Let's talk about Russian receiver cover S/N differences.

[running-man]

So I got a PM from pcke2000 this past week:

RM,

I have a quick question regarding Russian SKS receiver cover S/N display pattern. I know generally Russian S/Ns are: one or two letters + number (+letter suffix). In which situation, the S/N is stamped in one line vs in two lines?

For example, through out some of my non-refurb and very light refurb collections, I found:

(1) two letters + number (less than 3 digits), Tula -------> one line
(2) two letters + number (3 digits), Tula -------> one or two lines (letters on top, number bottom)
(3) two letters + number (4 digits), Tula -------> two lines (letters on top, numbers bottom)
(4) one letter + number (4 digits) + one letter, Izhevsk -------> one line

Unfortunately my collection is very limited, I am not able to draw any reasonable conclusion base on that.

Your comments would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you very much for your time and support.

Kind regards.

LT Ke

To be honest, I know they were different, but I never really have looked into this all that deeply.  Let's take a look-see!   I tried to get mostly as-issued guns, but as we all know, the 49's and 50's are almost universally refurbed.  These photos are all not mine, they are taken from various posts and auctions over the years (click on thumbnails to enlarge).  As always, if one of these is yours and you specifically don't want it used, please PM me and we'll rectify it.

1949 Tula:
2 char + 2 digit:


2 char + 3 digit:


2 char + 4 digit:


But hang on, here's another 2 char + 4 digit  heavy furb that is markedly different:


1950 Tula:
2 char + 1 digit (hard to see, but it's a single line)


2 char + 3 digit:


2 char + 4 digit:


1951 Tula:
2 char + 2 digit:


2 char + 3 digit:


2 char + 4 digit:


1952 Tula:
2 char + 2 digit:
None Available

2 char + 3 digit:


2 char + 4 digit:


1953 Tula:
2 char + 2 digit:


2 char + 3 digit:


2 char + 4 digit:


1954 Tula:
2 char + 2 digit:


2 char + 3 digit:


2 char + 4 digit:


1955 Tula:
2 char + 2 digit:
None Available

2 char + 3 digit:


2 char + 4 digit:


1956 Tula:
2 char + 2 digit:
None Available

2 char + 3 digit:


2 char + 4 digit:


1957 Tula:
2 char + 2 digit:
None Available

2 char + 3 digit:


2 char + 4 digit:


1958 Tula:
2 char + 2 digit:
None Available

2 char + 3 digit:


2 char + 4 digit:


1953 Izhevsk:
2 char + 2 digit:
None Available

2 char + 3 digit:


2 char + 4 digit (not a great photo, but the only one I have.  Looks to be a single line):


1954 Izhevsk:
2 char + 2 digit:
None Available

2 char + 3 digit:


2 char + 4 digit:
None Available

1 char + 2 digit + 1 char:


1 char + 3 digit + 1 char:


1 char + 4 digit + 1 char:


Aside from the '49 anomalies, it looks like yes, all the 2 digit Tula are a single line while all the 3 and 4 digit Tulas are two lines on as-issued examples. 
Izhevsks all appear to all be a single line regardless of the # of digits or year. 

[running-man]

The photos should be all there, Photobucket is sucking bigtime right now though.  Hopefully they load properly soon...

[Loose}{Cannon]

(1) two letters + number (less than 3 digits), Tula -------> one line
(2) two letters + number (3 digits), Tula -------> one or two lines (letters on top, number bottom)
(3) two letters + number (4 digits), Tula -------> two lines (letters on top, numbers bottom)
(4) one letter + number (4 digits) + one letter, Izhevsk -------> one line

Ok, I'll bite.   

So, what is comes down to for me is... 

1) The 49 with two letters/4 digits on one line is a monkeywrench that shouldn't be too quickly dismissed, although I do see why it can be suspect of a simple outflyer.

2) No refurb can be consistently evaluated to follow this pattern.

3) It says nothing as far as dating a (mystery date) gun because any amount of digits can be found within the same year.

4) Two letters/4 digits on one line is an Izzy only (accept possible tula outflyers).


Over all I see a pattern where Tula can use one OR two lines even with 3 digits, and Izzy used one line only.  Seeing that all Izzy are clearly arsenal marked on the top of the receiver cover, I dont see it Identifying a mystery especially since this has to do with the cover only and not the receiver serial. (Think Dannys carbine)

[running-man]

1) The 49 with two letters/4 digits on one line is a monkeywrench that shouldn't be too quickly dismissed, although I do see why it can be suspect of a simple outflyer.

...

I dont see it Identifying a mystery especially since this has to do with the cover only and not the receiver serial. (Think Dannys carbine)

I updated the post (finally was able to, stupid photobucket!  ) to fix some typos and screwups I had with the wrong photos showing.  I have almost a complete set, though the as-issued 49's and 50's are problematic.  I think the 49's are pretty solid in that they used a single line with the three numeral S/Ns. I'm less sold on the four numeral single line S/N's, but now that I reevaluate why I wanted to disqualify that BO1003 gun in the first place, I think maybe it's not because of a refurb/scrub/restamp like I first thought.  If you closely look at the font, they used smaller numerals than they did letters.  I thought it was because of a srcub, but looking at the receiver and some other components of that gun it's clear that they meant to do this!





Here's what I think it means (I only have a single data point, so take it with a grain of salt): The Russians intended to put everything on a single line and even had reduced size font to accomplish this, but somewhere midway through the '49s they realized this wasn't quite going to fly and transitioned over to the two line sequence.  It may be that they kept the one line sequence for three numerals all the way up through 49, but I have nodata to say one way or another.  By 1950 it appears that we see the three numeral covers being dual line.  Izhevsk is a different set of stamps (the numerals and letters look different from Tula stamps which we knew), and they apparently felt comfortable putting everything on a single line again like they did with the '49s.

I thought about Danny's carbine this morning myself!  Unfortunately, if you've got a replacement receiver cover this method does you absolutely no good.  If you have the original receiver cover, you don't need to scrutinize characters and numbers of lines to figure anything else out because it's printed on the cover itself.  Kind of a catch-22 there.  Might be interesting to find some blatantly out of place Izhevsk covers that have a matching S/N and see what they show on the S/N. 

I did think it was interesting that the Izhevsks were markedly different in these stampings than the Tulas.  I hadn't really expected them to be consistently different like that...

[running-man]

If anyone has any examples of three numeral Tulas having a single line, I'd love to see them. 

I've currently got 160 different three numeral guns in the registry, but going through each of them looking for one line vs two line is going to take a bit of time.  Maybe I'll find one in the mix.  The question is, if I find one that is an anomaly and it's a heavy refurb of questionable pedigree, what does that exactly mean? 

[pcke2000]

Thank you very much, RM !!

[running-man]

No problem Pcke.  I was just going to PM you this, but heck in my rambling it got long enough that I thought it would be a good post.  Hopefully it's informative.  I'd never looked into these I'm ashamed to say.  Too many other irons in the fire!

Have you seen any non-49 two line, three numeral examples?  I've looked through ~75 examples or so and have yet to find one. 

[fenceline]

You are missing the 1954 Tula: 2 char + 1 digit....

Which is also in one line.   

[running-man]

Yeah I dropped all those except for 1950 (where I didn't have a 2 char + 2 numeral fun for that year).  2 char + 1 numeral is assumed to be the same as 2 char + 2 numerals. Way too few of them around to have a useful population. The few I did find conformed well though.