A bit of an update....grab a beverage and a chair, this got long winded...photos will follow later, I don't feel like dealing with photobucket after writing this tome over the last couple of days.My camera with a working flash has bucked the kicket...so now I have to wait for sunny days to get shots of my progress. I do have several photos to post, it just sucks now because a lot of the proof stamps are a lot more visible when I can switch between flash and no flash. Especially on the stuff that is in the white...This has been compounded by my vision, I am back in glasses on an iffy prescription...using the 'puter has been difficult for the eyes lately...so I have been hesitant to post.
Here is the progress since I left off....
I got a laminate stock for it....and it is nice, but it doesn't fit worth a damn...the recoil lug is too far forward, and nearly allows slippage out of the stock retaining ferrule. Fortunately in the opposite direction of recoil, so it can be made to work...but never properly.
Around the same time I also bought a poorly listed Russian stock that looked thinner in the bayonet area than a normal Russian stock, and it has two reinforcement pins...roughly in the proper location, but about a quarter inch apart. It seems like there may have been some wood added to it in the bayonet cut area...a raised portion exists between the tip of the bayonet cut and the mag cutout that I haven't seen on other Russian stocks, the grain is either hiding this from being obvious....or is causing my mind to 'think' it is there. It is also very light in color compared to typical Russians...it is a lot closer to the amber the Chinese used...but with that same smeared shellac look Russians are known for. It's safety lever cutout is very rounded and smaller looking. It has a rather large refurb [\] stamp on the right side of the butt and on the left three XXXs above a four digit serial. There might have been a star there...but I cannot consistently see one...only a tiny < that might be a scratch. It is rather pretty...but, I discovered it is also sporting a pretty decent crack at the charging side recess...so, it will patiently sit waiting to see if I can either learn more about it, or convert it (back?) to a spike. It fits much better than the laminate, but still isn't quite right.
Moving on...I also purchased an early 50 hand etched receiver cover, as it is likely the closest I am going to find anytime soon for a cover. After ordering it, I saw that the seller was selling the matching trigger group....mine had yet to arrive from him, so I arranged an exchange. I then made the stupid move of asking if he had anymore of that gun laying around. Turns out, he had the force matched stock, the gas tube and piston. Unfortunately...not the mag. So I ordered a period correct mag from him too...which will be the only non matching part between the 49 and the donor 50. Somewhere in this melee of packages coming from Canada, I got the obscure lightening cut/straight eared front sight block...completely stripping and refinishing it, installing it on the gun...and then realizing I was an idiot noticed the lightening cuts...fortunately, that happened at the same time as the trigger exchange...so it went back.
All of that arrived yesterday....the stock is still ill fitting, the gas tube was almost unfitted to any SKS...and had to be filed to fit from what appeared to be almost untouched metal at the business end. It didn't take much, and it still has less of an angle ground for the retaining lever than any of my other tubes. The trigger group for 49's also seem to be thinner at the rear, which caused me to have to file a tad off of the retaining 'spring' otherwise there wasn't enough clearance for the group to fully lock into place...which was blocking the safety at about 50%. I wish I didn't have to remove anything from the 49. but shaving down the inside of that spot on the trigger group looked about impossible to pull off with my tools. I shouldn't have done it, and I regretted every pass of the file, but in order to retain the matching status of the donor parts it seemed like a good idea at the time...sure enough...my thoughts about it were correct, and an earlier version of this version of trigger group popped up on eBay....and that recess is deeper on the older trigger frames....just my luck.
The magazine was interesting. Aside from being Canadian and instantly required modification to remove the stupid pin off of the follower, I wasn't expecting much other than the pain in the ass it is to remove paint from the insides of those damn things. I had already stripped and beutified a horrible rust bucket of a mag for this gun...so I kind of thought I knew what to expect. While stripping it of it's paint...inspection marks started popping out that were completely invisible before. There are three inside the bottom of the floorplate alone! There are a couple on the sides too, that were not visible either. The really cool thing I discovered, and would like to check with you guys if you have one to compare....is that the last two digits of the mag's serial were stamped towards the front of the mag, once on the body where the four welds are, and then again on the very front of the follower. Both of these are as large a font as could fit on these pieces, yet wasn't visible until considerable scrubbing with acid brought them out. I would like to think this is a further truncation of the full serial on these...as it would be a huge coincidence that 23 would be stamped on these two parts, and the serial also ends in 23. I would imagine that this was a major pain in the neck for them to do long term, and was likely phased out early on....but, those are a couple more data points that could be used to identify a 100% original gun. I didn't risk taking this one fully apart once the pin appeared to mean business...far more than the previous mag. I didn't want to screw it up trying to strip the inside as (almost) well as I did before. Since the mag isn't matching to either gun this was spawned from...I didn't care to get full on Smithsonian when restoring it. One other thing I noticed is that the metal quality used is far greater than whatever nation made the previous mag...in the white, it shone like a mirror. Since rebluing...it looks brand new....aside from a tiny hole the size of a pencil lead in the follower. It even shows a tightness at the hinge I haven't seen before...it's snug!
OK....had an interruption while writing this...and I also have stripped and reblued the gas tube now. What worried me at first has proven to be correct. The removal of the paint and refinishing process has nearly eradicated the electro penciled serial on the tube. It seems as if the paint is hard and brittle enough that the impact of the penciling flaked off a large swath of the paint. The actual serial meeting metal is the same as seen on Chinese through the bluing. The stripping of the paint knocked down the edges so much that after bluing it is only faintly visible, in the proper light, held at a specific angle while hopping up and down on one foot. For this reason, despite the 'marriage' of the 50's tube and piston for the last 67 years...I am going to use the 49's piston. I can't think of a better place for the union of these two guns to 'consumate'.
I did all of that at night, so I didn't bother taking photos. Aside from major quality differences, and a slight difference in the profile where the front top of the tube meets the wood, the process of doing the Chinese one compared to the Russian were similar...so I may include those when it comes to my next barrage of photos.
The Russian sight ladder has been on quite an adventure, coming from Siberia...off to Moscow, then landing stateside in NY...shuffled to Billings Montana...a hop, skip and a seven hour drive from me....only to vanish into thin air somewhere between us...registered mail no less.
I have a replacement lined up, and it actually is a good thing because I am getting so much cool information from this guy...further excuse for dialogue with this fellow is welcomed. I only worry that my impatience may lead to me seeking out the strong possibility that I might be able to get the complete RSB from the 50 too...with the ladder included. I hope I am wrong that it's availability is a reality, but I have had this gun complete in so many ways minus the sight ladder since week two in this endeavor. There is a period correct ladder off of one of my Chinese that currently has a scout mount that has been just sitting on the shelf next to me...taunting me....but I look at the pristine bluing, and keep telling myself it is much easier to snap them in than it is to pop them back out....so I have been fighting the urge.
Since the main point was to get a bayonet back on this thing...I shall address that again. The misadventure of the FSB issues on this continue. Despite what I would have thought to be the biggest pain in the neck, the removal and installation actually on and off the barrel, that has been amazingly easy in every regard. The fact that I have now stripped and refinished THREE of them is getting a little old...yet that isn't the problem either. The damn thing is loose enough that you cannot get the thing to go on without becoming canted while driving in the second pin. It is actually kind of tough to get the first pin started without it spinning. I have tried a few different methods, and have another couple in mind to get it right. I am close this time...close enough that if you weren't looking for it, you likely wouldn't notice...but I notice and its bothering the hell out of me. I am going to try driving the pins in from the opposite direction and see if that helps. I am pretty sure that they had the pins at slightly different locations, and it seems to me, but only after seeing a few examples close enough, that the 49 and early 50 had the FSB butted up to the step in the barrel diameter that you usually see a gap between. It leaves very little room (I almost said wiggle room...but it has plenty of that) to play with. The depth into the barrel seems to be shallower on the 50 FSB vs. the scores in the barrel, I think that is where my canting problem resides. I just hesitate to whack this thing straight...I am really hoping that never in my lifetime will I ever have to strip and refinish another one of these bastards....they are not fun.
On to the bayonet. My research has been sending my head in circles...and I read almost everything in a Russian accent now. It kind of reminds me of that Clint Eastwood movie Firefox where he flies the stolen Russian jet with his mind and has to think in Russian. Only without the 80's movie soundtrack and a lot more cussing....at least I 'think' its cussing. Basically, every sound you make while clearing one's throat of a particularly thick hocker...that happens sometimes. It has to be mental profanity.
I have now seen enough of the 49 spike to know originals are not reworked M44 bayonets, but I am 99% sure they simply adjusted the tooling to work and they were born of the same idea....and quite likely the same equipment. I am having a hard time with the translations from Russian message boards but it seems as if they have either narrowed down either the SKS or the M44 spike as actually being of Polish origin. It is kind of funny...they seem to have similar heated discussions about this same topic there. What is cute is how much they seem to covet the Chinese spike...and how expensive they are to obtain there. There are folks there comparing the M44 to the Chinese, and to the actual Russian SKS spike...and it seems that folk over there are converting the M44s over for use on SKSs too...again, it is hard to be sure through the translation...but that was what I am getting from it. From what I have seen, it seems the whole spike is slightly lightened compared to an M44...maybe 95% of one in mass. There also sounded like a guy stating that in the past at 'gatherings' (gun shows?) there would be buckets of the SKS spikes....sigh. I have seen enough of them cut to within the last thread of being able to withstand their own weight without bending that I would gladly accept one of those to complete this....with a spike.
The gun currently is sporting the most gawdawfulfugly period correct polished blade on earth...one side is heavily pockmarked in a couple of spots the other side looks like there are a couple of regions of miniature half cooked Jiffy Pops under the chrome. I have had this for years, and never expected to put it onto a gun where it would be correct for it to be there. The bayonet choice is likely going to be ultimately what I can locate. Since it has the blade cut stock retainer, I am going to shoot for a blued blade if I can ever find one, I doubt I am going to find a spike stock...so I would have to make one, which seems blasphemous...but would be necessary to deal with the large stock retainer...unless I could locate a small one...which is a tall order in and of itself...maybe even more so....nearly needle in a haystack in more ways than one. I do have an M44 bayonet that I want to get machined (any takers out there?) to work. If I have to settle on the stock being faux, the bayonet might as well be too...and I have the materials to do it, rather than hope against hope I can locate three unicorns grazing on the side of a rock candy mountain, in the fall, so the leaves from the money tree are just there for the raking.
I likely will have two versions of this, one with the 50 stock, and whatever blade I settle for since that is what it is set up for...and another version set up with one of the other stocks that will be for a spike bubba version....at least that way I can live up to my credo...sorta.
I am still on the fence about whether this ever had a spike or not, I see some information stating the blade started in late 49 and others that it started in early 50...either one leaves margin for error on other features being 100% year specific. Based on what I have experienced in fitting nearly every donor part from an early 50, I am convinced at this point this is a 49 for sure...despite not having the original cover, and the ambiguity of previously set in stone component parameters being locked into a specific year. The difficulty involved in fitting the cover makes me think that even the early 50 differs considerably in very difficult to see ways from the 49. I had to file considerably from several surfaces to get a fit...and it is still extremely tight. The curve where the cover meets receiver on the front left side is totally wrong too. Since the 49 is an EO and the early 50 is an Ey and the fact that alphabetically makes sense in both languages is a factor or not weighs on my mind too...it might make absolutely zero difference...but still. After seeing several heavily refurbed 49 spikers that kept the small ferrule, I am doubting mine was changed at a refurb, otherwise more would likely have been done...like the whole barrel. I had considered that perhaps when encountered with the small stock ferrule the original owner removed everything and swapped it out....since the pins for both the retainer and gas block had been replaced with roll pins one might have thought that, but the leftover evidence in the nooks and crannies in both locations from the media blasting seem to indicate an attempt may have been made to remove them, that was later abandoned. AND you have to take into account the blob evolution and how mine seems to fit into a timeline regarding its lack of one.
I am leaning towards considering this restored with a blued blade and the early 50 parts until suitable certifiable 49 parts come along....which reminds me, I have to look for a proper 49 mag without the stud for the spring too...talk about a tall order.
As it currently stands...
1949 EO series host:
Receiver, barrel, RSB, stock retainer, gas block, carrier, complete bolt, and pistons and springs and period correct levers and things
1950 Ey series donor:
Receiver cover, gas tube, trigger group, force matched stock, and if the fight between good and evil continues to this very day, possibly a sight ladder and spare gas block to go along with the spare gas piston this gun provided.
Unknown period correct donations:
KA series magazine, FSB, bayonet, bayonet handle, cleaning kit
Abominable mention:
NC Star cleaning rod...help me...I am in hell....I assume the closest thing I could get to correct would be a genuine m44 rod right?
Honorable mention:
KA series force matched (once) dark laminate stock and the four digit mystery stock...both possibly ill fated.
Schultz's top secret mention:
an ill fated M44 bayonet
Made possible from loans from:
1965 /26\ trigger group, thanks for holding it all together in a pinch
Unknown Chinese two piece gas tube, thanks for keeping the piston holstered
Unknown Chinese one piece gas tube, thanks for keeping the piston holstered, and the practice.
Unknown magazine, thanks for keeping the mystery alive and for being as loose and easy to work with as a drunk prom date.
1978 /26\ inverted takedown stock...thanks for making Grandpa listen to disco...that was funny for a couple of days.
Donations from this host include:
Norinco receiver cover scope mount, never a moment when I didn't think you had my back...enjoy life on that 64 /26\ bubba buddy!
Williams peep sight, found a new home on my first project gun a 0226 Choate Drag thing...freeing up that damned sight ladder it was borrowing to just taunt me from the shelf....argh!
Krinkesque muzzle device: Now looks slicker than goose excrement through a silver horn on my 92 Sporter.
The original neutered FSB may end up on a bayonet free build down the road, it doesn't deserve to go out to pasture just because someone Californicated all over it.
The orange Tapco sight post was donated to my 1966 steel Schlitz garbage can, and made a nice ping when it hit bottom.
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