Posted by MIM-14 Sweet looking Chinese SKS. It looks 100% better than most other Chinese Type 56s I've seen for sale recently! Thanks for posting pics.
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This would have been one of the ones imported back in the 1990s, the recent imports all seem to be hard ridden ex military with the Jianshe Arsenal /26\ marking. This rifle itself is a bit odd given it has a short barrel lug, which dates it from 1965-1970 before they switched to pinned barrels. The blade bayonet also is odd given they seem to be for earlier sino-soviet era SKS rifles, as they were supplied to the Chinese by the Russians, and after they ran out they began producing them with the domestic spike bayonet. The stock serials seem to indicate military use. It is likely my rifle was made in 1965, given it was the last year of the blade bayonet and first year of the shrot barrel lug for military/police service, then later rearsenaled and exported to the US. But then again, the Chinese are consistent only in their inconsistencies.
It is sort of annoying how little is known about Chinese SKS rifles in terms of milsurp collecting. It seems it used to be commonly accepted that those with triangle arsenal marking were military and square ones, like mine, made for export, however other shapes like ovals and diamonds have been observed. So really nobody knows wtf any of it means, and it is likely that each number is not a different arsenal since there are over 60 different ones known. Now it seems to be that once the market opened to the US in the 1990s the Chinese began selling off surplus rifles and assembling rifles from surplus military parts at depots and factories. After that in more recent times they have been making them new specifically for export, and with worse quality, though I believe they are only available in Canada and import banned in the US.
Posted by Shawn W. Is the bayonet original to the rifle?
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As far as I know yes. I recall the stock being cut for a blade bayonet instead of a spiked one, but let me check when I get home.