The NVA SKS, Domestically produced rifle or just a property mark?

[Worm]

I wanted to create a new thread so we can start fresh. This is what I along with a few others have come up with a while back. Thanks to Saigon posting many pictures of his awesome collection earlier this past year, it brought forth a lot of discussion. I feel it's time to maybe revisit. So, check it out, discuss, tell me I'm dead wrong if ya want 


This is the flag used in 1945-1955, when the Viet Minh flag was used, not the current flag of Vietnam.



This is the 56' onward Flag of Vietnam



Notice the very obvious difference.

Now, this very early 62 thousand serial NVA, notice the star:



And, notice the rest, serials that come AFTER the above picture:










From this alone, I feel it's safe to assume the early 62 thousand serial'd NVA with the early Viet Minh flag is either a late 1955 or 1956 marked rifle. I believe they were very quickly changed over to the new flag, and we see that with the later serial'd rifles. This, if true, would disprove the idea that the first two digits represent the year produced. Why would they be using a Viet Minh flag in 1962 when that particular flag was dropped in 1955? 7 years later? And the NVA marked rifle WITH the Viet Minh flag just so happens to be one of the earliest with a low 62 thousand serial?



Now, could these be Chinese made, and Vietnamese property marked...?

Here we have a very early Chinese, notice the stamps.



Notice very similar stamps on an NVA:



These stamps do vary between the NVA rifles, and between the Chinese rifles, so many do not look exact, but very similar.

Here is another NVA, BLANK, except for a number 7!



Here is another Chinese, not as early as the first, but still early Chinese, blank:



Chinese SKS's are also commonly found with a single digit underneath the receiver, similar to the last shown NVA.


The NVA's show no pattern when it comes to stampings underneath the receiver, or elsewhere. It does not progress from early with many markings to late with none, like the Chinese do.

The NVA's also feature exact machining traits that the early Chinese SKS's have.


I have a very strong suspicion that these NVA marked rifles, having no specific pattern of traits and QC stamps, were of a specific "run" of Chinese made rifles sent to the NVA as aid.

There, they were probably randomly chosen & serial'd, along with a property marked NVA </1\>.

So, I could be way off, but this is what I've been led to believe after seeing the evidence. Regardless of whether or not they are actually Vietnamese made or not, which they still very well could be and I could be dead wrong, they are no matter what, an awesome variant to have.

[Greasemonkey]

I'm just askin, so go easy

Ok, NVA fatty star flag was in use till 1955, China was just getting started in SKS production in this 55/56 time frame. Did they have enough production/inventory in 55/56 to bleed off rifles to the NVA? Later years of production I can see, but later wouldn't explain the fatty NVA star, when they changed to the skinny NVA star in 56.

So, did the NVA "property" stamp simply run a year or two behind the flag change?

Were fatty star marked rifles/parts initially made in China with inspection stamps, then later skinny star rifles true NVA production minus inspection stamps? Looks like even the serial fonts changed with the star, as did the "1" inside the star..

Or, maybe, China made the major components/rifle sterile, bled off, 5 for me, 1 for you, production to support their neighbors, the NVA just stamped what marks/serial they wanted.

I know, more questions than answers, but the Viet. fatty/skinny star flag change vs. Chinese production start up and lack of on hand inventory kind of conflict, unless I'm just way off.

[bbush44]

I have another "just asking" comment...

So you are comparing the QC marks on a known early Chinese manufactured sks to the QC marks on the suspected NVA manufactured sks.  Even though they are not the exact stamps, but similar location and style you are assuming they were Chinese manufactured and sent to NVA where the property marks and serial # was added?

I ask why when we see Russian QC marks (O), (K), etc.. all over Chinese, Romanian, Albanian, etc.. manufactured sks's you are not assuming that Russia manufactured them rifles and sent them to China, Romania, or Albania?

[Worm]

Good questions,

Carl, I'd say you're probably right that they ran a few years behind. I can't imagine them running 7 years behind.. Possibly 58' or 59'? When China introduced the Side swivel? Don't know, but it would make sense.

I'm not sure why China would Star-1 the rifles when hey had the M21's that seem to be their export-type. I truly think the fat star is the Viet Mihn star, it is identical.

Early Flag, early star.
Early NVA rifle, early star.

Someone on the other forum once said (when arguing that these were NVA made) that they needed to boost moral, and that is why they began production. Well, why? Why set up shop when EVERY other weapon you have is imported? Why not get some blanks, and start stamping away?


bbush, the reason so many of us believe these were Chinese made is because Vietnam had NO weapon production, even through the 60's. They received all their aid from other countries.

They are IDENTICAL, down to the T, to the Chinese guns. The stamps under the receiver and on the Carriers & Bolts all tell us that these weren't gradually made.. Because there is NO pattern. A 62 and a 64 could have none and a 63 might have many. This means, that they were more than likely serial'd AFTER all of them were made. Aid? Probably.

Have a looksy at this:

During the Cold War, North Vietnam's military production was insignificant and practically all weapons and ammunition were imported. During the mid-1960s Communist China furnished most of the small arms and small arms ammunition and many of the trucks, while the USSR supplied most of the other combat material.

From the 1970s to 1991, the Soviet Union was the main supplier of military hardware to Vietnam.

Since 1991, the Chinese have been the biggest supplier of military goods to Vietnam. The Vietnamese have now produced their own equipment and repaired existing equipment.

Look up Arms Industry - Vietnam. You will find very similar comments.


So.. They hadn't made most of their own equipment until 91'? But magically made perfect SKS's in the mid 60's? I don't buy that for a minute. They would have skipped the expensively made SKS and made the more efficient and cost effective AK platform. I wouldn't be surprised if there are </1\> Ak's out there also. It was a move to make them look more well prepared and equipped than they were. This would've been a good tactic for their own troops.

[bbush44]

bbush, the reason so many of us believe these were Chinese made is because Vietnam had NO weapon production, even through the 60's. They received all their aid from other countries.

They are IDENTICAL, down to the T, to the Chinese guns. The stamps under the receiver and on the Carriers & Bolts all tell us that these weren't gradually made.. Because there is NO pattern. A 62 and a 64 could have none and a 63 might have many. This means, that they were more than likely serial'd AFTER all of them were made. Aid? Probably.

Again not disagreeing, "just asking"
So again comparing these to the early Chinese that had Russian QC marks all over them. Why do we not say the Russians built them and shipped them to China where the serial # was added? We just assume that Russia sent them left over parts and supervised them when they first started assembling them. Could China have done the same thing with NVA?   I just don't see why China would make blank sks's to send to NVA and have them apply property marks and serial #'s. When they were already sending them tons of clearly China marked and serial numbered sks's at the same time. Or are you saying these property marks were applied in China?

[Worm]

Sorry, didn't mean to sound.. well mean, if I did. It's a good question, I'm not saying it isn't.

I believe they're Chinese because of the QC marks that are identical to the Chinese, Not identical to Russians, etc. The pictures I provided above aren't the only ones out there. Russian guns all have QC stamps throughout their production correct? We find NVA's with nothing but a single number, which is a very common Chinese trait.

Why would they have been property marked there? Well.. It was NVA's property.. Most of the time Property marks are applied when in the country with the property mark. Serialized? Could've been China, could've been Nam', Don't know. Why start with 62 thousand? Well, it might make it look like there's 60,000+ rifles. Instead of a couple thousand altogether? Just another "dunno",

What I do know? That it makes no sense that N. Vietnam had their own production at the time, when it's pretty clear they never had their own production for a long, long time after.

[bbush44]

No offense taken, trust me I have tougher skin than that. 
Like I said not disagreeing, I am just asking the questions that pop in my head when I think about it. There are a ton of "I don't knows" so I just feel its tough to say any of it is 100% certain. Kind of like everything with sks collecting. Also I don't own an NVA so I'm not arguing it so try and keep my precious rifle priceless. 

[Worm]

Lol I hear ya, there are def a lot of idk's, but like I said, it just doesn't meake sense that they produced their own. I do like to get the gears turning though 

They had all the support in the world, though.. Why produce a few thousand SKS rifles? I see it as a move to make it look liken they had their own production. This makes their troops & the enemy look like they are stronger than they actually are.

[Greasemonkey]

I just don't see why China would make blank sks's to send to NVA and have them apply property marks and serial #'s. When they were already sending them tons of clearly China marked and serial numbered sks's at the same time.

My guess, look at all the crested/property marked Mausers floating around South America, which 95% were all made in Europe. it wasn't until later most countries started their own arms production. Brazil with the Fabrica de Itajuba-Brasil, Argentina started up, even Mexico was known to start producing limited numbers of rifles.

Wouldn't the M21 come along after the initial NVA marked weapons, makes one wonder?? Like Germany did in WWII, change maker markings randomly to confuse those who study the other sides weapons in an effort to hide estimated manufacturing volume and true maker..

[Worm]

yup, yup, probably, & yup! 

That's exactly what I'm saying, except Vietnam was years behind Mexico, Brazil, & Argentina.. Am I right?

[Loose}{Cannon]

Bbush..

The early chinese rifles have QC stampings on the bottom of receiver in a similar fashion to the russians, but the are not the same. The qc stampings on the bottom of the "nva" are infact the same as the chinese.  Worm was simply saying that these chinese qc stamps on the nva do not follow a pattern like the chinese do where they are present in first few years and gradually disappear.  The nva stamps are all over the place.

[Greasemonkey]

yup, yup, probably, & yup! 

That's exactly what I'm saying, except Vietnam was years behind Mexico, Brazil, & Argentina.. Am I right?

Yup, considering at least both Brazil and Argentina were producing the FN Fal by the very early 60's, I believe Mexico, made a FN Fal in limited numbers, then switched to H&K G3,  I don't know the date, but they did produce both under license.

[running-man]

I have another "just asking" comment...

So you are comparing the QC marks on a known early Chinese manufactured sks to the QC marks on the suspected NVA manufactured sks.  Even though they are not the exact stamps, but similar location and style you are assuming they were Chinese manufactured and sent to NVA where the property marks and serial # was added?

I ask why when we see Russian QC marks (O), (K), etc.. all over Chinese, Romanian, Albanian, etc.. manufactured sks's you are not assuming that Russia manufactured them rifles and sent them to China, Romania, or Albania?

Brian, that's a great point.   

Without muddying Worm's answer too much, here's my personal take on the (o) and (k) marks on the barreled assemblies.  Russia made them all - all Romanian, all Russian, and all pre /26\ 6 mil Chinese (Albanian lugs are *much* different and I haven't really compared the Yugos yet, but the non chromed lined bored make me think it's unlikely).   Those big three barreled receiver assemblies from '56 to ~'60, if you put them side by side by side w/o knowing what they were or having any identifying S/N or arsenal characteristics on them, would be pretty much indistinguishable.  Everything down to the font of the barrel/receiver match number (that all go from 0-35, indicating a block of 36 barreled receivers assembled at a time) is way too similar for me to conclude that they were produced at different plants. 

I think what it boils down to is that we can't just wave our hands and say "this is an XX characteristic therefore YY is true", and then in the very next breath say "even though this shows XX, YY is not true for this set of guns" without some solid evidence to support that claim.

Here's an example of this line of thinking:

The Chinese, in the 1970 to '75 timeframe (and '88-'94) really seemed to use the two digit actual year prefix in many of their their smaller arsenals.  Certain arsenals, such as /26\, never did this though.  So how can anyone say that these NVA guns, with the odd 62 through 65 S/Ns, are not 1962 - 1965 year of manufacture?   If we really break it down, we can put together a line of reasoning against this '62-'65 manufacture that goes like this:

• Feature characteristics (barrel lugs, bolt carriers, bayo lugs, bayonets etc.) all point to very early Chinese/Romy & late Russian production, in the timeframe of '56 to '60
• QC on the NVA guns characteristics point to very early Chinese/Romy & to a lesser extent, late Russian production, in the timeframe of '56 to '60
• Star changes of the flag occurred in the '55 to '56 timeframe.  It is likely that star stamp changes on the gun either mirror this with perhaps a bit of lag.  When taken with the rest of the evidence, this makes it more likely that that these marks were applied in the timeframe of '56 to '60, nearer the actual change than a '62-'65 estimate..
• Just looking at dates really makes it seem unlikely:
  '62-'65 No evidence of Russian SKS production.
  '62-'65 No Evidence of Romanian SKS production.
  '62-'65 Chinese production (/26\ 7 mil to 10 mil) was quite different than what is seen in the NVA examples.

Just looking at the S/Ns that have been recorded, it goes from a low of 620030 (likely started at 620001), a jump to a 63 prefix at around 630195, a jump to 64 at around 641188, and a jump to 65 at around 654718 with a high of 655805.  It looks like a sequential rolling S/N scheme with maybe 6000 rifles in the entire run.  The Romanians did not use a sequential rolling S/N scheme with an incrementing prefix.  The Russians did not use a sequential rolling S/N scheme with an incrementing prefix.  The Chinese did use a sequential rolling S/N scheme with an incrementing prefix, but only in their very early guns,  We also know the incrementing prefixes were not well defined or standardized in the very early production guns, as I believe 1957 actually had 3 different marking schemes (ghost->six digit /26\->2 mil /26\), so that's another ding against 62XXXX meaning 1962. 

Most everything points away from these being fabricated from scratch in North Vietnam.  Some data points to Russia, but the bulk of data point towards China.  Interestingly enough, much of the early China data we've got points to Russia anyhow. 

[running-man]

Playing devils advocate a bit here:

Along with the different star stamp, the 62XXXX gun in Saigon's photo above has a totally different font than the 63XXXX-65XXXX descendants.  It looks much like the font in Izhevsk guns, while the 63XXXX-65XXXX are more reminiscent of Tula/Chinese/Romanian stamps. 

The 6000 total production run is so small, how the hell is it that we have 30 some odd verified examples as VN bringbacks?!  That's 1/2 of 1% of the total number of guns made that made it back to the US.  In all of the chaos of the Vietnam conflict, that number just seems highly unlikely to me.

What's to say these aren't all just scrubbed guns, all parts and receiver stamped with a new number, new stocks, an NVA star, and reblued?

[Greasemonkey]

Just looking at the S/Ns that have been recorded, it goes from a low of 620030 (likely started at 620001), a jump to a 63 prefix at around 630195, a jump to 64 at around 641188, and a jump to 65 at around 654718 with a high of 655805.

Has a Chinese SKS been seen with a serial in this range?  Or in the 6xxxxx range period?

The 6000 total production run is so small, how the hell is it that we have 30 some odd verified examples as VN bringbacks?!

Ok, consider Albanian production

These add up to 14580 "known" guns based on the high/low S/Ns.  If you take into account all the 'holes' in between years and assume that the S/Ns reset to 0000 in '76 thru '78, then you get at least 15906 carbines produced.  Unless there is a massive (massive compared to the number of rifles that made it into the US) block of guns missing, it's clear that the total production run is far less 20k rifles.

While they produced a few thousand more over a given time period, the number ain't that great compared to Russia, China, Yugoslavia or even Romania. Actually, break it down year to year, NVA had roughly the same or greater amounts made in 2 or 3 years than the Albanians did in 10 years of production.

That's 1/2 of 1% of the total number of guns made that made it back to the US.  In all of the chaos of the Vietnam conflict, that number just seems highly unlikely to me.

Bringback weapons, look at the ratio of Mum'ed Arisakas to defaced Arisakas, LK5 marked Mas 36s to any other Mas 36, or even North Korean examples. Bringbacks, in some examples, I would be surprised if they consist of a half a percent of state side weapons.  I have a papered French Mas 36 from Vietnam, how many of those do you actually see?

[running-man]

Just looking at the S/Ns that have been recorded, it goes from a low of 620030 (likely started at 620001), a jump to a 63 prefix at around 630195, a jump to 64 at around 641188, and a jump to 65 at around 654718 with a high of 655805.

Has a Chinese SKS been seen with a serial in this range?  Or in the 6xxxxx range period?

Highest six digit with early features I know of is a 349k /26\.  The 2 mil /26\s go up to 2,416k.  600k is way out of any range I'm familiar with with any prefix.  I know there are some very high 11 mil /26\s with 11,525k numbers.  I've never seen anything close to XX,600k though...

The 6000 total production run is so small, how the hell is it that we have 30 some odd verified examples as VN bringbacks?!

Ok, consider Albanian production

These add up to 14580 "known" guns based on the high/low S/Ns.  If you take into account all the 'holes' in between years and assume that the S/Ns reset to 0000 in '76 thru '78, then you get at least 15906 carbines produced.  Unless there is a massive (massive compared to the number of rifles that made it into the US) block of guns missing, it's clear that the total production run is far less 20k rifles.

While they produced a few thousand more over a given time period, the number ain't that great compared to Russia, China, Yugoslavia or even Romania. Actually, break it down year to year, NVA had roughly the same or greater amounts made in 2 or 3 years than the Albanians did in 10 years of production.

That's 1/2 of 1% of the total number of guns made that made it back to the US.  In all of the chaos of the Vietnam conflict, that number just seems highly unlikely to me.

Bringback weapons, look at the ratio of Mum'ed Arisakas to defaced Arisakas, LK5 marked Mas 36s to any other Mas 36, or even North Korean examples. Bringbacks, in some examples, I would be surprised if they consist of a half a percent of state side weapons.  I have a papered French Mas 36 from Vietnam, how many of those do you actually see?

Yup, I'm not questioning the 6k NVAs.  it just seems that getting 1/2 of 1% of them here in the US as bringbacks is a *really* high ratio.  How many guns were destroyed, never captured, captured but not allowed to be brought back, or simply lost on the battlefield?  Maybe there weren't all that many SKSs out there in the first place? and maybe 6k NVA guns were a large percentage of the total SKSs out there?  That's what the data seems to say to me, but who knows?  This is a tough one because we have so few data points. 

[Loose}{Cannon]

The simple fact that the serials are a ROLLING sequencing serial eliminates the question of what percentage is not represented within the data.  The highest serial number is your estimated production or that particular run of rifles. Granted it will be  a very slight bit low due to not having the exact high serial for the end of the "65" prefix.   

5,805 is the magic number with a safe assumption yo say 6,000 nva property marked chinese rifles.

Remember..  this is NOT our only block of serials that stray from the "normal" chinese serial practices.  The early M21 is the perfect example having 3 variation and a dif serial block set for each.

M21 NA 187x, 7536x

M21 No 80128x, 81018x, 91142x, 91923x, 93431x, 94237x, 94262x, 94693x, 94907x

M21 N 01896x, 01959x

[running-man]

Crap, I forgot all about the M21s having those high six digit S/Ns!

The M21s and NVA's are certainly 'similar' when it comes to having an 'odd' prefix not in line with the rest of Chinese ghost / /26\ production for the time period.  From our admittedly tiny dataset, the 900k M21s sure don't look like a rolling number though and there could be 40k of those made.  If 40k is the issue #s, having a capture / battlefield pickup ratio at the same 0.5% as the NVAs means there should be in the neighborhood of 200 of them in the US.  Interesting. 

[Worm]

Ah yes.. The M21. Still not clear as to what the M21's true purpose was. They were around in the beginning periodically until the end.. And if they were meant to conceal China's support for a certain country, then why were they sent to Nam along with plenty of other year of production chinese sks's?

Ack, caught myself about to thread derail. Continue, gentlemen.

[Justin Hell]

Fascinating!

This is why I love it here so much.

I really have to work up the courage to talk with my 'Nam vet father in law/landlord about the very touchy subject of guns.  He has a gaggle of buddies who oft make the pilgrimage to Vietnam to remember...or whatever they do there.  The wife says he has a couple guns, but never knew him to hunt...and I am sure at least one of his buddies may have a bringback.  Based on his extensive book collection regarding the subject, perhaps he can sidestep the massive amount of money I owe him, ignore the fact I collect SKS's...and become interested in helping out in possibly providing more information via his veteran contacts for historical purposes. 

What scares me a tad is that he is a New York resident, and a highly law abiding one.  I would be sickened if he or any of his friends surrendered any of these due to the silly laws there.