/406\b Info and Data Collection

[Power Surge]

Hey RM, here's some other ones, on GB right now...

9-1518615 L , poly USA importer, milled trigger group, shot lug

6-1613359 , stamped trigger, short lug

5-1812772 (C before the 5), CSI ont CA import, stamped trigger, pinned

4-1506450 , PTK intl importer

[Power Surge]

I had to whip out a real camera to get the level of detail on this arsenal stamp, but there it is below.

LC, I know you have your feelings on this stamp, but I can assure you that I have spent dozens of hours researching guns with this stamp on it and I stand behind the artwork in my first post. EVERY gun I've seen this stamp on clearly has a segmented leg on the left side, exactly as you can see below in the pic of the stamp on my second (0406b, ?14, whatever) gun.

RM.... do we even have other "segmented triangle" stamps registered in the survey? I only ask because I've been looking at tons of guns lately and have yet to see one different than the one we are talking about here.

[Loose}{Cannon]

Its not the artwork.  lol

Its the fact nobody knows the proper order, nor what all of the numbers even are.  I dont believe its a 4 because of others I seen and the fact it leaves a bunch of lines to left. 

Like Uzz said...  It could be a 7 in the middle for all we know.  Lets just say for a second that those numbers are 0s a 6 and a 4..  how do you know the top 0 isnt supposed to be last making it 4060?    We dont know the numbers and we dont know the order, its that simple.

[Power Surge]

Its not the artwork.  lol

Its the fact nobody knows the proper order, nor what all of the numbers even are.  I dont believe its a 4 because of others I seen and the fact it leaves a bunch of lines to left. 

Like Uzz said...  It could be a 7 in the middle for all we know.  Lets just say for a second that those numbers are 0s a 6 and a 4..  how do you know the top 0 isnt supposed to be last making it 4060?    We dont know the numbers and we dont know the order, its that simple.

I didn't mean the number designation, I meant can you put the symbol back the way it was in the list?

[running-man]

RM.... do we even have other "segmented triangle" stamps registered in the survey? I only ask because I've been looking at tons of guns lately and have yet to see one different than the one we are talking about here.

All the other segmented triangle stamps are clearly "6s":
6 over 626 (?7)


6 over 636 (?8 )


6 over 656 (?9)


6666 (?5)



The ?14 / /0406\b is the only one I've seen with a full triangle (non 6) on top.  It is clearly different than those above:


The left leg may very well be open by intent, but I have seen images where that left side is inconsistent.  Even Howie thought the stamp may have been a 3 and not a 4 for many years.  I think the jury is still out on this one.  Based on the single photo of ?14 / /0406\b compared to the 4 images I show above, you could even argue that the left character was intended to be a 6, and not a 3 or a 4.  We need more examples before I'd feel comfortable making a determination.

[Uzz75]

Bought it this evening

[Dannyboy53]

Bought it this evening

I'm seeing 476 or 0476 with my old peepers. 

[Uzz75]

Bought it this evening

I'm seeing 476 or 0476 with my old peepers. 

Yes, I saw before. Mine look like 7, but serial places perfectly into the "month-list"

[Power Surge]

Yeah, that just looks like a distorted strike to me, but it's hard to say.

Get up some pics of the rest of her Uzz!

[Uzz75]

[Uzz75]

Solved arsenal mark question.

This is :


I wrote to Poyer and he confirmed.

"You are correct, it is the Longyan factory. Their marking can be found with a wide variety of minor changes. From the photo, it appears that your SKS is from commercial production, rather than military. That would account for the different style of serial number."

[Loose}{Cannon]

Who is poyer...  And how does he know?

[Uzz75]

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5017.Joe_Poyer

[Loose}{Cannon]

Oh lord.   

[Loose}{Cannon]

Can you please list poyers contrubuters in which he references?

[running-man]

Solved arsenal mark question.

I wrote to Poyer and he confirmed.

"You are correct, it is the Longyan factory. Their marking can be found with a wide variety of minor changes. From the photo, it appears that your SKS is from commercial production, rather than military. That would account for the different style of serial number."

With all due respect, There has never been an "/0406\b" found with a S/N that is not a X-XXXXXXX number, including, I believe V/N bringback guns (I really wish I had saved the link where I saw that one...can't find it now and it's driving me nuts  ).  Our 'month dash two digit nth year of production+XXXXX' S/N hypothesis has held true for every '/0406\b' gun I've ever seen.  Unless the Chinese were commercially producing the SKS for export in year 11 (1966), I think Poyer is plain wrong wrong on this one, just as he and Kehaya are about Chinese SKS dating, Teak wood on Yugo SKSs, and Russian Cyrillic prefixes following a set, repeatable pattern based on the simple European numbering standards of the time. 

Maybe this mark is Longyan, maybe it is indeed arsenal 36, but there's gotta be more behind it than "Joe Poyer says so" for me to simply accept it.  As for the arsenal codes, you get the answer from where the information is sourced right here in the booklisting on Amazon:

An expanded list of factory codes for the Chinese SKS carbines has been made available to the authors by collector Howard Bearse. That information and more has also been included in this 5th revised and expanded edition of The SKS Carbine.

For me, that right there tells me what I need to know. 

[Loose}{Cannon]

Oh for the love of Sam Houston.     

This is why I refuse to read these fictional books.

[Dannyboy53]

Solved arsenal mark question.

This is :


I wrote to Poyer and he confirmed.

"You are correct, it is the Longyan factory. Their marking can be found with a wide variety of minor changes. From the photo, it appears that your SKS is from commercial production, rather than military. That would account for the different style of serial number."

My apologies, but for the life of me I can not see that character on the bottom left of the triangle being a 3. It just doesn't "Gee-Haw"!

[Dannyboy53]

Oh for the love of Sam Houston.     

This is why I refuse to read these fictional books.

I have considered buying one...before now.

[Power Surge]

Solved arsenal mark question.

This is :


I wrote to Poyer and he confirmed.

"You are correct, it is the Longyan factory. Their marking can be found with a wide variety of minor changes. From the photo, it appears that your SKS is from commercial production, rather than military. That would account for the different style of serial number."

My apologies, but for the life of me I can not see that character on the bottom left of the triangle being a 3. It just doesn't "Gee-Haw"!

I was thinking the same thing... I can definitely see the center two making an 8, but just don't see a 3 from that left one.

BTW I've been looking into this since he posted this earlier this morning..... but have yet to find anything relevant.