What information should we keep track of in the Russian Registry?

[running-man]

OK Russian Gurus,

I'm deciding what information to keep tabs on in the Russian registry.  This registry will be composed of all the guns I find in the monthly GB reports along with info gleaned from postings of various blogs and forums across the web.  I had been previously keeping track of all the Russian numbers I ran across in the Breaking the Russian Cyrillic Prefix code thread, but that just has the year, S/N and some really basic data in it. 

The new tracking thread is going to be all inclusive and I will track it via an online spreadsheet that will be accessible to everyone via a public link available in the RUSSIAN SERIAL DATA BOARD.  Eventually this information will make it into a Russian SKS survey for easier data gathering.

I am currently thinking:

• Year: 1949 through 1958, Uncertain
• Arsenal: Tula, Izhevsk, Uncertain
• Receiver Tula Star: Yes, No, Uncertain
• Refurb Condition (estimated): As-Issued, Light, Heavy, Bubba, Uncertain
• Receiver Cover: 1949 through 1955, Blank Star, Blank, Uncertain
• Stock Type: Hardwood Red Shellac, Hardwood Amber Shellac, Laminate Red, Laminate Amber, Uncertain
• Stock Stamp: 1949 though 1955, Blank Star, Blank, Uncertain

So all the above is pretty critical to identifying any particular gun's pedigree.  If there are lots of 'uncertains' or if there is a clear refurbishment with a stock swap and the receiver cover is jacked up, it makes it much less useful for being added to the "gold standard" with which we can ID guns with similar prefixes & features that have been bubba'd.  What additional info is going to be useful to actually track?  Do we want to get down to the nitty gritty and track stuff like gas block types (90°, 45°, late radius style), receiver cover latches (early loop, mid long stamped, late short stamped), and the like.  I can think of:

• gas block type
• receiver cover latch type
• FSB/Bayo collar type
• RSB/receiver type
• gas tube latch type
• bolt//bolt carrier/firing pin type
• bayo type?

Give me some ideas and we'll see what we can put together.

-RM

[pcke2000]

refurb arsenal (marks)?

[running-man]

Interesting thought.  Unfortunately we don't have a good way to document all the different stamps that we see as the same stamp might be interpreted 3 different ways by 3 different people.  The list the guys at guns.ru put together doesn't contain all the stamps I've seen either, so we'd have a few unknowns in there that we'd have to name too keep things straight.

I'm not saying it's a bad idea, but we would need to figure out a good way to track them efficiently.  Would we need to track where they are stamped too (side of receiver, top of receiver cover, etc) or is that just going way overboard?

Of course the following question must be asked as well: We have good evidence that the Russians scrubbed and remarked certain components on refurbed guns.  Does it even make sense to include *any* refurbed gun in the gold standard list at all?  Are we asking for contamination of the data in this way?  Certain blatantly obvious examples ('49s, '54 Izhevsks, and '56, '57, & '58 letter prefix guns) should all be documented, but the iffy heavy refurbished '53 Tula that could be a '54 or '55 is probably best left out. 

[Greasemonkey]

Just my thoughts

Unfortunately we don't have a good way to document all the different stamps that we see as the same stamp

Most of the basic stamps are somewhat known, a few being shared with..........Mosins  , yeah, I said it, Mosins .  A generic list would suffice on basic inspection stamps, I think. A Mosin collector may say a stamp is one thing, yet a SKS collector says the exact same stamp is something else. Clear the air, if a stamp has 3 common terms, so what, this stamp is: bork, buzz or bla. any of those 3 names would be socially correct, keeps it simple. This would avoid trying to reinvent the wheel and trying to create a name, with the exception, if the truth is found, then those 3 names be changed to reflect the correct term.. Like many other weapons from other nations, most marks are unknown, most are a guess, unless the factories throw up the info for public view.

Now, on this.... little bitty here

Year: 1949 through 1958, Uncertain
    Arsenal: Tula, Izhevsk, Uncertain
    Receiver Tula Star: Yes, No, Uncertain
    Refurb Condition (estimated): As-Issued, Light, Heavy, Bubba, Uncertain
    Receiver Cover: 1949 through 1955, Blank Star, Blank, Uncertain
    Stock Type: Hardwood Red Shellac, Hardwood Amber Shellac, Laminate Red, Laminate Amber, Uncertain
    Stock Stamp: 1949 though 1955, Blank Star, Blank, Uncertain

So all the above is pretty critical to identifying any particular gun's pedigree.  If there are lots of 'uncertains' or if there is a clear refurbishment with a stock swap and the receiver cover is jacked up, it makes it much less useful for being added to the "gold standard" with which we can ID guns with similar prefixes & features that have been bubba'd.  What additional info is going to be useful to actually track?  Do we want to get down to the nitty gritty and track stuff like gas block types (90°, 45°, late radius style), receiver cover latches (early loop, mid long stamped, late short stamped), and the like.  I can think of:

    gas block type
    receiver cover latch type
    FSB/Bayo collar type
    RSB/receiver type
    gas tube latch type
    bolt//bolt carrier/firing pin type
    bayo type?

Why not go all in, balls out, everyone has gone coo coo for Chinese markings and features, thats like 20 some years of production and bunches of factories, why go half azz on Russian's when it's only 7'ish years and two factories, at least imported into the states. I mean at least on the good side, new markings won't appear over night or next week. Once done, it's done. If your after just ID'ing the breed, the first list is fine, but, if it's manufacturing trends, changes, what not your looking for, the more info you have to start, the more concise the trends and info becomes.

And, somewhere I have 2 Russians , come to think of it, I ain't even shot'em

Ok, I thought, where is my asprin....

[running-man]

Ok, I've got a system worked out to assign designators to the refurb marks.  Here's an example on an unknown diamond mark:

Drawing:


Actual Image:


I can put those in the survey and will designate a column to track them in the spreadsheet.  Not sure what refurb data would necessarily yield, but it looks doable w/o a ton of work at least.

[running-man]

As a side note, I knew that receiver covers had variations in them.  I had no idea that they were so varied though.  The '49's are of course all over the place as they were hand stamped, or at least the dies were.  You'd expect that by '52 they'd have their act together, but it seems not as I've got 5 different versions in just my little list of guns: (there are far less as the years progress though) 

[Loose}{Cannon]

Iike it.   

Lets not confuse here... When RM says 'unknown', he means we dont know the exact facility, but it IS a known refurb mark.  One of many. 

[Dannyboy53]

Interesting...I thought use of those "open" or crude arrows stopped at 1950. Obviously not, running-man's first photo of the covers demonstrates that.

[Bunker]

Ok, I've got a system worked out to assign designators to the refurb marks.  Here's an example on an unknown diamond mark:

Drawing:


Actual Image:


I can put those in the survey and will designate a column to track them in the spreadsheet.  Not sure what refurb data would necessarily yield, but it looks doable w/o a ton of work at least.

I’ve been following Russian researcher Ruslan Chumak and some of his colleagues supporting his research.  Mr. Chumak served in the GRAU (Main Missile and Artillery Directorate of the Ministry of Defense), in the archives.  His research involves deciphering weapon repairs and the diversity of stamps usually explained in an encrypted characteristic of repairs.  He published an article last year in the Collection of the Museum of Artillery.  To date his group has found over 60 characters, of which over 20 are transcribed accurately with a high degree of certainty. 

For the conduct of the identification of the detected symbols (they bind to specific base weapons arsenal) was used, combined Vanny method including a comparison of records in the packing lists that are stored with the weapon, with marks on the boxes, checking of records of repairs in the forms of weapons and devices to put on them conventional signs of repair shops, as well as the study of the accompanying documents issued by some enterprises civilian products.  For reference, here are 15 of those 20 symbols that have been accurately transcribed with a high degree of certainty.



This group has identified the brand you have depicted and research is ongoing to fully decipher with a high degree of certainty.  That being said, here is some info on that brand that may potentially aid in your research efforts.

In order to carry out a full range of M and R armaments in one place, an overwhelming number of the arsenals and bases that repaired weapons (artillery, small arms, etc) also repaired optical equipment.  With that in mind, optics with the brand you depicted with a single-digit is inherently only at 75 ABC (Leningrad) â€" in / h 67678.  Additionally, two-digit optics exhibiting the same brand will equate to the last two digits of the year (e.g., 61 equals 1961).  Certainly nothing deciphered as many facts and documents are yet to be identified, researched and validated, but more info nevertheless.  If you don’t mind me asking, does the symbol you depict have any accompanying digits and what type of rifle and year is it from? 

[running-man]

We've been following the posts on guns.ru (http://forum.guns.ru/forummessage/36/1416490) that document a bit of Chumak's work since late last year.  Someone posted the link on gunboards (it may have been you for all I know, welcome to SKS-Files by the way) and there was finally some concrete proof against the wild and sloppy "Ex-DDR" theory. 

The mark I show with a diamond, vertical bar, and 1/2 horizontal bar is one I found on a miscellaneous receiver cover from a Russian SKS45 someone posted long ago.  As with many receiver cover refurb stampings on SKS45s (I'd go so far to say a majority of them), there is no text or other indications of the date.  I wish they were as consistent with dating them as they seemed to be with the optics!  We have seen refurb marks EP'd into the cover with very clear dates (19 <refurb mark> "XX date"), and stamped into the receiver with equally clear dates, but the most common ones seem to be the single stamp with no other information on the receiver cover. 

Based on my experience, the 1st GRAU / Balakleya stamp seems to be the most common stamp you see on refurbed SKSs though I have no hard proof of this, just anecdotal observations.  That's one of the things that the registry/survey will help us to decipher (I hope at least, we got a great deal of extremely useful information that helped us form some of our theories from all the guns that came into the Comprehensive Chinese SKS survey we've been running the past year and a half.)

Do you read Cyrillic well?  I stumble and poke my way though Russian papers, documents, and websites using translators/dictionaries and the like but I know that I'm simply out of my league when it comes to trying to keep up with the conversations on those message boards.  All we can do is look on and trust what they are saying is accurate.  From what I've seen, their methods are sound and I've got no reason to doubt what they say.  Data always trumps theory though; it's always best to keep that in the back of our minds regardless of who the authority or what the commonly accepted theory is. 

[Bunker]

I also poke my way through Cyrillic (getting a little better though) and have been following their work on various forums pretty much since they started, to include GUNS.RU.  The link your posted has the info I posted and other details are available via different forums and within the TT communities as well.  In fact that ongoing discussion has a few two digit examples as well. 

I do agree that data is key but sound documentation along with data is the icing on the cake.  I assumed that brand was on an SKS but thanks for confirming that for me. That is the first time I seen that symbol on something other than optics, which is most interesting to me.  Hopefully we'll see more examples.  Thanks!   

[Loose}{Cannon]

I think RM has pics of many many of these marks found on Russian sks carbines.   

[running-man]

I also poke my way through Cyrillic (getting a little better though) and have been following their work on various forums pretty much since they started, to include GUNS.RU.  The link your posted has the info I posted and other details are available via different forums and within the TT communities as well.  In fact that ongoing discussion has a few two digit examples as well. 

I do agree that data is key but sound documentation along with data is the icing on the cake.  I assumed that brand was on an SKS but thanks for confirming that for me. That is the first time I seen that symbol on something other than optics, which is most interesting to me.  Hopefully we'll see more examples.  Thanks!   

Yup, I hadn't kept up with that thread in a couple months.  I see that the 75 ABC (Leningrad) stamp is a pretty new one.  It'll be interesting to see what they feel comfortable enough to publish and what they leave off until more data becomes available.  I was surprised to see that they consider squares and rectangles (for example square with two diagonals = 2nd GRAU Kiev) the same mark.  It wasn't 100% intuitive to me when I first read it, but I can certainly see where they are coming from when you have a refurb plant working on optics as well as weaponry off the same artillery piece. 

No problem with the examples. I'll dig out some original photos when I get a chance, there are at least 5 or 6 that I can think of off the top of my head.  I'm surprised that there aren't more SKSs in their data, though I guess SKS ownership in Russia isn't actually widespread.

Another thing I'm surprised about was that they were a bit confused about the Д, И, К (and Л, М etc.) designators being assigned to years 1956 through 60-something.  I know the SKS community seems to only recently have found out about this, but the PM and AK crowd has supposedly known about this for years as well as it having been published in literature.  I would have assumed that the Russians would have been all over this and not the other way around...

[Bunker]

My personal view (which means nothing) is the AK community has been way ahead with such things as the Russian Cyrillic code letters.  That has been well known in the AK community and published in several Russian books as well as recent US books.  I've been in the AK community for several years and own several military AKs, so I'm no stranger there.  You mentioned the 1960 date, so I'd thought I'd through this up just for reference.  Notice the transition between the Type 3 AK (milled receiver) and the AKM (stamped receiver).  A 1960 Type 3 is coded with the letter "M", signifying 1960, while the AKM is date stamped.  Same for the 1961, the Type 3 is coded with the letter "P", signifying 1961, while the AKM is date stamped.  This is the transition period.

[running-man]

Good info to know. 

I've read that the letter codes go like this:

Д = 1956
И = 1957
К = 1958
(all three very well known in the SKS community)

Л = 1959: (note all photos not mine, they come from various posts on guns.ru)


М = 1960:


With Р = 1964:


And there is evidence of usage of an "H":


And a "П":


If an "О" is found, that would give me quite a bit of confidence that those three cover the '61, '62, and '63 years.  If no "O" is ever found (very possible since it could be mistaken for a "0"), maybe the "P" belongs to '63? 

Again, all speculation on my part, and you may be right with your thesis.  The two examples above have to have a place at the table though.  The most logical would be that the Russians continued in alphabetical order though they could have broken that as there is precedence that they seemed to jump Е, Ё, Ж, and З when they went from Д to И, so anything is possible I guess.

[Bunker]

Very interesting...thanks for posting.  What I can say with a high degree of confidence as it relates to the Russian AK is the following are valid codes:

Д 1956
И 1957
К 1958
Л 1959
М 1960
P 1961

1956 was the very last year they put Gregorian dates on AK rifles.  So anything prior was Gregorian dated, while anything after mid-1956 will be letter coded, which indicates that 'Д' is 1956, same as you stated with the SKS. 

1961 was the last use of letter codes on AKs.  From 1962 on you'll not see any letter codes on their AKs, not to be confused with batch and forging codes.  Also all letters in the Russian alphabet were used for various markings with the exception of a few.

[running-man]

Kool. 

The PM guys show it like this:

In 1956 the PM stopped including the year digits, the year was marked by a letter.
Such designations were:
Д-----1956г.
И-----1957г.
К-----1958г.
Л-----1959г.
М-----1960г.
Р-----1964г.
As you can see, the letter instead of the year goes continuously from 1956-1960, 1960 year is in parallel, the year began again to specify numbers, as a result, we have two PM releases of the 1960 year, the first option specified by a letter <Д> (Ed note: I think he typoed here and meant to write <M> as that's what he shows in his timeline above), the second option year specified by a digit (1960).
However, this dual option year (letters and numbers) was recorded only in 1960 and 1964. Again, the reason for this turn of events, I don't know. But I have not seen a PM whose year was specified (1956 1957, 1958, 1959 in numbers) as well as not encountered a PM where the year was specified (1961, 1962, 1963 in letters).
As a result of all this saga with letters, we have 1960 where the year is listed as letters and numbers, and after that is the numeral only PM of 1961, 1962, 1963.  In 1964, again recorded a double option year: 1964 (number) and <Р>, which refers to 1964.

I tend to believe the author is credible as he goes on to talk about the feature progression of the PM through these years and he notes that a '64/P is the transition point where the trigger guard differs from earlier models: (again all photos not mine, all linked from pm9.ucoz.ru website)








I'm not experienced enough with PMs or AKs to be able to even remotely say it's one way or another.  My wheelhouse is SKSs and they are only seen in the first three letter years and then production stopped so there's no help there.  If the AKs say something totally different than what the PM guys say, I'd love to see some examples of the progression from ~'56 to ~'65 (in addition to your '60 and '61 examples) that that might help shed additional light on this one. 

[Bunker]

The old PM theory has kinda been debunked but I'm not a PM expert either.  According to the Russian discussions that go pretty far back, at least 2007, they agree that date code "P" cannot be 1964 and is in fact 1961.  There are several discussions but I just pulled a few links for reference.  Here are the codes they seem to agree upon, 1956 Д, 1957 И, 1958 К, 1959 Л, 1960 М, and 1961 Р, which is in agreement with the AK and the letter series SKSs.  So I believe this to be accurate but again I'm not a PM expert.

http://popgun.ru/viewtopic.php?f=160&t=298926&start=200

http://popgun.ru/viewtopic.php?f=160&t=298926

As for your request for AK progression.  I pulled several examples to show the progression until 1965.  Keep in mind AKM production ran through 1977, which I did not include but I can if that is needed.  The AKMs after 1965 were all dated stamped as well. 

1949 (Type 1)


1950 (Type 1)


1951 (Type 1)


1951 (Type 2 - Transition Year from Stamped Receiver to Milled)


1952 (Type 2)


1953 (Type 2)


1954 (Type 2 AKS)


1955 (Type 3 - Transition Year, from Type 2 to Type 3)


1956 (Type 3 - Date Code Д)


1957 (Type 3 - Date Code И)


1958 (Type 3 - Date Code К)


1959 (Type 3 - Date Code Л)


1960 (Type 3 - Date Code М and also start year of the transition to the AKM stamped receiver)


1960 (Izhevsk AKM - transition period)


1960 (Tula AKM - transition period)


1961 (Type 3 - Date Code P and final year of Type 3 production)


1961 (Izhevsk AKM - transition period)


1961 (Tula AKM - transition period)


1962 (Izhevsk AKM)


1963 (Izhevsk AKM)


1964 (Izhevsk AKM)


1965 (Izhevsk AKM)


1965 (Tula AKM)

[running-man]

The old PM theory has kinda been debunked but I'm not a PM expert either.  According to the Russian discussions that go pretty far back, at least 2007, they agree that date code "P" cannot be 1964 and is in fact 1961.  There are several discussions but I just pulled a few links for reference.  Here are the codes they seem to agree upon, 1956 Д, 1957 И, 1958 К, 1959 Л, 1960 М, and 1961 Р, which is in agreement with the AK and the letter series SKSs.  So I believe this to be accurate but again I'm not a PM expert.

Interesting.  I wonder why Mr. Fedya didn't go back and inform Mr. DENI so he could update his PM pages after finding the Л -> P -> '61 transitions in the PM frames??  Maybe they don't like eachother?   

Old pages, gahhh!  Hard enough trying to read foreign websites w/o having the benefit of the most current information.   I can easily buy into the P = '60 thinking now, though I wonder what the heck the Н & П codes under the /25\ refurb marks on those optics really point to then?  No wonder nobody is lining up to put a definitive date to anything after the М's!

I've also read there were "1955" coded Г marks as well floating around out there. So much unknown out there!! 

[Bunker]

I have also read that the Г code could have possibly been used in mid 1955 but I have yet to see anything to substantiate that claim.