That jump from 59 to 62 made me go
when I first saw it. Reading through that post of yej0001's it seems his ideas are plausible. Stopping and restarting production are certainly a good explanation of getting the system screwed up for a year or two until the Chinese Communist Party could rectify the situation (poor plant manager at /66\ was likely executed along with his family for that one...
)
The '60-'61 "no guns made" has a likely explanation that ties it further to SKSs of the time period: the Sino-Soviet split. This timeframe is where we see all the letter prefix SKSs. I wonder if letter prefix T54s exist? Perhaps they were more reliant on the Russians for production of these than they were for SKSs?
Another option is that the M21 series may have occupied that slot:
Remember these?
Now what about this:
AK's too:
These variants have all been known by collectors for many years, so nothing I'm showing here is earth shattering at all. These M2X series could all have been made somewhat later than 60-61 though, but certainly before 1964 when the SKS began to evolve with the spike bayo and short lug. Good stuff, thanks miner!
Yooper certainly has done a ton of great work with what he had to work with. All those early guys doing their best to tease out answers did great work! Maybe it was just a dead end (that 59-62 transition and the jump at '64 still makes me go
) and he moved on to something else?
The thing that gets me is when there's some hard data that contradicts your hypothesis, you've gotta change your hypothesis or try to explain why the data doesn't fit by presenting new data. Otherwise your credibility takes a nose dive and you're seen as an obstructionist with an agenda such as trying to keep prices high on your collection or keeping yourself as the ultimate authority of XYZ. Meh, not a big fan of that kind of stuff here at SKS-Files.