time to show off my small red collection
- Thread starter Big Will
- Start date
Not every pinned barrel Chinese 56 is a Norinco made one. I have a well built late model made Circa The mid 70;s that is a mil spec made Military Type 56. But in your case yes it looks like a Norinco bubba. Noy saying that those are particularly poor, but there is a wide range of quality in the Norinco bubbas. From nicely fit and finished to not as good fit and finish. The bubbas were made in the late 80's to 90's for export pandering to the Western market. Remember up until then China was very closed off from the rest of the world. It was only at that time that they started opening up to the idea of expanded trade with the West. The cheap crap that we see produced now that we consider inferior goods is a relatively recent development starting later in the last century. Much of the idea of the "crappy Chinese SKS" comes from exposure to todays cheap knock off trade goods from China. But before they made much for their own use and this was well made. They gradually adjusted and saw the potential of the knockoff market and the insatiable consumer demand from the West and capitalized on it. Thus the lower quality goods that we see now. But the Military Type 56's are actually well made, and perform well even though they gradually made production mods to save time, weight and money. (Mods I believe the Russians probably would have came up with had they made them for decades instead of just possibly 8-10 years. Even then we saw changes in Russian SKS's in that short time so you can hardly fault the Chinese for it either)
They still perform well and I have found my late production Military type 56 to be very accurate. More so than my Russians. That said by the time the Norinco ones came along the Chinese were already going down the cheap consumer goods highway and the Norinco made/modified SKS's show that gradual change from well made to less than stellar production.
