Research Topic: How many Russian SKS45s were imported into the United States?

[running-man]

LC and I have been discussing this one off and on for a little while now and I've thought about doing this for several years myself.  With the data we have now compiled, I *think* this is actually an answerable question as long as we stick to certain assumptions up front:

• CAI guns did not receive restamped sequential serial numbers and will be determined via comparison to other known importers.  For example, if I have a ratio of 3:1 CAI guns to CDI imported guns in the database, then it stands to reason that the number of CDI guns I calculate can help us estimate the number of CAI guns out there (in this example CAI guns would be 3X the number of CDI guns).
• The importers who restamped with a new serial number did so sequentially within a given import batch.
• Subsequent import batches started sequentially from the last number reached without a massive (say 10k digits) jump in numbering.  This is a bit of a WAG because we don't have the full list of all S/Ns tied to each import batch, but if any jumps are there, they are small enough for me not to have noticed.
• When a new prefix was used on a new import batch, the sequential number restarted from zero.
• Batches of guns for which we don't have good serial number data (for example the Springfield Armory imports) are quite small in relation to the "big 4" (CAI, NHM, CDI, & KBI) and shouldn't skew the results all that much.
• Batches of Russian 'sneaks' from the Sino-Banian imports did not get new serial numbers and will also not be counted.  Again, the total number of these imports is dwarfed by the '92 to '94 imports of the big 4.

I'll keep a running tab of the highest S/N of the various importers and different batches I find and at some point we should be able to tally them up and come to a reasonable total. 

Please post any S/N you might come across that is higher than any of the ones listed in the next post in this thread.  Lower numeral S/Ns, unfortunately, do us no good in this thought experiment except to perhaps identify that no jump has occured and the S/N record is continuous from 1 to X.

Thanks all! 

[running-man]

Here's one of each I've found in my first 2 minutes of looking (these are obviously not the high values...though the CDI is quite high, I have some that I know are higher, but not into the 100k range so that one might max out at 97k or so...that will take quite a bit of time as I look through thousands of my archived photos)

KBI RH: 11,205



KBI RL: 12,466



CDI: 90,798



NHM 99XXXX: 10,941



NHM NXXXX: 1,547



It appears there are XX times CAI guns then there are XXX imports. (still working on this one...this one will probably take a while)


Needless to say, if anyone owns one of these and is horrified to see the full S/N posted for the world to see, please PM me and I'll take it down immediately. (it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that there are XX thousand Russian SKS's her, the S/Ns are all sequential, and to make up a number however)

[running-man]

Also, if anyone has any ideas to help this process along or to help confirm that my assumptions are at least reasonable, I'm all ears.  Indeed, if anyone has any ideas as to why this is a ridiculous wasted of time and the results will be skewed because of one or more of my assumptions being wrong, please post up and we can discuss like always!

Thanks again guys! 

[Boris Badinov]

Great thread! 


I've checked all of mine with importer serials except for one. The ones i've checked all fall below the ones you listed.

I have '54 Izhevsk in the safe. It's buried in the safe, but the safe is currently buried behind a bunch of other stored items.

[Justin Hell]

My only Russian is the 49/50 mystery....and it's KBI RH 232282



Unfortunately, it was lightly struck in the first place, likely over BBQ, which was then removed...then repainted, then restripped, then reblued.  Here is a photo from when it was in the white....LMK if another higher one doesn't show up...and I will try photo it now, although it will be quite difficult to get to show up.

[Boris Badinov]

KBI RH 232282 -- this would suggest 45 imports well over 300k

With estimates of 2.7-3million SKS45's manufactured, nearly twenty percent of them could be  in the USA.   

??

[pcke2000]

FOIA request may help.

[running-man]

Bummer Justin,

I just went back and checked starting from the other end of the record (reverse alphabetical order so I'm not going through the same guns) and found this gem:


There's no way KBI imported 600k SKS45s. 

I think this invalidates assumption #2 and #3. 

I'll have to pull each and every number into a database and see where the leaps & jumps lie.  They incremented that first digit for some reason, I wonder why? 

[Greasemonkey]

I'll have to pull each and every number into a database and see where the leaps & jumps lie.  They incremented that first digit for some reason, I wonder why? 

I don't know..but will throw this out there.. In the import stamp section, you have 2 variations of KBI.. so I'm going to grasp some.......at 2 different, but related subjects... cause thats what I do, and there is reasoning behind both

One reads

Notes: Identical to KBI #1 save for the RL in the S/N.  Far less of the RL's around than the RH's from what I've seen.

The other reads

Notes: Definitely one of the big boys in the Russian SKS-45 game, KBI imported a whole bunch of guns in the mid 90's between the fall of the Soviet Union to the signing of the VRA in April '96.  The president of KBI was Michael Kassner, who is somewhat of a legend in the arms import business.  From the Pennsylvania secretary of state website (search for KBI), it appears that KBI was founded in 1989.  Looking at the corporations Kassnar was involved in, I see Kassnar Imports Inc. in '67 (possibly his dad's company), Firstshot Inc. in '91, KopyKats Inc. in '96, Kassnar & Associates in '97.  Kassner's Linkedin profile can be found here.  He is currently at IWI USA Inc.

As for the stamp itself, I honestly have no idea why there are RH prefixes and RL prefixes.  Something caused the change, maybe it was as simple as a separate import batch.  I'm calling this one #1 as the RH's are much more numerous than the RL's from what I've seen.

Ok, still with me.. what if they, the RL and RH......... are backwards. 

The RL prefix was first used, in 1990/1991 while Russia was still the USSR/CCCP, just before it was dissolved.....this could be why there are low numbers, less years of imports, smaller lots of imports due to a mess over seas.

Then the RH came after the change to Russia, More years of importation, larger surplus lots due to cleaning house..

So to kind of sum my mess up... if KBI went into the business in '89, started imports, the RL prefix from the CCCP in 1990 into some point in 1991, they RL stamped them till they exhausted. Then new lots got imported from the new Russia, and the RH prefix popped up somewhere later in 1991 and ran till 1996 when the VRA came down. This method could effectively give one roughly 6 years and you could use 6 incremented first digits, every change in the first digit starts a new import/business year.

It could have even started in 1991 with a 1, are all RL, then later in '91 go to an RH and a 2, go 365 days switch to a 3, and so on, that kind of still even works out to 6 incremented first digits

Or......................... something like that    kind of almost reads like the Chinese dating system, only copied by a US importer.. 

I'm probably not even close, I just woke up and now my head hurts...........

[Loose}{Cannon]

Cant remember,. what year was the cutoff for Russian sks Importation?

[Greasemonkey]

Cant remember,. what year was the cutoff for Russian sks Importation?

and ran till 1996 when the VRA came down.

In April of 1996... the Voluntary Restraint Agreement

https://tcc.export.gov/Trade_Agreements/All_Trade_Agreements/exp_005371.asp

Notice on the list....of "permitted" weapons... no SKS or SVT is listed

Firearms Permitted to Be Imported into the United States from the Russian Federation

Pistols/Revolvers

1. German Model P08 Pistol

2. IZH 34M, .22 caliber Target Pistol

3. IZH 3 5M, .22 caliber Target Pistol

4. Mauser Model 1896 Pistol

5. MC-57-1 Pistol

6. MC-1-5 Pistol

7. Polish Vis Model 35 Pistol

8. Soviet Nagant Revolver

9. TOZ 35,.22 caliber Target Pistol

Rifles

1. BARS-4 Bolt Action Carbine

2. Biathlon Target Rifle, .22LR caliber

3. British Enfield Rifle

4. CM2,.22 caliber Target Rifle (also known as SM2,.22 caliber)

5. German Model 98K Rifle

6. German Model G41 Rifle

7. German Model G43 Rifle

8. IZH-94

9. LOS-7 Bolt Action Rifle

10. MC-7-07

11. MC-18-3

12. MC-19-07

13. MC-105-01

14. MC-112-02

15. MC-113-02

16. MC-115-1

17. MC-125/127

18. MC-126

19. MC-128

20. Saiga Rifle

21. Soviet Model 38 Carbine

22. Soviet Model 44 Carbine

23. Soviet Model 91/30 Rifle

24. TOZ 18,.22 caliber Bolt Action Rifle

25. TOZ 55

26. TOZ 78

27. Ural Target Rifle, .22LR caliber

28. VEPR Rifle

29. Winchester Model 1895, Russian Model Rifle

ANNEX B

Ammunition Prohibited from Being Imported

into the United States from the Russian Federation

1. 7.62X25mm caliber (also known as 7.63X25 mm caliber or.30 Mauser)

[running-man]

It could be GM.  The only issue I have with your thought process is that zero guns were imported from the USSR before December 1991, this was because all the Iron Curtain countries were all once on the dreaded ITAR proscribed list - and the USSR was on it to the very end. 

The smaller iron curtain countries in Europe that fell prior to the fall of the Soviet Union were removed from the ITAR proscribed list piecemeal as the need arose and tradeoffs evaluated.  The government apparently wanted to help both a) weaken the ability of said country to mount an offensive should things still go south in Europe, and b) strengthen the local economies by trading that military hardware for an influx of $$'s and aid.

In addition to the opening up of economic relations, I know it is strongly implied that the US also had a strong rapport with certain states that were in possession of various Soviet era nuclear weapons with no way to get rid of them.  We gladly helped certain former communist states decide what to do with them (many went right back to Russia) and taught them decommissioning methods to prevent these weapons from being sold on the black market as was wont to happen with everything else in that era. 

[Greasemonkey]

There is a method to the madness... There has to be a pattern..

Ok do they all have the CCCP mark, any say Russia, USSR? Is the wording of the RL differant than the RH?

The prefix number has to be like a shipping lot number, 6 lots of imports.

[Bob_The_Student]

I will check mine this weekend.

[Greasemonkey]

I found at least 18,750 of those Russian SKSs that were imported in one mass load...   And almost a million Chinese weapons were imported in 2 years..

Newsweek article from 1/23/94 https://www.newsweek.com/comrades-do-booming-business-187374

IT ISN'T EVERY DAY THAT THE SOVIET military's biggest cargo jet, the AN-124, touches down in Columbus, Ohio. Last Dec. 23 was the first time in history, as a matter of fact. But what customs agents found in the hold was more astonishing still: 18,750 semiautomatic long guns, the 10-round SKS rifles that the Soviet military used to carry. The shipment was enough to arm an entire infantry division. It "scared the heck" out of airport officials, according to one freight handler. but the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms had to admit that all the import documents were in order. And thousands of customers around the country were waiting eagerly.

It's the gun industry's biggest boom these days: firearms from the ex-communist bloc and China, sold cheaply. Imports from Russia have just started to pick up in the last six months, but they're moving fast; Chinese firearms have already flooded the American market. In 1992 the United States imported 97,000 Chinese firearms (mostly copies of Soviet models); in 1993 it imported about 900,000, nearly a tenfold increase.

In 1991 the United States imported 719,521 firearms; in 1993 it imported 3.2 million, a 345 percent increase.

China sold 97,000 firearms to the United States in 1992; in 1993 it sold 900,000, and 54 percent of all rifle imports were Chinese.

[Loose}{Cannon]

[Justin Hell]

Could the RH and RL be associated with keeping track of who/where that batch came from on the importers end?

Russia (insert city/arsenal/exporter). 

Heck it could be to differentiate the Russians that Larry imported vs. the ones Harry imported.  Or, maybe the ones Larry stamped vs the ones Harry stamped...and Harry is obviously a better employee?

It's likely something that makes perfect sense...or absolutely none.  Did this importer also bring in other weapons they restamped themselves that could lend insight into a pattern?

[Matchka]

Want to get in on this but, after reading above posts, I'm kinda lost (no surprise) as to where we are on the "high number" 1,2,3 qualifiers to post iz. 

[Loose}{Cannon]

Bummer Justin,

I just went back and checked starting from the other end of the record (reverse alphabetical order so I'm not going through the same guns) and found this gem:


There's no way KBI imported 600k SKS45s. 

I think this invalidates assumption #2 and #3. 

I'll have to pull each and every number into a database and see where the leaps & jumps lie.  They incremented that first digit for some reason, I wonder why? 

Your going to have to expand the subgroups to find the high # for each.   RL1, RL2, RL3 etc.  Since we don't know what the letters or first digit identifies other then its not part of the total....  just find the high numbers after for each.

[Greasemonkey]

Could the RH and RL be associated with keeping track of who/where that batch came from on the importers end?

2 things come to mind with the H and L.... both were communist nations that shed communism about a year before the big change in Russia in '91.. Hungary and Lithuania. Both nations were in possession of Warsaw pact weapons and Soviet troops were present.

But.. I don't know what, if anything came out of Lithuania, Hungary, I know we imported a bunch of surplus weapons from.