An interesting 1949 SKS

[jstin2]

   Around 4 years ago a collector who I will call Sean was looking on the Westrifle website. He saw a pristine 49 and bought it. He was pleased with the condition when it arrived. Also this was the first time he has removed stock.
https://ibb.co/album/qLpSYZ
   The B on the receiver serial number looks like it was not stamped square and/or used a faulty stamp.
https://ibb.co/album/WpbDrx
Sean learned more and realized he had a early 49, the magazine did not have a rivet and that the cleaning rod nubs were equal.
https://ibb.co/album/MDPXG6
   After seeing in the "1949 Tula Redux" post and the reply about the safety lever knurls changing in early 50, he checked his. Seeing that his did not have any knurls he sent me a pictures of his. Pictures show Sean's 49, my early 50 and a 54.
https://ibb.co/album/FkZhjC
   Stock on his 1949. Notice the hole drilled for the cleaning rod. It is separate from the barrel cutout.
https://ibb.co/album/0QWFdF
   Then Sean noticed that the magazine release did not have any knurls.
https://ibb.co/album/hY01SD
   From there Sean noticed that the front sling mount was thicker than his other SKS.
https://ibb.co/album/h1FD3R
   Also the op rod rather than being round was approx. 3/4 round.
https://ibb.co/album/cX1QbX

   Now the question is, are the differences leftover from the 1948? We will probably never know unless additional pictures of a 1948 turn up.

[pcke2000]

Fascinating!! Thank you so much for sharing!

[carls sks]

very nice one.

[High Noon]

Nice pics and story - thanks for sharing!

[jstin2]

The lack of a rivet on the magazine and cleaning rod nubs equal have been seen on other 1949 SKSs. But what about the other 3 differences shown in the pictures? At inspection they might miss one or two items, but not five. I know that if there were more detailed pictures of the 1948 prototype, it would be helpful. All that we can do is wonder and take a guess. Also I am saying that it is a 1949 SKS, but it may have retained some features of the 1948 SKS.

[jaroslav]

I think the SKS being mentioned is a training rifle. The parts not being finished was to save a labor.
And the push rod being flat on one side was to reduce recoil, because there were training cartridges with reduced powder. The bullets were round like a ball, and I think, they were painted white.

[Phosphorus32]

Definitely a fantastic example of a very early SKS-45, with a lot of interesting features 

ВГ764: The first letter В likely indicating second month of manufacture for 1949 and the second letter Г possibly being the 764th gun from the second block of 10000 in that month (after the В block of 10000). В and Г are definitely 1st and 2nd letters observed in the letter block prefixes of 1949s. The АВ prefix represents the first serial number block for 1949.

Were these early features carried over from the 1948 trials rifles? I don't know. They're certainly early features and interesting, regardless of whether or not they are 1948 or early 1949 features.

[jaroslav]

IF АВ prefix represents the first serial number block for 1949, then my AY  was made before the rifle in this thread. And my SKS has all the knurls and fully round push rod.

[Phosphorus32]

IF АВ prefix represents the first serial number block for 1949, then my AY  was made before the rifle in this thread. And my SKS has all the knurls and fully round push rod.

Yes, АУ should be late first month production, so both are very close chronologically. If that's the case, either your АУ or this ВГ has replacement parts, or they were transitioning between those early parts and the later ones and pulling whatever was in the parts bins.

[jstin2]

Now, this is only my thoughts and there is no proof of what I am thinking, but think about it. Now management says produce 10,000 rifles per month. Well one part of plant is assembling triggers, receiver covers(engraving), bolts and barrels. Now when it comes to assembly, all parts have to be hand stamped or engraved. Would one assembly line be able to meet production, probably not. Now if there were 5, 10, 15, 20 or more then it would be possible. What I am thinking is that if there were parts that were made, but they knew were outdated, they would use them up and then upgrade. Now would they tell all the assembly lines to use up existing parts and then use the newer parts or would they say #1-#19 production lines use newer parts and #20 production line to use outdated parts until they are used up. Like I said, my thoughts only. I thought about this when discussions about the spike bayonet used in early 1950.

[running-man]

IF АВ prefix represents the first serial number block for 1949, then my AY  was made before the rifle in this thread. And my SKS has all the knurls and fully round push rod.

Yes, АУ should be late first month production, so both are very close chronologically. If that's the case, either your АУ or this ВГ has replacement parts, or they were transitioning between those early parts and the later ones and pulling whatever was in the parts bins.

Another option in that АУ (or any of the other A[ ] prefixed '49s) and ВГ were not fabricated in alphabetical order.  We see this in the '56 transitional rifles with KP being the first made (with '55, then no date star, then blank covers in a clear progression) even though prefixes ГА, ИБ, ИР, КА, etc. exist from that year.  Hard to say whether the '49s more closely resembled the pre WWII Mosin and SVT-40 serial number prefixes in that they had an alphabetical pattern or that the Russians, in their mistrust of the west after WWII and the true onset of the Cold War, scrambled their nomenclature patterns at the onset of SKS production to throw off external countries from being able to count/track their 'new' weapons.  We know that they tried to keep the SKS a secret as long as possible, with the west not even seeing one in the wild until 1954:



I honestly think this one could go either way just like the spike bayo '50 that jstin has.  It's an 'odd' gun for certain, but again it's hard to make any definitive conclusions based on a sample size of one.  Maybe a few more ВГ's will turn up and we can identify a pattern. 

[jaroslav]

Quote: " Hard to say whether the '49s more closely resembled the pre WWII Mosin and SVT-40 serial number prefixes in that they had an alphabetical pattern".
 I think they did. Stalin wouldn't change the old system, but he died in 1953.
Khrushchev took over and being sneaky, changed the registry to fool the West.

[jstin2]

I have to agree with running-man about the serial numbers. Who knows for sure how they wanted us westerners to know. Now in my post about 1950 transitions, I have documented the transitions of the 50. Now how does that figure in the dates required? With Sean's 49, is it a early production or was it done on a specific assembly line? And as a matter of fact, how many other 49's have 5 different features? I would also mention that although Sean owned this rifle for 4 years, he only took a closer look at it after the mention of the difference knurls on the safety lever. If you think about it there are thousands of sks in Canada. Now most owners have the run of the mill sks, but there could be several safe queens . Time will tell.....

[jaroslav]

Quote: And as a matter of fact, how many other 49's have 5 different features?
Not 5, only 4. You show the hole for the cleaning rod on a stock with a BLADE bayo vs a stock for a SPIKE bayo.
I think the other 4 are not machined. Some one assembled the SKS from a non finished parts.

[Shoot The Refurbs]

This is a Westrifle out of the great white north?
Please correct me if I'm mistaken but haven't they been literally been caught red handed altering 1949 SKS's in the past?

https://sks-files.com/index.php?topic=4377.msg49218#msg49218

[jstin2]

jaroslav - The parts were machined, but not finished. The knurls were not machined on the safety and magazine release. Why? The front sling mount being thicker than later rifles. Why? The push rod was machined to approx. 2/3 round and is stamped. As far as the stock, the hole is in the spike stock(one on the right). Stock ferrule for a spike is smaller than the ferrule for a blade. Why is the hole drilled and not the normal channel for the cleaning rod?

I added pictures of my spike stock and a blade stock. It shows clearly the differences. And yes, it is a replacement laminate stock. Spike stock on the left.
https://ibb.co/gJYOew

[running-man]

This is a Westrifle out of the great white north?
Please correct me if I'm mistaken but haven't they been literally been caught red handed altering 1949 SKS's in the past?

https://sks-files.com/index.php?topic=4377.msg49218#msg49218

To be clear, it was a WR SKS, but there is no proof that WR played a part in humping that particular gun.
The fact that a WR SKS is often somehow involved when a humped gun turns up is a definite trend and is problematic to me though.  Something is going on there, but no there is no direct evidence of WR humping guns themselves.  Having said that, I use zero WR guns for any of my data collection w/o first labeling them as WR guns.  They are too suspect in my opinion to make definitive judgements on their own (if I can pool them with other non-suspect guns then that's great), and I don't want to corrupt the data. 

My statment from that thread remains true though:

We have a member here who was fond of saying "This gun gives me the heebie-jeebies" - this gun does indeed give me the heebie-jeebies.  It is clear to me that I can now make this statement with 100% certainty:
"Someone in Canada right now has a Tula star stock cartouche stamp, a 1949Г stamp, the ability to sand and refinish a stock to make it appear to be something that it isn't, and they are actively doing this to SKS45s there right now."

I've been keeping track of Canadian guns that have better than expected '49 cartouches.  You'd be surprised how crappy most '49 cartouches look if they are even there at all since most stocks are replacements.  When you see a group of them together, you can play the Seasme Street game "One of these things is not like the other" quite easily to pick them out...

[jstin2]

Even though Westrifle has been shown to have sold rifles that has been modified, I think that each rifle should be judged individually. If there is a question of altering or modification, more pictures should be asked for. In the case of my 50, I supplied any pictures that were asked for and I am sure Sean will do the same.

[jstin2]

I have asked Sean for some more pictures. Still receiving additional pictures, but here are some for you to check out.
https://ibb.co/album/JW7XnG

[jstin2]

Here are some pictures of the inspection stamps. I will have the last set of pictures ready later today.

https://ibb.co/album/mSZZ8X