Star-marked M59

[jmaurer]

Help me out, folks. What do you make of this one? The star appears to have been applied at the (or an) arsenal, and I've not seen this before. I'd also welcome your opinion about the rifle's status as original versus having gone through refurbishment. Please note the Z 180 markings on the receiver, and Z 180 markings on the sight slider, and 180 markings elsewhere. So, do the barrel timing marks equal an assembly tracking number? I'm not able to examine other M59s just now for comparison, but you'll note I took images of the rear sling swivel, which looks a bit odd to me - it looks like an AKM variant swivel, but also looks original to the rifle. Here you go (with additional images of the star toward the end of the post):

[echo1]

I think it means it's a worthless poser and you should off as fast as you can to me  .
Haven't a clue what that star can indicate but the rifle is nice, congrats,. I also have a C M59, I'll look it over for any similarities, PAX

[jmaurer]

Okay, echo1 just let me know where to ship it! Uh, well...it might take a while! 

Seriously, this is why Yugoslavian SKS rifles are SO interesting!

[jmaurer]

I just scrolled back through the images and noticed something I'd missed: note the distinct difference between the 1 and the 80 on both the barrel and receiver for the timing marks. It appears that the 1 was stamped knowing the barrel would clock past 100 degrees, with the final measurement to follow, or was the stamp for the number 1 worn already?

[echo1]

I don't know if that's a clocking number, as 180 is stamped and etched in a number of locations. Nice photos by the way. PAX

[jmaurer]

Ah yes, you're right. I briefly reviewed the post regarding timing marks:

https://sks-files.com/index.php?topic=3767.0

and if (at least, for Chinese rifles) 31 is the highest number seen for indexing (and the same or similar holds true for Yugoslavian rifles), then 180 must be an assembly number. And I'm forgetting my own previous posts of other rifles where analogous numbers are in the several hundreds. I need to pay better attention! I also copied an image of the star to the TOP of the post where it should be. I've got a bad habit of loading images in the order that I have them stored, and I sometimes miss putting the most pertinent image where it belongs.

[Phosphorus32]

That star is a mystery. AFAIK there isn’t a known meaning for a star on a Yugoslavian firearm. It does look like the Serbian star, so perhaps a post-dissolution of Yugoslavia Serbian marking. Whether it was done at an arsenal or a skilled artisan in the field, I don’t know.

180 is definitely an assembly number given it’s locations on the firearm.

35 (350 degrees) is the highest number used for clocking/indexing/timing marks on Chinese (etc.). 0 is used in lieu of 36 (360).

[jmaurer]

Thanks for the comments, Phosphorus; I was hoping you'd offer your thoughts. The only thing Yugoslavian I own other than this rifle that has a star on it is a JNA helmet picked out of a surplus bin with the Serbian translation of "Rambo" scrawled on it! I sure wish I knew how and why it was stamped on this rifle, but that's why I bought it: I know it means something, it's different and unusual, and I'll find out why somewhere down the road. That's how I acquired some of the scarce oddballs like my ON2 snipers - they were on a rack in a pawn shop (WAY before anyone could conceive of an actual SKS sniper), but they were different, so I was drawn to them.

[jmaurer]

PM'd a member on Gunboards, who offered up that the star may be a mark of Albanian use. And going back to the tidbit of the rear sling swivel, it IS different from any other Yugoslavian SKS I've seen. Could it be an Albanian replacement? Again, it looks like it was installed when the rifle was made, as does the star stamp. We know that Yugoslavia supplied weapons to other nations (BO M48 rifles, for example); does anyone know if Yugoslavia gave Albania military assistance?

[Phosphorus32]

An Albanian star is a plausible, but difficult to prove or refute, hypothesis.

 I guess the star marking would be analogous to the star marking on Italian Carcanos imported from Albania, but those stars were always on the wood, IIRC.

I’m not aware of Yugoslavia providing aid to Albania. Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. There was certainly aid from the USSR early on then greater and longer lasting aid from the PRC. A few Yugoslavian SKSs finding their way into Albanian hands unofficially is not far-fetched during the break-up of Yugoslavia, Kosovo Wars, Albanian economic collapse, etc. If Yugoslavia had provided significant numbers of SKSs to Albania as official aid, I think they would have turned up in the cave caches with the Chinese and Russian SKSs and would have been a target for import by CAI in 2012 since the Yugoslavians are on the C&R list.