Let play "Why did those zany Ruskies do that?"

[running-man]

When it rains it pours.  I had this gun in the "Unknown Year" category.  I think I can safely move it to 1953. 

[running-man]

Just stumbled across another ИЗ prefix from 1953 up in Canada, same dot spacer after the 'З':







This one looks to be as-issued (though it *is* a Westrifle gun, so take that with a grain of salt).  Even the stock S/N has the dot. 

(RM note: post updated to show photos from old photobucket links that were no longer working)

[Dannyboy53]

Cool, outstanding work running-man!

[running-man]

So here's an "OЗ" prefix that I'm 80 99% confident is from 1952 (both guns are refurbs, but they both have '52 covers, they both have '52 FSBs).  No dot separator on this series it appears:








They did appear to leave generous spacing between the prefixes and the numbers though.

The 3 was very different from the letter З in 1952 however, I guess even this wasn't enough and that's why they added the dot in '53:





(RM note: post updated to show photos from old photobucket links that were no longer working)