Withergyld/Glen Burton Appreciation Thread-Dating/Classifying Your Yugo SKS

[SKhiSm 59-66A1]

A number of years ago Glen Burton aka Withergyld conducted research into the identification, classification, and dating of Yugoslavian SKS M59, M59/66, and M59/66A1. Many believe his work established a relationship between the letter prefix in Yugo SKS serial numbers and the year of manufacture, and (loosely ?) defined serial number ranges as relates to year of manufacture.

There's a fairly well-known table available that is a great "quick-and-dirty" reference for dating a Yugo SKS, but I prefer Burton's raw data which can be found here

http://web.archive.org/web/20071105072911/http://yugosks.net/

This old archived site has a few nuggets to offer and I sure wish the photos that went with it could be seen. I recommend that anyone who owns or plans to own a Yugo SKS, especially 59/66, should read through the whole site. The serial numbers part won't be of much interest to anyone who hasn't gotten their first rifle yet, but there's some good info in the other sections for someone who's looking to buy, as well as someone identifying or classifying a new purchase.

[Loose}{Cannon]

Several people have been trying to get in touch with Glen Burton for a very long time. Seeing that the website no longer exists, some collectors have wondered exactly how the prefix to year designation was allocated and by what evidence was found to support it.  Until now, I didn't know there was a way to view an archived version of the site, so this is very interesting for many here on sks-files.   

Looking through whats available concerning the survey data in particular, it appears to me his prefix to year allocation is a result of build dates found on rifles containing original logbooks from Zavodi Crvena Zastava. Rebuilt rifles had logbooks replaced by one of the two rebuild facilities and usually did not have the build date entered.   He seems convinced even some of the original build dated Zavodi Crvena Zastava logbooks may have updated at some point indicating some type of rebuild and possible a barrel replacement.  Seeing that these are basically outfliers and consist of a very small minority recorded, I would have to agree. 

Below is the consolidated survey data where he listed all rifles containing a build date within the logbook.  Presumably only original Zavodi Crvena Zastava logbooks.

Survey Results

[SKhiSm 59-66A1]

It hasn't been that long ago that I stumbled on this, but I have spent a lot of time looking it over and it seems tight to me. He makes a ton of short notes that are often helpful or insightful. "AC/DC carved on stock" comes to mind lol. There's even a page where he discloses an email sent to him by ?? someone, who asserted that factory managers/execs and a former military armorer had stated that there was no relationship between the letter prefixes and year of manufacture.

I would have to say bull**** to that, it seems to me that Burton's work pretty well establishes such a relationship whether they intended one or not.  I also think Burton's work could be expanded upon, there are still rifles with logbooks changing hands occasionally, and apparently a few sellers looking to sell logbooks by themselves. Some of the people holding logbooks to sell could prove to be the kind of people that would allow them to be examined so the knowledge base can be expanded and preserved. Especially if logbooks aren't selling so well anyway.

Anyone with a mind to do so and access to one or more logbooks can contribute to the expansion of Burton's original database, I would say take your cues from Burton himself and use the same format he did. Any logbook that contains an original build date, it would be nice to have as near a complete serial number as possible.

[Loose}{Cannon]

Running-man will be eventually making a survey for all nations in similar fashion to the chinese sks survey.   

Seeing how there is virtually zero data on the M59, I think GreaseMonkey has an interesting idea about 1959 actually being the first year of production along with being the year adopted. 

[SKhiSm 59-66A1]

I wonder how many guys are out there like this one

http://forums.gunboards.com/showthread.php?252926-WTS-Yugo-59-66-SKS-Log-Books-Plenty-of-Photos

He's actually quite helpful with the pics, if I understand what Burton was doing correctly, what you want for the database is what's in that last photo. That's the first page inside the front cover, and it bears an "F" prefix accompanied by a vaguely legible serial number. The blank line below that..Datum Izrade..that's your build date, in this case blank. At the bottom of the page the Datum is stamped 29-10-1984. So based on Burton's observations, the rifle that went with this book was a 1969 build "F" prefix, refurbed in Oct. '84.

BTW nothing against the seller there in case I made it sound that way, actually I'd say he's about right with his asking price although at 10 bucks I'd prefer to be buying a book that went with a rifle I own as opposed to just a random-ass book.

[Loose}{Cannon]

Basically, ...   yes.   

[SKhiSm 59-66A1]

I set all this aside a while back, completely burned out from looking for info, and found some new things to do for a bit. Now with batteries recharged and stoked by the news of YSKS with logbooks being offered for purchase, I was knocking around in my old haunt of Withergyld's archived website mainly trolling for things I might have overlooked, and had one of those rare moments I get when my brain comes on for a second. The empty boxes in 2 sections, "Variations" and "Recognizing Rebuilds" used to have pictures, which I have longed to see.

Turns out, the "Recognizing Rebuilds" section has a link to a PDF version, and the pics are there. I knew that PDF was there, it just never occurred to me that it might have the pics. The "Variations" section unfortunately has no PDF. The "RR" section was contributed by a web user with the handle Og.

http://web.archive.org/web/20050314013616/http://users.cableaz.com/~mjbvrb/recogsks2.pdf

Sorry about the thread necromancy, it just seemed like this is where it belonged plus I've been wanting to get something out there for web crawlers to pick up on when buyers of these newest offerings get all googly looking for info.

[Greasemonkey]

Here, lets simplify this whole mess...Credit to the author who created it. Posted for preservation, I converted from PDF to JPG for simplicity.