Jungle Stock on 11 million Factory 26 - Canada

[snek]

Hi there,

I recently picked up a Factory 26 SKS from Cabela's Canada (importer's label on the box says it was from North Sylva in 2019).
Curiously, the rifle was in what appears to be called a "Jungle stock" by some -- it's a heavy, red plastic molded stock with a seam along the length of it, and I've never seen one before up here in the Great White North.

Is there any definitive answer as to what these are/when they were made? The entire rifle is matching, but the metal looks too new to not have been refinished at some point. I'll see if I can post a pic in attachment. Once I get this one cleaned up out of the grease I'll take some more glamorous shots for you guys.



I have a Factory 26 and 946 from the same store from an earlier import batch, but those are both in their original wood stocks. This particular one doesn't have any markings on the stock, but there was one other "Jungle Stock"'ed mix-n'-match at the store that had a mismatched serial on the left side of the butt. The serial on the rifle itself in the high 11 million range and features a stamped trigger guard.

If there's other photos that would help, let me know and I'll see what I can do - thanks all.

[Phosphorus32]

Not sure there's a definitive answer. Usually considered to be sold separately in the US and added by a US owner to their Type 56. There were crates of the stocks without the rifles imported into the US.

Could yours have been imported that way with the resin stock installed during refurbishment, but maintaining a wooden handguard? Maybe. Seems a bit odd though.

In any case, it's a nice looking Type 56.

[snek]

Neither this one nor the other one at Cabela's featured a resin handguard, I'm actually curious where I could get my hands on one now.

You're probably right about it being just another stock refurb done overseas, but I'm quite happy with this find (especially at 190 CAD!)

Thanks for the comments, interesting that these weren't imported like this down south. Hopefully others can chime in if they have any futher info to add 

[carls sks]

beauty , you get some good buys north of our border.

[Justin Hell]

The resin handguards do occasionally show up on auction sites, but not often.

Here is a link to one for sale if you are willing to pony up the cash they want.

https://www.gunpartscorp.com/products/1117210

It's really neat seeing these apparently imported with these stocks. The very few and far between serialed ones seem to indicate that at least for a time, they were installed by the Chinese...and not the aftermarket item they so often are thought of.  Whether this was at the time of manufacture or a short lived serialing practice at refurb remains to be seen...

For that price I would be tempted to get the mismatched serialed one too.

[snek]

@

The resin handguards do occasionally show up on auction sites, but not often.

Here is a link to one for sale if you are willing to pony up the cash they want.

https://www.gunpartscorp.com/products/1117210

It's really neat seeing these apparently imported with these stocks. The very few and far between serialed ones seem to indicate that at least for a time, they were installed by the Chinese...and not the aftermarket item they so often are thought of.  Whether this was at the time of manufacture or a short lived serialing practice at refurb remains to be seen...

For that price I would be tempted to get the mismatched serialed one too.

Yikes, after shipping and customs that'd be half the cost of the entire rifle    I guess I'll just have to keep checking back and see if I can get another one with the handguard installed

I have the original importer's label, if that matters to anyone - we don't have importer stamps so I guess this is the closest you can get in Canada! This was on the box the rifle was packed in.

[echo1]

]I'm actually curious where I could get my hands on one now.

snek,

I've got a few extras, but they're all a little different shades of brown. PM me and we'll see if we can make it happen. PAX

[Loose}{Cannon]

We literally have zero evidence these were ever installed at factory.   

[snek]

We literally have zero evidence these were ever installed at factory.   

By that extension, don't we have no evidence they didn't?  It seems strange to me that the importer would dig up a handful of resin stocks, serialize an even smaller number of them and install them on the wrong guns;

I completely understand that there's no official documentation to be found on these, and the only things we can really go on are repeatable observations over selected serial ranges (hence the survey you guys run). I'm definitely not trying to come in here to suggest anything as fact, but speculating on it just for pure speculation's sake, and knowing how variable production of these carbines was, It makes some amount of sense to me that these stocks could have been used in refurbs, just from the ones I've seen from the most recent imports.

[running-man]

Good discussion. 

We saw several phenolic stocks come in on Sino-Banians back in the 2012-2015 import batch here in the states that were covered in grease.  They were clearly replacements, but it's unclear whether the Chinese or the Albanians put them on the guns and when in their lifetimes they were restocked. 

The phenolic stocks with serial numbers are intriguing, but I have yet to find a serial number range in any one arsenal that appears to have contained a batch of phenolic stocks.  In fact, I don't know that I would be able to produce photos of a gun with a matching phenolic stock if I tried...I certainly didn't note any when I entered a majority of guns into the database like I do with any Chinese laminated stock I run across.

[Loose}{Cannon]

A serial on a stock can be applied anywhere at anytime. 

[running-man]

Simple Stamp into wood is one thing, getting something to look nice in a phenolic stock w/o trashing the top surface layer is something totally different I'd think. Maybe not.  

As it currently stands LC is right, there is no evidence any type 56's were built at the factory with phenolic stocks.

[Loose}{Cannon]

Stamping phenolic would be easy.

[Justin Hell]

Since there are no matching serialed ones to guns, why on earth would anyone go to the trouble to serial them?

Seems plausible that some were made with them, perhaps they thought they flat out sucked, pulled the installed ones, and mothballed them with the rest for potential aid or maybe for refurbishment purposes?

One might think if no matching ones have been seen that there aren't any shenanigans going on...just a few that made it to production guns, only to be discarded later on, and occasionally popping up as a replacement stock.

I find the theory they were for the Vietnam conflict a bit thin...since they are not seen on bringbacks. I lean more towards them being another of the Chinese 'improvements' that didn't pan out and was later dropped. Perhaps a wood shortage or other event that caused them to explore other options temporarily?  It's possible they made a bazillion of them before realizing they didn't want to go that direction...

I also don't seem to recall seeing any bringbacks with the spring slings either...also purportedly for the Vietnam jungle rot issues...  I can see them both as afterthought redesigns being more plausible. 

I find it fortunate (for me) that they are so ugly that I am not really ever tempted to get one...especially at today's prices, usually sans handguard, and quite often missing essential impossible to find hardware. If I ever located a serialed one, I might bite...I don't have a gun I would be willing to put it on at the moment though.  I do have a spare slot in the orphan stock racks.

[Loose}{Cannon]

why on earth would anyone go to the trouble to serial them?

Why do we see replacement stocks from banians or any other refurb for that matter with reapplied serials?

[Larry D.]

There's a guy on the AKFiles that has 4 of this type of stock (with handguard) for sale.
He says they're mint condition.

For my personal tastes, I'm a wood and steel type of guy.

[Cupid]

Mine came from Cabelas too but it's not as nice as yours. It had a rusty cleaning kit and sand in the butt which makes me think it's been used.

[echo1]

Since there are no matching serialed ones to guns, why on earth would anyone go to the trouble to serial them?

Seems plausible that some were made with them, perhaps they thought they flat out sucked, pulled the installed ones, and mothballed them with the rest for potential aid or maybe for refurbishment purposes?

One might think if no matching ones have been seen that there aren't any shenanigans going on...just a few that made it to production guns, only to be discarded later on, and occasionally popping up as a replacement stock.

I find the theory they were for the Vietnam conflict a bit thin...since they are not seen on bringbacks. I lean more towards them being another of the Chinese 'improvements' that didn't pan out and was later dropped. Perhaps a wood shortage or other event that caused them to explore other options temporarily?  It's possible they made a bazillion of them before realizing they didn't want to go that direction...

I also don't seem to recall seeing any bringbacks with the spring slings either...also purportedly for the Vietnam jungle rot issues...  I can see them both as afterthought redesigns being more plausible. 

I find it fortunate (for me) that they are so ugly that I am not really ever tempted to get one...especially at today's prices, usually sans handguard, and quite often missing essential impossible to find hardware. If I ever located a serialed one, I might bite...I don't have a gun I would be willing to put it on at the moment though.  I do have a spare slot in the orphan stock racks.

I've had/have a few of these stock, and they are usually quite fugly. The tricky part is the hand guard, they never even closely match the stock color. But I got one from Lkermit, and a couple barreled action's guts, to build it into a scrubbed rifle that turned out very nice. An obscure factory code, matching HG, with a new spring sling, looks new and made that way. About the best thing you can do with them is to paint over the resin and match the HG. PAX

[firstchoice]

Mine came from Cabelas too but it's not as nice as yours. It had a rusty cleaning kit and sand in the butt which makes me think it's been used.

Is yours stocked with wood or the resin stock, Cupid? The sand in the buttstock peaked my interest. Have you posted any pics of your SKS yet?

I've had/have a few of these stocks, and they are usually quite fugly. The tricky part is the hand guard, they never even closely match the stock color. But I got one from Lkermit, and a couple barreled action's guts, to build it into a scrubbed rifle that turned out very nice. An obscure factory code, matching HG, with a new spring sling, looks new and made that way. About the best thing you can do with them is to paint over the resin and match the HG. PAX

I agree with PAX about the non-matching handguards sold with the resin stocks. (for those lucky enough to get one with the stock) This is what came with mine:







I think the "Tickler" resin handguards would match a lot closer than the ugly brown ones and look a lot better, too. I think this HG is actually plastic instead of resin like the stock. There are different shades of the "Tickler" HG's, so I think the match could be better if a guy got lucky enough to find one of those.

There was one model of the resin stock that had a very different type of bottom sling swivel than mine does. Mine: (lower stock, of course. That upper stock is actually a Chu-wood non-serialed Chinese blade-style for the long-lug threaded barrel, and bottom sling swivel. I'd had it for a long time and hadn't realized what it was until I heard somebody talking about looking for one and decided to look through my stocks to see exactly what I had. One of those things you keep just in case you find a SKS needing a stock.)



Does anyone know what the other style was for and why they were different? It may have been on a blade-style stock? I ran across the complete hardware set for one of those some time back and bought the set.  Just in case, 'ya know? 

firstchoice

[Cupid]

Is yours stocked with wood or the resin stock, Cupid? The sand in the buttstock peaked my interest. Have you posted any pics of your SKS yet?

Here's mine, it came with a wood handguard. The gunge that can be seen in the stock is oil soaked sand, it's still there now.