1968 M59/66

[Phosphorus32]

I picked up a few M59/66s about 3 years ago from Centerfire Systems. They were cracked stock specials but I didn't have any of the plain M59/66 Yugoslavians w/o night sights and thought I'd take a chance. This E block 1968 had a partially crushed left rail that I repaired with a hand carved wood fill but it wasn't the prettiest looking stock.

A couple of weeks ago I was making the rounds (curtailed for the next 4-8 weeks) and bumped into this stock with a couple of simplified versions of the Serbian Coat of Arms carved into the stock. I replaced the mismatched original with this mismatched stock. The stock, at least, is a likely veteran of Serbian militia use in the Bosnian Civil War or related conflicts and I think it looks good on the mixmaster Yugoslavian SKS.

An M59/85 helmet and a Yugoslavian RPK ammunition pouch round off the scene.

[Greasemonkey]

Nice...

Yu...go P32

[Phosphorus32]

Nice...

Thanks!

Yu...go P32

   

[Bob_The_Student]

Damn, I like that stock! I'm more into the art than the names on a stock. To me it's like picking up an autographed picture of Elvis that starts off "To Julio"...

[Bacarnal]

Nice.  Descent and functional trench art top it off.  You mentioned the helmet and pouch, but the ammo looks like M67 Yugo, also .

[carls sks]

neat, especially with helmet and pouch. 

[Justin Hell]

What a beauty!

I really prefer the true 59/66 vs. the A1....haven't captured an A2 yet...but suspect I would only slightly prefer the tritium over the phosphor paint dots. Either seem to me would reduce minute of man to minute of Volkswagen.

I am curious, do you know whether the in the white sight leaf was a refurb thing or something that just was a later trait?
my 59/66 is a D series, with a blued leaf.  Yours is neat in that it seems like they buffed off the bluing, but only over the increments.

I dig the helmet and pouch, sometimes I display a Yugo gas mask with mine, but the Yugo collection lives in the living room now...gas masks, especially in this environment will cause social distancing more than the guns. 

[Phosphorus32]

Damn, I like that stock! I'm more into the art than the names on a stock. To me it's like picking up an autographed picture of Elvis that starts off "To Julio"...

Thanks!  This one was a no-brainer when I saw it gathering dust behind the rifle racks. I do prefer the art over just names though the latter are fun to try and understand connections to political or military leaders. Personal connections are interesting too but very hard to figure out beyond determining the likely ethnicity of the carver.

[Phosphorus32]

Nice.  Descent and functional trench art top it off.  You mentioned the helmet and pouch, but the ammo looks like M67 Yugo, also .

Thanks!

Good eye, you are correct on the M67 ammo  Boxes of 40 rounds on stripper clips. This is Igman Konjic head stamped ammo, ИК

[Phosphorus32]

neat, especially with helmet and pouch. 

Thanks Carl! I do like accessories. There are names inside the headband of the helmet and in the RPK ammo pouch too.

[Phosphorus32]

What a beauty!

I really prefer the true 59/66 vs. the A1....haven't captured an A2 yet...but suspect I would only slightly prefer the tritium over the phosphor paint dots. Either seem to me would reduce minute of man to minute of Volkswagen.

I am curious, do you know whether the in the white sight leaf was a refurb thing or something that just was a later trait?
my 59/66 is a D series, with a blued leaf.  Yours is neat in that it seems like they buffed off the bluing, but only over the increments.

I dig the helmet and pouch, sometimes I display a Yugo gas mask with mine, but the Yugo collection lives in the living room now...gas masks, especially in this environment will cause social distancing more than the guns. 

The phosphor night sights are rather low value given the need to charge them up with a bright light followed by the relatively rapid decay. I guess they'd be useful originally if an assault on your defensive position occurred an hour or two after sunset 

My D block M59/66 and my L block M59/66-A1 have sight leafs with blued numbers and the remainder in the white. It appears different methods were used to remove the bluing as some appear burnished off and others are more uniformly stripped. I don't know if this was done only at refurbishment at a later date, but it seems like a reasonable possibility. I have a Yugoslavian refurbished M44 (1.TRZ marking) that also has the sight leaf burnished to provide nice contrast of the blued numbers vs. the bare sight leaf flat.

[Larry D.]

Nice setup.
I'm still trying to find 4 or 5 boxes of strippered M67 for my stuff.