Confusion "again" 316 Arsenal older, newer?

[Weldrdave]

Hello again all. 
This was an internet find and I couldn't help it, I just had to...  .   Sorry, pics aren't so good, but it's an arsenal /316\   but my question here is, is this a rifle that is "truly" a 2 million rifle or a 23 million rifle with a "0" dropped.  I've read through the dating page, this gun is sooooooo sweet it can't be that old, "can it"?    Everything matches,  it's a stamped trigger housing and a pinned barrel.  The bore looks like a mirror, beautiful.  No dings, no scratches, Oddly no markings like "Norinco" or any such anywhere.  It did not come with the bayonet,  but I found one new in cosmoline and purchased it. It appears to have never been fired.  It does have an import stamp under barrel cleaning rod holder,  "KFS Atl GA"  Made in china.   Thats it, and very small!  This has got to be one of the cleanest, prettiest ones I have.   Thoughts please...  Thanks, Dave 

[Phosphorus32]

Nice! 

The first two digits are 23, so that’s 23rd year = 1978. Note the later features: absence of lightening cuts in the bolt carrier and a pinned barrel. The earliest non-26 arsenal didn’t go on line until 1965, so none of them have early features.

Most of the minor arsenals used no more than seven digits because their production volume was nowhere near the 350K faceplate capacity of the Jianshe Arsenal /26\ combined production lines.

Edited: I looked at the first picture on a big monitor and the numbers and features became clear to me.

[running-man]

Yup, year 23 as P32 says.  It has unfortunately been extremely difficult to separate the 'millions' method of the old (incorrect) dating scheme from our SKS-Files dating scheme of simply using the first digits.  In my opinion it's best to forget millions and focus on the first digits when beginning to date a gun.  The feature set on a gun is also something that should be used when determining a date...this gun has only late features.

[Weldrdave]

Thank you Guy's!!!  That's what I assumed. It is way, way to pretty and never look like it was touched!  When I get a nice day, I'll take better pics, my little camera doesn't do flash well... 

[Larry D.]

Any way you cut it, you got a REALLY pretty SKS.