831.JPG?dl=0)
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/1wno544h1ujgzde/SAM_3832.JPG?dl=0)
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/bzd3c1h45c4z4j2/SAM_3833.JPG?dl=0)
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/xncvwvvs0y8tlkj/SAM_3834.JPG?dl=0)
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/p3e84rqe3fr78z6/SAM_3835.JPG?dl=0)
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/sryjy9i258fmc0u/SAM_3836.JPG?dl=0)
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/i6yfkn6esajw0kj/SAM_3837.JPG?dl=0)
Title: Re: Pair of Norinco Type 54s
Post by: Bob_The_Student on August 06, 2021, 04:31:07 PM
 thumb1 thumb1
Title: Re: Pair of Norinco Type 54s
Post by: running-man on August 06, 2021, 06:48:28 PM
Nice pair for certain! 

What spare trigger parts would you need to swap out in order to return the safety monstrosity back to factory stock? (or is that even possible?)
Title: Re: Pair of Norinco Type 54s
Post by: Greasemonkey on August 06, 2021, 06:58:11 PM
Been tempted to try to just remove it.. haven't had much time.
Title: Re: Pair of Norinco Type 54s
Post by: carls sks on August 06, 2021, 07:09:50 PM
nice! your going to need a bigger safe.
Title: Re: Pair of Norinco Type 54s
Post by: Phosphorus32 on August 06, 2021, 10:10:20 PM
Nice, presumably the 31 series is 1984...Orwellian  ;)

I think all you have to do is replace the trigger, but I'm not certain. Trouble is that everyone wants to do that and those stock Tokarev triggers have become scarce and expensive  :))

I don't know why the old half-cock mechanism was deemed insufficient, especially compared to the crappy ad hoc designs they've installed over the years.
Title: Re: Pair of Norinco Type 54s
Post by: Greasemonkey on August 06, 2021, 10:26:29 PM
Nice, presumably the 31 series is 1984...Orwellian  ;)

I think all you have to do is replace the trigger, but I'm not certain. Trouble is that everyone wants to do that and those stock Tokarev triggers have become scarce and expensive  :))

I don't know why the old half-cock mechanism was deemed insufficient, especially compared to the crappy ad hoc designs they've installed over the years.

One thought...  :o I do, do that at times... I did have was just get it depressed fully, drill with like a 1/16 bit and pin it in the released position. Defiantly a poor cheesy design.

1984.. also Van Halen..ish... chuckles1
Title: Re: Pair of Norinco Type 54s
Post by: pcke2000 on August 07, 2021, 11:55:31 PM
Nice, presumably the 31 series is 1984...Orwellian  ;)

I think all you have to do is replace the trigger, but I'm not certain. Trouble is that everyone wants to do that and those stock Tokarev triggers have become scarce and expensive  :))

I don't know why the old half-cock mechanism was deemed insufficient, especially compared to the crappy ad hoc designs they've installed over the years.

One thought...  :o I do, do that at times... I did have was just get it depressed fully, drill with like a 1/16 bit and pin it in the released position. Defiantly a poor cheesy design.

1984.. also Van Halen..ish... chuckles1

Would you mind showing a pic of the rear ends of hammer assembly rails? Your 31 million may have original blue finish.
Title: Re: Pair of Norinco Type 54s
Post by: Direct Connection on August 07, 2021, 11:57:29 PM
I been lurking at buying one of those from AIM. But Im seriously thinking of selling my 2 Yugos and a Romanian. Keeping the Polish. I think they would ship one of those chi-coms to Ca.

They are nice for sure and im sure you have plenty of ammo. They are the fastest bullet and so much fun to shoot. I took the safety's off my Yugos and they both shoot flawlessly. These seem more complex. You did good. For a long time these havent been available and now you have 2. Thats a good thing  8) clap1 thumb1 
Title: Re: Pair of Norinco Type 54s
Post by: Boris Badinov on August 10, 2021, 06:45:47 PM
Very Nice, GM!!

Do we have any idea where these Type54's are coming from?
Title: Re: Pair of Norinco Type 54s
Post by: Greasemonkey on August 13, 2021, 01:34:22 AM
Would you mind showing a pic of the rear ends of hammer assembly rails? Your 31 million may have original blue finish.

I'll dig it back out and get a shot..  thumb1

Very Nice, GM!!

Do we have any idea where these Type54's are coming from?

Thanks... I want to say maybe where the SKS's are coming from...but that doesn't explain the refurb job thats been done.
Title: Re: Pair of Norinco Type 54s
Post by: Greasemonkey on August 14, 2021, 06:17:46 PM
31million Hammer assembly

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/d51kd8xobq7soos/SAM_3838.JPG?dl=0)
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/atlj2sps0s6z5ui/SAM_3839.JPG?dl=0)
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/p9rqpi0qh92tz0d/SAM_3840.JPG?dl=0)
Title: Re: Pair of Norinco Type 54s
Post by: Direct Connection on August 15, 2021, 10:29:03 PM
Every balken / Chinese soldier wasn't a GM McIver when they had problems with their side arm.  So they just made things simple with that entire assembly replacement.

How many Tokarevs ? No group pics ? 
Title: Re: Pair of Norinco Type 54s
Post by: Boris Badinov on August 19, 2021, 06:27:41 PM
Very Nice.

Where are these coming from. Is there any information on the exporters?
Title: Re: Pair of Norinco Type 54s
Post by: Matchka on August 19, 2021, 09:51:47 PM
What Boris said.
Title: Re: Pair of Norinco Type 54s
Post by: BMont on August 20, 2021, 08:04:13 AM
Very nice... makes me think I should pick up another one before this batch is gone.  Thanks for sharing.
Title: Re: Pair of Norinco Type 54s
Post by: Phosphorus32 on August 20, 2021, 09:49:47 PM
Very Nice.

Where are these coming from. Is there any information on the exporters?

Still a mystery.

The only imports I find for R-Guns are from IMI. It seems somewhat odd that these Type 54s would have come from Israel. One hypothesis would be that they were captured from Egyptian, Lebanese, Palestinian, other Arab neighbors as recently as 1984 (given the 31 year codes observed), held by IWI then IMI after IWI was privatized, and sold to R-Guns recently. Another hypothesis is that the import genius website is incomplete and they came from some other country, whose sale to R-Guns wasn't recorded.

https://www.importgenius.com/importers/r-guns-sportwereus-inc

Title: Re: Pair of Norinco Type 54s
Post by: Boris Badinov on August 21, 2021, 01:08:04 PM
Thanks, phos!!

The Israeli connection hypothesis has some merit. And it makes a lot of sense. Although, that's quite a long time to hold on to so many type54's, no?

I've heard Albania suggested as well. But if that were true, wouldn't we have seen them before now? Or might the costs of trigger modifications have been the kind of thing that drove importers away from the 54-- you know because the type56's were a much simpler endeavor. No mods. No cleaning. Just  sort, pack and ship.

Title: Re: Pair of Norinco Type 54s
Post by: pcke2000 on August 22, 2021, 12:48:10 AM
Thanks, phos!!

The Israeli connection hypothesis has some merit. And it makes a lot of sense. Although, that's quite a long time to hold on to so many type54's, no?

I've heard Albania suggested as well. But if that were true, wouldn't we have seen them before now? Or might the costs of trigger modifications have been the kind of thing that drove importers away from the 54-- you know because the type56's were a much simpler endeavor. No mods. No cleaning. Just  sort, pack and ship.

Interesting observations from this batch: (1) some pistols were made in 1990s (IIRC, China already cut military aid to Albania at the time?); (2) some late (1990s) pistols appear to be in original non-refurb condition, other than extractor painted in red on edges.
Title: Re: Pair of Norinco Type 54s
Post by: Boris Badinov on August 22, 2021, 07:07:29 PM
Interesting pcke2000-

There's a  member on a thread at gunboards who says his friend, Bob, played a part in finding these Type54's and he swears that they are coming from Albania.

https://www.gunboards.com/threads/chinese-type-54-rguns.1160161/post-10386293


Could they be 2nd hand aid from another middle-eastern country like Egypt or Iran? Possibly Pakistan?
Title: Re: Pair of Norinco Type 54s
Post by: Boris Badinov on August 22, 2021, 07:09:44 PM
Very Nice.

Where are these coming from. Is there any information on the exporters?

Still a mystery.

The only imports I find for R-Guns are from IMI. It seems somewhat odd that these Type 54s would have come from Israel. One hypothesis would be that they were captured from Egyptian, Lebanese, Palestinian, other Arab neighbors as recently as 1984 (given the 31 year codes observed), held by IWI then IMI after IWI was privatized, and sold to R-Guns recently. Another hypothesis is that the import genius website is incomplete and they came from some other country, whose sale to R-Guns wasn't recorded.

https://www.importgenius.com/importers/r-guns-sportwereus-inc

Hey, phos--

RGuns definitely imported a bunch from the recent batch of Albanian type56's-- did those also go thru IMI in Haifa? Or maybe, as you suggested, importgenius doesn't have up-to-date info?
Title: Re: Pair of Norinco Type 54s
Post by: running-man on August 22, 2021, 11:40:56 PM
Interesting pcke2000-

There's a  member on a thread at gunboards who says his friend, Bob, played a part in finding these Type54's and he swears that they are coming from Albania.

https://www.gunboards.com/threads/chinese-type-54-rguns.1160161/post-10386293


Could they be 2nd hand aid from another middle-eastern country like Egypt or Iran? Possibly Pakistan?

Good gravy, that thread is a trainwreck of "When was my Type 54 made?!" questions.  That's what happens when you have those old guard guys who simply won't accept ideas that are not theirs.  It does tend to box them into a corner though; if they won't accept the nth year of production year code for a T56 SKS, it gets mighty uncomfortable when T54 Toks with stamped dates show up en masse (we had the T54 as a prominent complimentary data point early on). 

These pistols certainly follow the pattern for the most part.  The missing '60 and '61 years are odd man out (but line up nicely with letter T53s and T56s) Funny that it took well into the '62 production to jump back to the right prefix...
Title: Re: Pair of Norinco Type 54s
Post by: Boris Badinov on August 23, 2021, 01:11:45 PM
There's a separate thread on the military handgun sub forum where howie is collecting serial numbers.

I was surprised by all of the late dates and M20's.

1960 and 1961.
Weird things evident in serial sequences fur the tyoe53's, type54's, and the Type56 sks aroumf.that same period.

Hmmm.

My guess is the the ak56 and type56 rpd have similar serial oddities...

Makes one wonder if something was going on behind the scenes in China from- 1959-62.
 think1
Title: Re: Pair of Norinco Type 54s
Post by: running-man on August 23, 2021, 10:56:15 PM
I'll never knock Howie collecting those numbers.  It's a thankless job and I know from experience that it is a massive time sink.  I've got a few hundred T54 photos with about 50 or so S/Ns stashed away (enough to proof out the general table that Cameron posted  in his post in that Gunboards T54 thread (https://www.gunboards.com/threads/chinese-type-54-rguns.1160161/post-10399911)...we actually had a very similar table from user yej0001 that LC posted in the Q: When was my Chinese Type 56 SKS made? (https://sks-files.com/index.php?topic=360.msg10585#msg10585) thread).  Heck for all I know they may be the same guy. :P

In the end, the data rules & we are just along for the ride.  It's always good to have more data.  Maybe if the old guard comes up with the 'hey the prefix really is the nth year of production' conclusion on their own with this 'new' data they will finally accept it.  I just wish they would have had an open mind when we pieced everything together back in '14 as every year that the old millions theory hangs around it does irreparable damage to newbie collectors just getting into the Chinese milsurp game. 
Title: Re: Pair of Norinco Type 54s
Post by: Cz315 on October 25, 2021, 08:20:47 PM
GM, are the mags on these also original Chinese? I see they sell extras for 25 bucks, is anything known about those?
Title: Re: Pair of Norinco Type 54s
Post by: pcke2000 on November 26, 2021, 10:43:29 PM
GM, are the mags on these also original Chinese? I see they sell extras for 25 bucks, is anything known about those?

refurb Chinese with or without serial.
Title: Re: Pair of Norinco Type 54s
Post by: Greasemonkey on November 26, 2021, 10:59:55 PM
Neither have a serial.  I have some Romanian mags with no serial..  they fit too.
Title: Re: Pair of Norinco Type 54s
Post by: jmaurer on December 21, 2021, 09:54:20 PM
As far as the trigger goes, an original trigger will work with no other changes to the pistol. I had to try some spares I had from years ago to find the best function, but they work well in the two RGuns imports that I have.

I've also used Romanian magazines in mine, and they work quite well. I didn't think they did initially, but I fired both pistols without extra lube with a few hang-ups, and once I applied some Lucas heavy duty everything smoothed out. Both of mine (1954 and 1964) are mis-matched as most of these seem to be. Frame and slide match, but small parts on the 1954 are a random mix. The 1964 frame and slide match, with all else matching another pistol (bushing, barrel, trigger mechanism all match each other).

I'm really happy these are coming in, but hang on to your Yugoslav M57s from Armamentos - those are the best imports I've seen in a while, as far Tokarevs go.