Interesting letter series rifle

[Kawi_KLX]

I bid on a Chinese SKS letter series at an auction site, it looks like it was restocked with a 2 million serial range. It appears to be all matching, receiver, mag, dust cover etc. I tried looking for an import mark, can't find one. Looked on the barrel, under the bayonet. Receiver. On the auction invoice it says "IO INC" no idea?   Would love to hear everyone's thought's on this rifle. Bore is bright and strong, looks like it was carried more than used.

[Boris Badinov]

IO is Inter Ordnance. They moved a large portion.of the Type56 imports from the Albanian caches. Typically they stamped their rifles on the right side of the barrel, beneath the gas piston tube.

My guess: is that the stock was very likely replaced in Albania

Nice catch

[running-man]

With that much grease on it, very likely a SinoBanian (and certainly possibly an IO import.) 

Like Boris said, IO typically marked their Chinese SKSs on the right side of the barrel, just below the gas tube. 
TGI marked theirs on the left side and sometimes under the barrel where the bayo folds and hides it. 
CAI marked theirs almost the same as IO: on the right side of the barrel, though not always directly below the gas tube. 

Perhaps this one escaped the pin punch or was a light strike and not well marked.  I have seen double stamps and other stamps that were not well punched, however I have never seen one that was completely missed from the recent Sino-Banian batch though, there is always some semi-readable marking somewhere. 

See the importers thread for a few examples (specifically #36, #80-#82, & #107-#108) of what the stamp should look like if it is on there.

Looks like a nice one congrats! 

[Kawi_KLX]

Thanks all for your replies.  I was thinking it does indeed appear to be an Albanian import also. I'll keep looking for any import marks, I looked near the gas tube areas and can't seem anything. I'll strip the rifle down and look closer.

This SKS has lead me down the history rabbit hole, particularly about the Sino-Soviet Split with the Soviets and CCP, interesting read as Mao and Khruschev had very different ideas on how communism should be implemented. I don't want to go off into the weeds other than Mao was much more of an idealist-Marxist than Khruschev was. Then Albania became closer to China who shared similar views. Both adored Stalin and "Stalism" where as Khruschev did not. He was re-former.

Back to the rifle, it does seem to fit the profile or an "IO inc" import from the 2011-2014 era as many of you have mentioned.