Neat Refurb

[Shoot The Refurbs]

 Picked up a neat little Russian refurb about 3 weeks back but have been busy with the move and wasn't able to be on much.
Finally got around to giving her a little photoshoot in my workshop. Here she is.


She's still got a lot of cosmoline still packed inside, especially around the magazine hinge, just caked.
The piston rod is the only item that has been re-serialized (well other than the stock  ) it's very hard to see on photo but the previous SN of the piston was ив262
Ivan looks to have done a poor job on the fore end pin as well. To the gulag with him.











































Thought the no-date thing was neat even though it's likely a product of refurbishment unless i'm missing something.
More importantly the price was right for a Russian refurb, especially in today's time, so I'm happy 

-STR

[Shoot The Refurbs]

Few pics too many for one post, here's the ones that got cut off.
Also, kind of neat but hard to see in the picture, the lug number is 666 and there is an EP'd 666 thats half cut off from view the barrel.

[pcke2000]

No star no date receiver cover? Is it a replacement?

BTW, nice towel!

[Bob_The_Student]

That is nice looking refurb. Do the fonts all match?

[carls sks]

beauty, I'd be happy too.

[Greatguns]

Very nice STR, I like how the stock matches w/o being an x-out.

[Shoot The Refurbs]

That is nice looking refurb. Do the fonts all match?

All stamped fonts do match as best I can tell, I was particularly interested in the receiver cover and receiver fonts being the same. Something I only started to look at after starting up here.

Very nice STR, I like how the stock matches w/o being an x-out.

Makes her look a lot cleaner IMO despite both being very obvious signs of a refurbed stock. The faint inspectors cartouche and tula star do look a lot more attractive than a bunch of X's 

No star no date receiver cover? Is it a replacement?

BTW, nice towel!

Thanks, the towel was one of those items the Army mandated you have but made you pay for out of your first check back in basic.

If I was to take a guess (and also with the SN database to help draw some patterns) I'd say yeah new replacement cover. I think she's a 55' refurbed sometime between 56'-58' at an odd rando arsenal where she got the stock refinished and a blank cover stamped to match.
The font of the 2 on the stock is very unique, I plan to do some digging to see if any patterns can be seen between that stock font and a specific refurbishment faculty.
I imagine we can eliminate a few right off the bat, such as the [\] otherwise it would likely be stamped on the stock or cover as examples we have seen.
Just riffing and maybe biting off more than one can feasibly chew, but aim high right?

Some theory I just read up on while typing this post and looking over a couple things before pressing 'post' says that some are made specifically like this as a sanitized rifle to try to obscure the country of manufacture. Interesting that they are done on the latin characters.
Does anyone know anything about any truth to this, or is it more internet lore?

beauty, I'd be happy too.

Thanks!