Russian Marking/Stigma Thread

[running-man]

Just fount a neat little /12\ on a Russian / Sino-Banian receiver.  I had the drawing already made up, so I think this is one Chumak has already noted.  I'll check and see if it's a known GRAU/ABV. 

Found another /12\, this one much clearer than the previous one I found.  Stamped in the exact same spot on the receiver:


There is also an odd looking rectangle up front before the S/N.  Can't quite decide what that might be...I want to say an H in a rectangle maybe?

[pcke2000]

Here's a 7th GRAU @ Riga stamp on a receiver cover I have seen on an SKS:




Pretty standard marking there.

I had read on one of the various .ru websites, that Chumak & co. consider squares and rectangles to be equal to each other as far as identifying the various refurb facilities.  For example, 1st GRAU @ Balakleya is both a square or a rectangle with a slash in it.

If that's the case, than this mark I just found yesterday, would also be 7th Grau @ Riga (in my opinion). 

is 7th GRAU @ Riga stamp more common on Russian refurb SVT-40's ?

[running-man]

is 7th GRAU @ Riga stamp more common on Russian refurb SVT-40's ?

I have no idea.  SVT's are certainly not my strongpoint. 

Anecdotally I will say this: within 3 minutes of searching I found this image of a 7th GRAU stamped SVT.  You could spend hours searching for an SKS with a 7th GRAU stamp and not find a single one I bet.  I only know of the two I've already shown in my entire archive of 1500+ SKS45s...

[running-man]

I wonder if that stamp forward of the S/N in this image:


is the same as this one rotated 90°?:


Such a poor stamp/photo that we'll likely never know for certain, but I think it's more plausible than the H within a rectangle I originally thought.

[Loose}{Cannon]

Hard to tell...

[running-man]

Found a few more while cataloging the late 2016 GB guns.

Here's a neat one, square with a cross within it.  First one I've ever seen on an SKS, a 1952 light refurb.  They got lazy with the S/N restamping and reused the OA prefix that was already there:


Fits well with Ruslan's seen but unknown stamps, 4th row, 2nd column:


One other I found (and I think we've seen before but I'm not quite certain as this thread has been going quite a while) is the cross within an octagon (7th row, 1st column in the chart above) Edit: I lie, cross within a hexagon.   This one is 1827th ABV @ Nizhyn

[newchi]

i just had a quick look at my sks's,  my original sks with the multiple xxx'd number stock has this on the left side
post image online
so whats that one mean?

[pcke2000]

Such a poor stamp/photo that we'll likely never know for certain, but I think it's more plausible than the H within a rectangle I originally thought.

From a Russian forum thread on TT-30/33 history, this mark 'presumably is from 31st Arsenal at Ulyanovsk'.

[running-man]

i just had a quick look at my sks's,  my original sks with the multiple xxx'd number stock has this on the left side
post image online
so whats that one mean?

No idea. Those diamond stamps were quite common as acceptance stamps around the crossbolts on stocks. Occassionally you find them on other areas on refurbs. Got a photo of it?

[Boris Badinov]

This mark is stamped on the barrel of a 1958 "K"  SKS45. It's an I.O. Palm Bay, FL. Sino-Ruso-Albanian Sneak. All matching, non-refurb in a laminate stock. As issued. I posted regarding this stamp on gunboards, but this dedicated thread is probably a better place for it:

[newchi]

Can just about see the 0.  I suck at taking photos of these marks, dont know how you guys do it.
click image upload

[running-man]

That's not a bad photo Newchi, I see the 0 pretty clearly.  On a gun like that where there are multiple XXX'd numbers, it's anybody's guess.  Some stocks get stamped with pretty standard marks that we know are refurb marks in standard areas (i.e. 1st GRAU "diver down" always stamped on the right side of a refurbed stock).

I'll be on the lookout for diamond 0 marks and see if we can ID a pattern.  I can't remember seeing one before though.

[running-man]

This mark is stamped on the barrel of a 1958 "K"  SKS45. It's an I.O. Palm Bay, FL. Sino-Ruso-Albanian Sneak. All matching, non-refurb in a laminate stock. As issued. I posted regarding this stamp on gunboards, but this dedicated thread is probably a better place for it:

First time I've seen this mark though it's tiny and likely easily overlooked.  I'll keep an eye out for it and see if we can get other examples for reference.  Probably a tall order, but we'll see what we can do.

I will ask this question though (not to be a jerk): How do you know that the gun is "non-refurb"?  Seems to me that the mark you show could easily designate a barrel swap, or an unknown refurb stamp we haven't encountered yet, or maybe Vlad was bored one day and decided to play with various stamps.  The point is, we know so little about the history of these firearms, their manufacture, their use, what actually occurred at refurb, decommissioning, and export, how can one even begin to make a determination that something is 'non-refurb'? 

It really doesn't matter one way or another, we're not the terminology police here.  Nobody is going to get their head chopped off for saying something is 'unissued', 'unfired', 'non-refurbed', or even for calling a Type 56 a 'Norinco'.   

I just want people to think a bit about the terms they use and realize what those terms really mean.  Helps keep us better grounded as collectors in my opinion. 

[Boris Badinov]

Thanks  for your reply, RM.

I completely understand your desire for clarity.

By non-refurb I mean none of the telltale nor less conspicuous signs of refurbishment: No stamps, paint, forcematching, or obvious scrubbing. Some of the ep serials are faded, but still legible and all matching.

Also the late date of manufacture and the impending Albanian split with the Kremlin leave a very narrow window for the possibility of re-arsenal. With 1958 signaling the end of Soviet sks production-- AK47 now adequately stockpiled and in robust production-- it would seem more likely that this particular carbine found its way to Albania soon after manufacture or at least before it required re-arsenaling.

Many of the SKS45's were re-arsenaled prior to their addition to the Albanian Stockpiles. I have two such early rifles. 1950 and 1953-54. Both with various signs of Soviet refurbishment. But nary a one can be found on this "K" letter rifle.

I imagine this particular stamp might have been added in Albania. But given the lack of evidence for a structured, formalized Albanian re-arsenal program, I can't see how this mark would indicate refurbishment.

(Though I have begun to suspect that there are some overlooked, ad hoc indicators of in-the-field maintenance performed on the Sino-Albanain carbines.)

This particular stamp/etching was apparently applied by someone with a fairly high degree of skill.  But given it's rougher quality, does not suggest attribution to a formal refurb program.

Edit: The barrel swap also occured to me early on. But it's a matching number pair on the receiver flat and barrel lug.

[newchi]

It can be tricky.
The stock i posted above, you would think came from a refurb, but there are no refurb marks.
But HA! you say, its a replacement stock.  Well we cant say that for sure.  I dont know if the gun had a different stock before, all the evidence at hand says, is this stock had a different gun before.


If there was a hippy smiley, i would put it here.

[pcke2000]

It can be tricky.
The stock i posted above, you would think came from a refurb, but there are no refurb marks.
But HA! you say, its a replacement stock.  Well we cant say that for sure.  I dont know if the gun had a different stock before, all the evidence at hand says, is this stock had a different gun before.


If there was a hippy smiley, i would put it here.

The stock is not  original for sure

[running-man]

It can be tricky.
The stock i posted above, you would think came from a refurb, but there are no refurb marks.
But HA! you say, its a replacement stock.  Well we cant say that for sure.  I dont know if the gun had a different stock before, all the evidence at hand says, is this stock had a different gun before.


If there was a hippy smiley, i would put it here.

I guess I don't follow you.  Are you trying to say that you can't know that the stock on your gun isn't original to it?  Or that you can't tell whether your gun is refurbed because it doesn't have a refurb mark? 

While there are limits to what we can know, there are certain things we can positively tell just based on our observations.  Multiple XXX'd locations on a stock define the number of times the stock has been swapped from one gun to another because there is a definitive different S/N under each of the XX's.  On yours I read a ГO as one of the XX'd prefixes and a П-something on the other.  Neither of these match your ЮH.  It's very likely that the ГO was the original stamping on the 1952 built stock (since it is in the proper location where an as-issued stamping should be and I have other 1952 ГO guns in the registry), then the П-something came later, and finally your ЮH last. 

When the same stock was paired back with it's original carbine and didn't need wholeale sanding and refinishing the Russians typically left the original S/N on and either refinished right over it, or if it was partially unreadable they stamped the same S/N in another location on the stock. 

[newchi]

I am saying , who says there was ever a stock at all for this gun?  there is no evidence it wasnt just a barrelled receiver sitting in a corner until this stock came along.  We do have evidence this stock had other guns (unless the guy with the stamps was seriously drunk/dyslexic and made 3 typos.)

Of course, you have to go with most likely assumptions, it had to be new at some point and have its own stock.

[running-man]

I am saying , who says there was ever a stock at all for this gun?  there is no evidence it wasnt just a barrelled receiver sitting in a corner until this stock came along.  We do have evidence this stock had other guns (unless the guy with the stamps was seriously drunk/dyslexic and made 3 typos.)

Of course, you have to go with most likely assumptions, it had to be new at some point and have its own stock.

Your hypothesis is flawed as there is indeed evidence that the Russians didn't stamp a S/N on a firearm until it was finalized.  One can quickly get into the realm of ridiculousness (How do we know the gun was built by the Russians?  How do we know it was intended to be a gun? etc.) 

Typically the burden of proof is for the data to disprove the null hypothesis, and very often it does.  In the absence of data, however, the null hypothesis is assumed true until data comes along that contradicts it or requires a modification to some alternative hypothesis.  In this instance, there is zero data that the Russians produced firearms w/o stocks.

[newchi]

Actually i have a hypothesis i would love to try and prove but i doubt anyone has ever recorded the data to try and do it.