Interesting early Chinese "TO" series

[running-man]

In going through the December GB auctions, this one has me scratching my head a bit.  Based off just the TO prefix with 4 numeral suffix I'd say "Oh yeah, Russian all the way".  But look at some of the details on this bad boy.  The font is just wrong, the receiver cover top is wrong, the stamped number on fhte buttplate is crazy.  I've never seen a Russian like that before (though honestly I can say I've never seen a Chinese quite like it either).  The stock number and wood looks Chinese to me.  I've heard of early Chinese "TO" prefixed guns before, but this is the first one I've actually seen.  Th auction was semi-horsetrashy, so no good details on any of the parts that would help us date this stupid thing. 

I'd be interested to hear what anyone else has to say about them (or if you guys have run across these before, maybe I'm just too much of a noob and these things have been talked about over and over 10 years ago?):

[Loose}{Cannon]

To me it looks like a russian birch stock that was well used and heavily refinished with thick poly.  The T ont the 'TO' looks like a hammer to me.   Russians EPed the butts, the chinese never put the serial on the butt that I have seen.

[Loose}{Cannon]

The shapes and contours of the carrier is all wrong

[Stoned_Oli]

To me it looks like a russian birch stock that was well used and heavily refinished with thick poly.  The T ont the 'TO' looks like a hammer to me.   Russians EPed the butts, the chinese never put the serial on the butt that I have seen.

Looks like a spike cut there... 
Yes, that could be "aftermarket reassignment", but I think you can see the second pin in the stock.

ETA: A quick perusal of the "children" suggests that the pins are right behind the end of the bayonet groove, and the rearward pin on a spike cut is no different. The pin for an original blade cut would be up almost to the front of the finger groove. That one is at the rear of the groove, so spike cut originally.

[Loose}{Cannon]

 


Its a letter gun in the wrong stock.    T as in Tango.... Roger that? 

[running-man]

Russians EPed the butts, the chinese never put the serial on the butt that I have seen.

Yup, but this one is clearly stamped on the buttplate, not EP'd.  Not typical Russian, not typical Chinese (not typical any other country for that matter.  The bolt carrier is totally wonky like you say.  WTF is it?  The mysterious Bangladeshi Smithsonian grade?!  Special contract gun?  The seller says in his listing that there is a very faint import stamp located on the right side of the receiver, right under the ejection port cutout.  High likelihood that it was imported from China, but the Soviet Sinos and Russian sneaks are Chinese marked too, so that's pretty limited in what it can tell us. 

Oli is certainly right in that that particular stock is meant to be cut for a spike with that second reinforcing pin.  Now the question is: Is it a replacement stock? Is it 'Russian birch"?

One thing I don't see on the many shots of the receiver is a barrel match number.  Scrubbed and reworked bun maybe?

From what I can gather, there are other TO guns out there, notably TO3650 TO37?5, and TO3846.  Why grouped so close together in the 3k numbers?

[Loose}{Cannon]

Its a letter gun in the wrong stock.    T as in Tango.... Roger that?

And yeah, looks scrubbed due to the heavy reounded front upper edge and the very low old /\ nearly gone.  But thats a #0 not a letter O

[running-man]

I thought zero first too. But no leading zero on the stock?  Could easily be a zero though. The Russiabs used a 0 stamp for their O's. Easier to spot those as they never used a leading zero.

I'm not seeing the remnants of a /\ stamp.  Should be to the right of the S/N if this one started out life as a letter T gun right?

[Loose}{Cannon]

Look at my neg pic...  It looks like a partial /\, but no idea why its THAT low. 

I guess it could have been a T to begin with and the serial was simply carried over when scrubbed.

Why have the exra leading zero I dunno...  But they do it all the time.