Dating factory other than 26

[BMont]

Hey guys...

Waiting on scratch made cherry pie to cool for dessert and wanted to pose the question.  Are there any reliable dating scheme other than features when dating non factory 26?

The factory 26 is a 67 right?  What would the date be for the other one?

[Phosphorus32]

I'd direct you to the sticky in the Chinese Military section:
https://sks-files.com/index.php?topic=360.0

You have an 11th year Jianshe, where year 1 of production of the Type 56 was 1956, and year 11 is 1966.

Your second example is from another arsenal. No arsenal except Jianshe (26) produced a Type 56 SKS until the 10th year of production, so the first two digits are key, 17th year of production, 1972.

[Boris Badinov]

What he said^^^

[Boris Badinov]

Also, Nice rifles, bmont.

Are they yours?

[BMont]

I'd direct you to the sticky in the Chinese Military section:
https://sks-files.com/index.php?topic=360.0

You have an 11th year Jianshe, where year 1 of production of the Type 56 was 1956, and year 11 is 1966.

Your second example is from another arsenal. No arsenal except Jianshe (26) produced a Type 56 SKS until the 10th year of production, so the first two digits are key, 17th year of production, 1972.

Thank u.  Got through it again... and remembered I have a somewhat early matching T53 to compare on the notes from the dating info.  See below:   .

[BMont]

Also, Nice rifles, bmont.

Are they yours?

Yep I had them out of the closest while hunting one of the commercial shorties I had and ran into that dating question.  And thank you... they are relatively clean examples Ive had for about 5 years now.    I will be picking up another 60's era chi com this week in deep cosmo that I will be posting. 

[Phosphorus32]

Yup, of course Type 53s are another subject. But their numbering scheme evolved over time with the transition from the 296 to the 26 designation for Jianshe Arsenal.
--The 296 rifles had a year, a period, and a month.
--The trials rifles produced in December 1953 had an A and up to 5 digits
--The 296 rifles used a simple serialization starting with a 1 in the "millions" place, presumably 1000001, while Jianshe was called 296 that continued into 1955.
--Later in 1955 they changed to Factory 26 and with that they began using the year of production code in the "millions" place, in other words 3 for 3rd year of production in 1955, and 4 for 4th year of production in 1956
--No known production from 1957-59
--In 1960 they switched to the single letter block with a four digit serial number, similar to the 1959-60 Type 56 SKSs.

Yours is a good example of an early 1955 (February), whereas my example is later in 1955 after the change from 296 to 26.