unfired, non-refurbished, un-issued SKS

I have seen them packed in grease online, the problem is you have no say in what you get. Just go to a store, get a Tula with a number 1 stamped barrel and matching numbers. If they have been issued it will have been refurbished at least.
 
We've had this discussion so many times before, and certainly it gets a bit contentious. The SKS is somewhat unique in that is a cold war milsurp rifle made in huge numbers, 15,000,000 or more and was quickly replaced by the AK47 for front line service. Yes some guns were never issued, never fired and never refurbished. In the past I have suggested that there was no such complete originals in Canada simply because of mag pinning etc., but nonetheless we have had some of the top grade rifles come into Canada from the Ukraine. I've got a bunch of them that appear unfired, although some will suggest that they were all at least test fired. I won't go into what constitutes "unrefurbished" as that's been covered a million times over.
 
I have several, and I've left them in the grease. It takes a long time to find them and you pay a premium price for them.
 
I could swear that the ones I've handled/bought when they first appeared on the market (especially the ones with laminated stocks) looked mint and never saw any actual service - perhaps test fired at most, as the member above suggests. They had matching numbers all over, perfect bores, perfect wood, deep blueing with no handling marks, etc... and Russian soldiers are not reputed to take care of their equipment.

Besides, a few of the dealers/sponsors advertised "unissued" SKS's in the past, so there must've been something to it. If memory serves well, the ex-service / refurbished ones had bolt carriers painted black (?).
 
For Chinese rifles, yes, absolutely. The majority of the ones in Canada were as new.

For the Russian ones it's absolutely impossible to verify "unissued" or "unfired". You can have a fired rifle with a clean bolt face and you can have an issued rifled in mint condition. Unrefurbished can be determined after a detailed inspection. Some of the refurbishments are very subtle. I recently have seen a near mint 1950 SKS with everything indicating it was unrefurbished until I noticed the takedown latch was not the right configuration. It was a short tab (mid 1951+) but it was a particularly long example making it look like a long tab but more rounded. Only after consulting some reference books did I discover that the capture pin needs to be milled and not pressed in for it to be an original 1950, very minor detail requiring magnification to verify, 9/10 people wouldn't have noticed is my guess.
 
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Horilka said:
So you think during refurbishing they change only the latch?
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Yep, that was the only thing that was changed. I asked around the communities to see if maybe the short tab / press fit was used earlier but not no response from anywhere. It makes sense that no one replied because it's such a minor detail. The rifle must have been dropped and the latch damaged. Probably knocked off a rack, or leaning up against a wall. The SKS was otherwise perfect, even the finish was beautiful. They probably applied some more shellac.
 
Yes they exist, those military chinese type 56 from Marstar, ( lucky i could get 2 when they found some in the wharehouse) are brand new, unrefurbished, unfired, great value rifle... JP.
 
I had 5 (4 unissued) sitting in my locker up to 6 months ago! I paid "a bit" more than the average cost of a nice one.

4 are now in good homes. One collector owns 3 of those 4, and believe me, he knows his red rifles.

I have 1 remaining: a 1954 Tula from the early 2008 IZH import. However, this rifle was issued and mildly used.

Good luck finding one now!
 
There is too much unknown about the SKS and everyone just likes to assume and then believe they're correct without actually knowing. I had one. A none refurbished SKS that looked like it was never issued. Everything was really tight. Was very hard to take apart for the first time. I have sadly sold that Russian SKS. :c Now I just has a unissued Chinese SKS. I'm going to eventually get one of the current garbage condition SKS were seeing lately and have it just to run the piss out of it.
 
Who cares if they are issued or not its 200 dollar gun that is reliable and accurate for backwards country fighting. If someone wants unissued stuff then buy Ruger or Colt fresh off the shelf made in 2015. That are made the same way and look the same, feel the same shoot the same.
Each SKS looks, feels and shoots different from the other SKS in the same crate. This is what makes SKS interesting for collecting and shooting. They are like people, same but different.
What else do you want?
Quest for unissued SKS is as absurd as looking for 40 year old virgin.
 
gewehr76 said:
Who cares if they are issued or not its 200 dollar gun that is reliable and accurate for backwards country fighting. If someone wants unissued stuff then buy Ruger or Colt fresh off the shelf made in 2015. That are made the same way and look the same, feel the same shoot the same.
Each SKS looks, feels and shoots different from the other SKS in the same crate. This is what makes SKS interesting for collecting and shooting. They are like people, same but different.
What else do you want?
Quest for unissued SKS is as absurd as looking for 40 year old virgin.
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I disagree.. Unissued SKS would be far easier to find then a 40 year old virgin.
 
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