What did i get II?

[Deturman]

Just picked up a Chinese sks. Trying to research it and possibly find a date. It has the arsenal 26 stamp with the serial number to the right but the serial number doesn't seem to make any sense. The serial number is only 6 digits with an S being the second character  '8S0866'. All serial numbers match (except stock and bolt carrier dust cover) and everything is milled and seems to point to an early model. Is it possibly a 61 or 63 model?
If anyone could help I would greatly appreciate it.

[running-man]

Saw your entry into the Survey Deturman.  Odd duck for certain.  The S/N is incorrect for an 8th year gun (too few digits).

Can you get some images of the S/N'd components as well as the notch in the stock ferrule and the barrel lug and rear sight leaf?  Those would help us figure out at least what era the individual components are from.   

[Boris Badinov]

I see machine cuts in the bayo lug. And the rear end of the trigger housing appears to be milled.

Which would suggest 11th year or earlier. No?

From this I would guess a possible pre-export scrub and re-serialization. ??

[Greasemonkey]

Maybe the S..... is supposed to be a 5.. which I'd guess could be a 6 digit Ghost rifle.

No clue.. but it sounded good. 

[Justin Hell]

I see machine cuts in the bayo lug. And the rear end of the trigger housing appears to be milled.

Which would suggest 11th year or earlier. No?

From this I would guess a possible pre-export scrub and re-serialization. ??

Something I noticed the other day was that my 23m /26\ also has these, at that point I noticed that the only SKSs I have with them are /26\ guns...it made me wonder if any other factory ever had FSBs with the cuts. I figured I would keep an eye out to see if I saw any before asking what might be a silly question like..... Were lightening cut FSBs a /26\ only component? I will just hide that question here.

I seem to recall it being considered an early trait...but if they were doing it well after the other factories were making the simpler versions, it is something I never snapped to before.

As far as the OP's new SKS....I am stuck in traffic in Shrug City on that one....and the X one too!

[Deturman]

At first I thought maybe the "S" was an 8 or 6 maybe even a 5 but it's very clearly a S. I haven't found anything online in the 800k's. It has the typical chinese characters of "type 56" and no Russian markings so it's not a "sino" or ghost gun. It does have all the early characteristics of earlier guns but I can tell for almost certain the bolt carrier dust cover and stock are probably not origanal. The cut out above the safety is the wide type that doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the gun and it doesn't have any markings or serial numbers. The dust cover doesn't have the partial 4 digit serial number like the other components.

[Deturman]

[running-man]

Very neat gun OP!  Definitive early stock ferrule on it.  Hard to say how much was replaced during the refurb though.  Will probably be one of those guns where we won't be able to tell much without other similarly marked specimens popping up.