Bud's has an inventory

[Phosphorus32]

Nice ^

Are these still Albanian imports? Do we know?

Limex Gmbh. of Austria appears to have bought the Albanian SKSs and sold them to US importer PW Arms. That additional middle man is another reason, besides the hot US gun market, that these were generally 67-100% more expensive than the 2012-14 imports ($500 vs. $250-300).

[pcke2000]

Nice ^

Are these still Albanian imports? Do we know?

Limex Gmbh. of Austria appears to have bought the Albanian SKSs and sold them to US importer PW Arms. That additional middle man is another reason, besides the hot US gun market, that these were generally 67-100% more expensive than the 2012-14 imports ($500 vs. $250-300).

Same company that sold surplus Type 54 Tokarev to RGuns?

[running-man]

HoH: The S/N format you describe is the PW Arms marking from recent (within the past two years) imports.  I believe the S/N's are now well into the mid 20's if not 30k's.  What arsenal and year code did you wind up with?  Seems like they are pretty much all Jianshe /26\ arsenal guns with year codes mostly from 11, 12, 13, and even a few 14's thrown in there. 

Year 10's were quite heavily represented early on in different import batches (IArms, Foxtrot Lima, etc.)

[HookedonHooks]

HoH: The S/N format you describe is the PW Arms marking from recent (within the past two years) imports.  I believe the S/N's are now well into the mid 20's if not 30k's.  What arsenal and year code did you wind up with?  Seems like they are pretty much all Jianshe /26\ arsenal guns with year codes mostly from 11, 12, 13, and even a few 14's thrown in there. 

Year 10's were quite heavily represented early on in different import batches (IArms, Foxtrot Lima, etc.)

PW Serial is mid 35k. It's a /26\ Year 14

[High Noon]

My PW Arms from Classic (2020) were /26\ 1967s and the ones from Atlantic last fall were /26\ from 1969.

How many more Albanians are still out there to be imported? 

The prices haven't shot up since they are still coming in.  Keep thinking the supply will dry up, but more continue to appear.   

My Bud's Gun Shop Cosmo Special came on Friday, picked it up yesterday. I had received several emails regarding massive order influx causing the delay in shipment. I wasn't in no huge hurry so didn't bother me any though.

Upon inspection this morning, the rifle has at least a 1/4" of grease on every part of rifle. For that I'm definitely happy. A quick wipe down of serial number locations revealed all matching external metal and on the stock there were some empty brass cartouches and a pocket knife star as if they wanted it to be a Tula around the serial number but was still visibly matching to the metal as well. There's also an interesting import mark with a unique serial number designation of #SKSxxxx that obviously varies from the arsenals serialing of the gun entirely.

It's not what we used to get the Chinese cosmo specials for, but it not too much more. They're also not the early Chinese with blade style's that are a bit cooler than these, but for what I paid in today's market and the condition it is in I'm pretty excited!

Congrats on your purchase.  Would love to see pics of her when you have some time. 

[running-man]

My PW Arms from Classic (2020) were /26\ 1967s and the ones from Atlantic last fall were /26\ from 1969.

How many more Albanians are still out there to be imported? 

Unknown, (possibly tens of thousands) but they are running out of year codes from /26\ to find.  Maybe some year 16's will turn up, that would be neat! 

They are importing them basically in chronological order, as new guns are found and/or later years become eligible under the 50 year rule that makes them C&R and thus the only way they are eligible for importation since they are military firearms.  After any year 16's it will probably have to be other arsenals as /26\ has the large gap between years 16 (1971, eligible Jan 1, 2022) and year 23 (1978, won't be eligible until Jan 1, 2029).  Would also be neat if next most productive arsenals like /636\, /416\, /106\, /116\, even /?5\ etc. that are known to gave guns somewhere within the year 10 to year 16 range do come in! 

[High Noon]

My PW Arms from Classic (2020) were /26\ 1967s and the ones from Atlantic last fall were /26\ from 1969.

How many more Albanians are still out there to be imported? 

Unknown, (possibly tens of thousands) but they are running out of year codes from /26\ to find.  Maybe some year 16's will turn up, that would be neat! 

They are importing them basically in chronological order, as new guns are found and/or later years become eligible under the 50 year rule that makes them C&R and thus the only way they are eligible for importation since they are military firearms.  After any year 16's it will probably have to be other arsenals as /26\ has the large gap between years 16 (1971, eligible Jan 1, 2022) and year 23 (1978, won't be eligible until Jan 1, 2029).  Would also be neat if next most productive arsenals like /636\, /416\, /106\, /116\, even /?5\ etc. that are known to gave guns somewhere within the year 10 to year 16 range do come in! 

Good info - thanks. 

I just wondered if there was ever a known number of SKSs that had been shipped to Albania from China.  Thought we might could estimate the number left out there, by subtracting what's already come in.  Maybe not...

[running-man]

Well 35+k PW arms YTD guns according to your S/N.

Century had well over 20k in the initial batches (if I remember P32's United Nations import report from '12 correctly), IO had comparable, IArms, Foxtrot Lima, and TGI all combined probably had similar numbers. 

If I had to guess, I'd say we are very close to 100k SinoBanians by now.

[Chevy Boy]

If there are 100k of these stateside, wish SKS prices could come down and stay down to something reasonable. But it looks like they just keep rising.

[Direct Connection]

Buds wont ship to California because we already have plenty . We are Ukraine and you guys / Buds are Joe Biden 

[High Noon]

If there are 100k of these stateside, wish SKS prices could come down and stay down to something reasonable. But it looks like they just keep rising.

Guess there is demand for 150,000 of 'em.  So more folks keep paying big prices for them on gbkr.

[Boris Badinov]

If there are 100k of these stateside, wish SKS prices could come down and stay down to something reasonable. But it looks like they just keep rising.

There's a lot more than 100,000 Chinese Type56's in the US.

[running-man]

Many estimates are 500k-1 million Chinese type 56s in the US in total, perhaps double or triple that even.  Hard to know for certain, I couldn’t even begin to guess. The SinoBanians are the only ones that have enough hard data for me to even make that WAG. 

There are definitely quite a few out there in the market right now though.

[Indy762]

Picked up two. Covered in grease. Both are missing the in-stock cleaning kit.

[Direct Connection]

Oh god those are nice and dark ! Id be in heaven to have a couple of them . And with the Ca heat coming that cosmo would melt right off of everything and clean up nicely. These SkS's in this condition are an excellent conversation piece with friends and range goers. Don't get any better. Nice job

[Chevy Boy]

Nice ^

Are these still Albanian imports? Do we know?

I think those are the only ones coming in since 2013-ish.

And nice grab Hooked, shoot some pics for us when you get her cleaned up.

Are no more Yugos coming in? We’re those from that run of Serbian police stock a few years ago the last of them?

[High Noon]

Are no more Yugos coming in? We’re those from that run of Serbian police stock a few years ago the last of them?

Who knows...?  I wouldn't bet against more coming in.  There are probably more in some back corner of an old warehouse in Belgrade. 

[Cz315]

Looking at how Russians are arming their troops with Mosins I have a feeling that the days of large imports of firearms from Europe are gone.