Howdy from Texas

[stephan]

I got an old Chinese SKS 7.62x39 recently for my birthday & after looking around online for when it was made, I came across the sks-files questionnaire & that led me here.
The factory stamp wasn't listed so i uploaded some pictures of it.  It's a triangle with a number 25 inside it.

[CARBINE]

Welcome, I don't see that stamp in the Arsenal Stamps either............Arsenal Stamps - Chinese SKS Guide       
Thats cool. Loose Cannon or Running Man might know more they will be around soon enough. You should post up some pics of the gun itself we would love to see it!
Tony

[Loose}{Cannon]

I think you will find that all characteristics will be 1964 9m serial Jianshe or below with long barrel lug etc.  Thats a /26\ and the stamp was well used/broken in areas.... Only arsenal making the sks pre 1968ish

Whats the serial #?  You can xxx the last few digits if need be.

Welcom to the files!

[running-man]

Greetings Stephan, glad to have you here.

W/O seeing the rest of the gun we can only guess, but if my experience serves me well I'd say that you likely have a poorly stamped /26\ there.  There are many accounts and examples of broken or worn stamps that continued to be used by the Chinese long after they should have been replaced and discarded.

Here's a couple examples of what I'm talking about:

Clear /0 over 226\ (?4 in the guide):

Less clear, but still a /0 over 226\ (?4 in the guide), not a /0 over 225\ as has been previously thought:


Clear /6 over 602\ (?1 in the guide):

Less Clear, but still a /6 over 602\ (?1 in the guide):

[Dannyboy53]

Welcome to the Files Stephan! From the looks of that stamp I would say that die has struck one too many parts. Maybe a collectors item in  its own right!

[stephan]

Some pictures.






Looks to be an incomplete or broken die.  Probably not as rare as a two-legged buffalo nickel.
If anyone wants pictures or scans of any other parts let me know.

[CARBINE]

O a letter gun...nice. Would the stamp be worn out with that early of a factory 26? Could a 25 be possible?

[Dannyboy53]

O a letter gun...nice. Would the stamp be worn out with that early of a factory 26? Could a 25 be possible?

I feel it is possible the stamp is worn out even at that early in the game. I'm asking myself what was the quality of metal & metal working materials in China at that time. On the other side of the coin, we recognize there is much we don't know so I'm with you Carbine, could there also be a /25\ arsenal stamp? Only the Chinese know for certain.

[escobert]

Pretty cool! Welcome to the forums!

[running-man]

O a letter gun...nice. Would the stamp be worn out with that early of a factory 26? Could a 25 be possible?

Depends on how early you think a letter "E" gun is in the mix.  When would you date it to?  Remember that there were roughly 550k ghost + 6 digit + 2 million /26\ + 3 million /26\ type 56s built from '56 through '58.

We've maintained that the letter prefixed guns couldn't have appeared until at earliest, 1959 based on the feature set comparison with the side swivel 3 mil /26\s.  '59-'60 is a nice open spot based on the lack of 4 and 5 million /26\ guns.  More than that, it fits well because we have hard proof of 1960 year stamped /26\ T53s with letter prefixes.  Add in the Soviet-Sino split that really got going due to the April 1960 CCP publications of "Long Live Leninism!" and the nasty 'public' behind the scenes exchanges between Khrushchev and Zhen at the June 1960 Romanian Communist Party Congress, and there's a pretty good bet that the letter guns fill one or both of these two years. 

I'd call it a 'later' letter gun build simply due to the large font on the side swiveled stock.  I think it's pretty clear from the S/N evidence we've collected that the letter guns weren't built in order from A, B, C and so on through Z.  Odd letter combinations jump out as having the narrow 1/10" wide x 1/4" tall stock font such as letters G, I, J, K, M, S while the wide 1/5" x 1/4" font stocks are seen in C, D, E, F, H, R, & W though there is certainly a case to be made that there are 'groups' of letters in there.

As for if the stamp was damaged or not, here are some additional E series stamps I was able to dredge up.  Unfortunately none are as crisp as Stephan's excellent photograph, but in some I can clearly see that the 6 loop does not close and the top of the triangle is damaged.  I'd say this stamp was like that from the late E3000's all the way through at least E7500. 

Does a /25\ exist?  I'll never say never, but I don't think this is one of them.  It's a neat exercise though and gives me a good excuse to pull out some photos and look them over to compare with the new data being added to the mix and see if I need to reevaluate any of my hypotheses. 

[stephan]

Very cool, thanks for sharing the E pictures.  I was looking for some that started with an E to see their condition & what refinished wood looked like.  I haven't had a rifle with wood on it in more than 20 years & never anything like this.

As for the crisp photograph, it wasn't from a camera or by accident.  1600dpi on a flatbed scanner for the closeups.  Works equally well on coins, bugs, electronics stuff or anything else you need a macro type shot of.

59'-60' is excellent as far as about when it was made, several people have asked me in person & I replied 'sometime before me'.  I'm new to SKS & had never heard of cosmoline before a month ago.

[Loose}{Cannon]

Is there a factory 25?.    No, especially seeing that only /26\ Jianshe was making the sks in this timeframe.   

[running-man]

Very cool, thanks for sharing the E pictures.  I was looking for some that started with an E to see their condition & what refinished wood looked like.  I haven't had a rifle with wood on it in more than 20 years & never anything like this.

Yours is certainly in the top 1/3 of the recent imports as far as condition.  I've seen nicer, but not by much. 

Some, like this beauty that Loose}{Cannon got, needed ahem, a bit more work to get cleaned up  :

[Loose}{Cannon]

 

[running-man]

Aww come on, show the 'after' photos. That thing turned out to be a beauty! 

[Loose}{Cannon]

That would take hrs to find.   

[carls sks]

hi Stephan and welcome. good to have you here.