Expert Quoted Total Russian SKS Production Numbers!

[The Kurgan]

Take it for what it's worth, but super senior member "sksguide" is writing a book on the history of the SKS and has quoted a total production figure of 2,685,900 units, Tula and Izhevsk arsenals combined. He has not yet been able to separate the two factory totals.

He is not a member on CGN, so here is where I found the data:
http://forums.gunboards.com/showthread.php?103969-Izhevsk-SKS

 

[miff]

That's it....jk thats crazy.

 

[CanAm]

i figured much more

 

[Andurp]

i figured much more

So did I.

If he's right, these may be rarer sooner than most of us thought they would be. Glad I have a few choice collectable Russian models, then.

 

[marcham]

per year ??

 

[Curtton]

i always had a 2.3 mil figure in my mind (purely a guess) for tula so it looks about right .

 

[Andy]

But the "expert" did not answer (at least yet) the big questions:

- how many were produced each year (1949-1956); and
- how many were Izhevsk?

Presumably if he knows the overall number, he must have the answers to the above.

 

[plinker 777]

10 Tula's to every Izzy I've heard.

 

[enefgee]

I wonder how many the Chinese have made - mind you the Chinese probably do too.

 

[Andurp]

I wonder how many the Chinese have made - mind you the Chinese probably do too.

Likely double the Russian numbers at least, considering they first made them in '56 and kept churning them out well into the late 80's, and that's just the Military ones. In fact, we don't even know if they stopped making them. They likely did, but with China you can never be sure.

As for the Chinese having no clue themselves, wouldn't doubt it. Their arms manufacturing system for the SKS seemed to be "Make a lot of them while continuing to find ways to make it cheaper so we can make even more!" That, combined with the extremely confusing arsenal codes that they refuse to share with us probably equals more SKS's than they know what to do with, or could ever count. In fact, if they shared the arsenal codes with collectors so we could date the ones that aren't made at factory 26, internet collectors from North America could probably do a better job of estimating how many the Chinese made than the Chinese themselves could.

 

[Rocket Surgery]

I'm buying a Chinese SKS is 2 hours weee

 

[.30/06 FTW]

I would have figured they made about double that, especially since something like 15 million were made total. My guess was that there were at least 9 or so million Chinese made.

 

[The Kurgan]

If you believe that the SKS was a "stop gap" measure until AK production was in full swing and met demand, coupled with seemingly endless supplies of wartime production Mosins, the 2.7M figure quoted does not seem unreasonable... just sayin'