Type 56 from the year JFK was sworn in to office.

[Phosphorus32]

More importantly, the year of my birth 

The 1961 (6 millions) Type 56s are a bit tough to find. I passed on one a couple of years ago because it had issues. Well, so did this one, but I didn't pass this time.

It's a refurb: really deep scrubbing of the trigger guard, grey phosphated bolt carrier group, etc. It was imported by KSI and it had an incorrect bottom swivel non-serialized spike-bayonet stock, that had unfortunately been sanded within an inch of its life, then recoated. The grasping grooves were barely indentations and the foreend was thin. It took me a few months of looking at over-priced spike bayonet stocks to finally find a side-swivel stock cut for a blade bayonet. I won it for a surprisingly reasonable price, then waited for it to arrive from Quebec. So now it has a period correct stock, but obviously its mismatched.

Thanks for looking 

[Phosphorus32]

I forgot to mention that the replacement stock came with a handguard (and a cleaning kit). Actually a good deal these days for $49 plus shipping.

The rear ferrule had a few bare spots from the last time the handguard was changed and from my handiwork (ahem) at getting a rather tough steel rivet out, so I ended up sanding it with some 600 grit and rust bluing* through just a couple of cycles to get it to match the worn bluing on the front ferrule/gas tube.

* Thoroughly degrease and dry the ferrule, hold it over muriatic acid to let some HCl gas waft over the steel, allow to sit in the shower room overnight (because our relative humidity is 15-40% this time of year, and it needs some water vapor to rust), set in boiling water, buff off with degreased #0000 steel wool; repeat; rub with oil.

[Bacarnal]

Nice one Jon!!!  Like you, I've been looking for a 6Mil, mainly because it's my birth year (as it is yours, IIRC ).  Nice matching on all metal and the stock with 20202 is cool also .

[Phosphorus32]

Thanks Bruce! Yeah, I’m quite happy with the way it turned out.

[firstchoice]

Good looking rifle! You did great with the handguard coming with the stock. Exact match. And at a very decent price! Matching the ferrule was excellent work, too! Great job, Jon!

I haven't seen a 6mil in the wild around these parts. Just in pics and now, yours.

I have to resort to Russian SKS-45's to get one in my birth year. ('54) 


firstchoice

[running-man]

Good looking rifle! You did great with the handguard coming with the stock. Exact match.

I was going to say the same thing, that's a nice match and really dresses up the carbine.  That color isn't terribly common, but it's most definitely period correct.  Nice find on both the stock set and the carbine! 

[Greatguns]

Very nice specimen Jon.

I would have been in England at that time about 17 months old. The entire Cuban missile crisis and JFK era was lost to me, but ask me about the Queen, fish and chips, and the Beatles. I can tell you all about those, and with a good British accent too.

[Phosphorus32]

Thanks FC and RM    Indeed it would have been impossible to find a handguard with a color that matched that unusual stock color if they hadn't come as a pair. Prices on SKS stocks have gotten ridiculous. Either that, or they've finally started to approach the prices on other milsurp stocks. I used to pick up spare stocks for $10-15 and pass at $20.

[Phosphorus32]

Very nice specimen Jon.

I would have been in England at that time about 17 months old. The entire Cuban missile crisis and JFK era was lost to me, but ask me about the Queen, fish and chips, and the Beatles. I can tell you all about those, and with a good British accent too.

Thanks GG!

Very cool to have lived in England during Beatlemania. I was actually born in Dallas, to Minnesota natives, about 8 months after he was sworn in. I was still there when he was assassinated, though completely unaware of the event at age 2.

[Greatguns]

Yeah, it was a little weird in school after we moved back to the states and I was like who? what? when? about it. I do remember watching the Beatles on the BBC in '63 when they performed at the Royal Albert Hall. When they did the film Hard Days Night they used footage of that concert.

I digress though, don't want to derail your thread.