ABOUT 18 years ago i was able to buy a few albanian sks imports. most were pretty rough. were they albanian or chinese that were in storage in albania for a long time then brought to usa. they had blades. back then sorces with info on these was hard to find, thanks
Post up a few pics if you can. I remember these batches that came from Albania but most of them were Chinese SkS's that were imported from Albania. I have a couple also and YES they are beat to Shi* lol but I love it. Battle Ridden for sure.
Albanian imports can mean two things:
Model 561 SKS imports from Albania that arrived around 2003ish. These were a relatively small import batch of Albanian SKSs with all the Albania features we know and love.
Type 56 SKS imported from Albania in the 2013 to current timeframe. These are Chinese SKSs stored in caches in Albania, found, deemed to be C&R firearms based on the 50 year rule and imported by a variety of importers.
If your carbine has a blade, chances are that it's from the second, but I can't account for the 18 years ago. At most 13 years ago, but to my knowledge *no* Chinese type 56 carbines were imported from 1994 until 2013.
Photos would help out quite a bit on this one. A clear photo of the S/N (you can blank out the last two digits if you wish) and the importer will 99% allow us to date when it was imported as we know which importers imported which guns in which years. thumb1
I've had a couple Sinobanians, one a 7 digit ($269 LGS), one "F" 5 digit ($200 PPT) and an "A" 4 digit ($169 LGS cracked stock special), all with ratty wood but great matching metal parts and barrels. When those came ashore there around 2012, there were some Russians in there stamped "Made in China", "Sneaks" until the ATF got wind of it. Those rifles were a hard score. As the years past they turned into great trade fodder. PAX
Pictures would be very helpful, as a couple of characteristics you stated make it a bit puzzling. You mentioned you acquired them 18 years ago, so around 2006. Certainly the Albanian-manufactured version with a spike bayonet would have been in the US then. However, that was before any of the Chinese Type 56s from Albania were imported. The first batch of those were the early Chinese Type 56 SKSs equipped with blade bayonets, ca. 2012-2015. The predominantly spike bayonet equipped Type 56s from Albania came later.