SVT-40 sniper list

[Ratnik]

Greetings to all!
I'm making a research about SVT sniper rifles. And I think this board is a right place to gather additional information about sniper rifle serials.
As many of you know, SVT sniper rifles were officially produced at plant #314 in Tula (March-September 1941), and at plant #314 in Mednogorsk (March - October 1942).
All sniper rifles were groupped in letter prefixes. But approach to SVT sniper rifles production in 1941 and 1942 was a different.
1941 snipers mostly were marked with C mark at the right side of the reciever. But some correct sniper rifles are missing this C mark.
All 1941 snipers had numeric prefixes less than xx 2000. Regular rifles can have sniper prefixes, but numeric prefix will be higher than 2000. There is one exception - in one known sniper prefix, НБ, few regular rifles are known with numeric prefix less than 2000. I don't know why this happened, but I have one assumption. I have another research about conformity of letter prefix and production month, and presumably НБ prefix rifles were produced at the beginning of July, just after war beginning, and it could cause some problems
Barrels for 1941 sniper rifles were produced separately. Mounts were attached to rifle at the factory, and stamped with full rifle serial number
1942 snipers are also grouped in prefixes, but regular and sniper rifles are mixed randomly in one prefix. All 1942 snipers don't had C proofmark at the right side of the receiver. There was no separate production of sniper barrels in 1942, when plant #314 was located in Mednogorsk. Best barrels were selected and used at sniper rifles. 1942 mounts were stamped only with numeric prefix.

So here is list sniper rifles that are currently known to me. Please add serials that you know.

Serial numbers of sniper SVT's produced at factory #314 (Tula\Mednogorsk)

1941

ГБ 273
ГБ 277 *Dzerzhinskiy academy museum
ГБ 543 *Museum, with experimental Skvortsov 20 round drum magazine

ЖБ 1х0 mount
ЖБ 182
ЖБ 309
ЖБ 310
ЖБ 398
ЖБ 410 mount
ЖБ 530
ЖБ 535
ЖБ 725
ЖБ 94х mount
ЖБ 960
ЖБ 1034 mount
ЖБ 1075 mount
ЖБ 1395
ЖБ 1429 mount
ЖБ 1х9х mount

ЖК 343 *NIPSVO test rifle
ЖК 349 mount
ЖК 535
ЖК 598
ЖК 1284

ИБ 900
ИБ 1061 mount
ИБ 1111 mount
ИБ 1263
ИБ 1526
ИБ 1862
ИБ 1863
ИБ 1877

ИК 349
ИК 475
ИК 510
ИК 9хх mount
ИК 900
ИК 923
ИК 1024
ИК 1094
ИК 12xx
ИК 1400
ИК 1503 mount

ИМ 147
ИМ 257
ИМ 285
ИМ 405
ИМ 636 mount
ИМ 666 mount
ИМ 1161
ИМ 1408
ИМ 1678 mount

ЛБ 513
ЛБ 822
ЛБ 865
ЛБ 1842
ЛБ 1968

ЛК 1014
ЛК 1335 mount
ЛК 1497 mount
ЛК 1892 mount
ЛК 1989

НА 483 mount
НА 6хх
НА 692
НА 91х
НА 1218
HA 1231
НА 1374
НА 1398
HA 1602
HA 1830

НБ 320
НБ 615
НБ 963
НБ 1863

НВ 1097
НВ 1391
НВ 1660 (no C proofmark)

НЖ 140
НЖ 1339 mount
НЖ 1649 (no C proofmark)
НЖ 1754 mount
НЖ 1936 mount

НИ 3хх mount
НИ 353
НИ 405
НИ хх08 mount
НИ 1260
НИ 1269
НИ 1301
НИ 1316
НИ 1436

ПА 462
ПА 502 mount
ПА 801
ПА 1275
ПА 1366

ПБ - supposed "sniper" prefix

ПВ 273 mount
ПВ 536
ПВ 663
ПВ 1996

ПГ 896
ПГ 925

ПЖ 768
ПЖ 1804

СА 580
СА 650 (no C proofmark)
СА 810
СА 863
CA 1460
CA 1461
СА 1488 mount
CA 1620 mount
СА 1645 mount

СБ х12 mount
СБ 350
СБ 1428
СБ 1843

СВ 181 mount
СВ 372 mount
СВ 877
СВ 1063
СВ 1ххх
СВ 1753

СГ 143
СГ 624
СГ 747
СГ 1163
СГ 1845 mount
СГ 1889 mount

СЖ 816 mount
СЖ 902
СЖ 984
СЖ 1x16 mount

СИ 350

ТБ 246 mount
ТБ 267
ТБ 373
ТБ 377
ТБ 1909

ТВ 116 (no C proofmark)

1942

ДГ 3450

ЖБ 1389

ИВ 1622
ИВ 5051

НА 7403

НБ 104 *NIPSVO test rifle
НБ 1757 *NIPSVO test rifle
НБ 2525 *NIPSVO test rifle
НБ 5125
НБ 6927
НБ 7200
НБ 7398 *NIPSVO test rifle

НВ 110
НВ 111
НВ 1ххх
HB 1322
HB 2945 *NIPSVO test rifle
HB 3543
HB 6329

ПА 5903 *belongs to sniper Matvey Zvyagintsev
ПА 6574
ПА 8843

ПБ 634

СА 1620
СА 2421 *St.Petersburg Artilery museum
СА 3492
CA 6693
СА 7030

СБ 2987
СБ 4379
СБ 7099
СБ 7321
СБ 7770

СВ 520
CB 1187
CB 7238 * GPW museum, Kiev

СГ 111х
СГ 2004

ФА 1718
ФА 3644
ФА 6118

ФБ 3883
ФБ 5580
ФБ 6877

ФВ 6302
ФВ 7149

ХА1613


ХХ 2851 mount
ХХ 3276 mount
ХХ 3285 mount
XX 5115 mount

*-NIPSVO KA (Научно исследовательский полигон стрелкового вооружения Красной Армии) - scientific research proving ground of infantry weapons of Red Army.

 

[Dmitri]

Thanks for the INfo.

 

[Ratnik]

Thanks for the INfo.

Hope that new serial numbers will appear at this thread. Thanks to this forum I already added 6 serial numbers to the list.

 

[Smitsauce]

I have a 1940 Tula Sniper. Supposedly it is one of the approximate 7000 produced in this first year of production of the SVT40. I will dig it out this weekend and see what serial number is has on it and any markings.

Ian

 

[Ratnik]

I have a 1940 Tula Sniper. Supposedly it is one of the approximate 7000 produced in this first year of production of the SVT40. I will dig it out this weekend and see what serial number is has on it and any markings.

Ian

Ian, it's not the first time that I read about 7000 sniper rifles produced in 1940. What is the source of this information?
According to reports, there were no serial sniper rifles produced in 1940. Production was started in March, 1941, when first 1000 sniper rifles were produced.
Only two 1940 sniper rifles are confirmed by documents - they were used for PU scope tests with Tokarev mount (it looks another way than serial) in May, 1940. One is ИО351, another is ИО408.
Can you show pictures of your rifle, especially notch?

Alex

 

[Smitsauce]

Sorry my mistake it is an Izhevsk 1940 dated SVT40 sniper rifle. Here are some pictures from another thread when I was asking about the import markings. The 7000 sniper rifles produced in 1940 was from mosinnagant.net

http://www.mosinnagant.net/USSR/svt401.asp

According to this site Izhevsk started production in the fall of 1940 because of retooling from the SVT38 with only 7000 sniper rifles produced in 1940. That would make this (if real) a pretty rare sniper.

Cheers,

Ian

 

[Ratnik]

Don' t know what was the source of their information, but Tula in 1940 and Izhevsk in 1940-1941 don't produced sniper rifles. It's not the only mistake in SVT section at this website. Only one factory produced SVT sniper rifles and mounts in 1941-1942 - Tula/Mednogorsk. You will not found any SVT mount that was produced not by Tula, or that is numbered with not Tula sniper prefix, because sniper rifle and mount were issued togeter, and numbered with one serial number.
But Izhevsk and Podolsk sniper rifles are known (with different types of notches), these are field updated rifles.
But these rifles were selected randomly, and on my opinion there is no sence to track them, because we won't see any system in their prefixes.

Alex

 

[jpboivin]

I also have one IZZY 1940 sniper

L to R Tula 1943, Kovrov 1941 sniper, IZZY 1940 sniper with the same import mark,

 

[lavoltiges]

the notch of the gun right is not a real

 

[Ratnik]

I also have one IZZY 1940 sniper
L to R Tula 1943, Kovrov 1941 sniper, IZZY 1940 sniper with the same import mark,

Thank you for photos. Can you post close photos of the notches?
But one thing bother me - notch at your rifle, and at rifle that was posted above, are painted with the black paint. Are they blued under paint?
Just wondering, did you payed any extra value for this rifles, because they are "sniper"?
Besides, so called "Kovrov" rifles were produced by plant #460 in Podolsk. Podolsk produced rifles according to compatitive tests at NIPSVO proving grounds had the worst quality. This fact, variety of notch shapes (many of them have same size as mount pin, and this is not correct, and recoil buffer in mount is not working), fact that production of sniper rifles by Izhevsk and Podolsk is not confirmed by any documents or reports, on my opinion proove that they were made in field workshops.
Here are two more types of notches at Izhevsk rifles.

Tula snipers were produced by approved drawings, so all Tula snipers have notches of one shape - flat bottom with rounded corners.
Only Tula "officially" produced sniper rifles in 1941-1942. They have production plans for them, made reports about their production, send their sniper rifles to prooving grounds for quality control.

 

[jpboivin]

the notch of the gun right is not a real

Yes it is, she's blued under the black paint, and she was not made with a file between 2 garbage in a garage but by gunsmith tooling and both have been bought in cosmoline.
But you looks like an expert, tel me why it's not a real when other fellow cgn'ner said that it is.
Ratnik is right on when he said that the recoil buffer in mount is not working on this kind of notch.
And I believe that they where made in field workshops in WWII .

 

[Ratnik]

Yes it is, she's blued under the black paint, and she was not made with a file between 2 garbage in a garage but by gunsmith tooling and both have been bought in cosmoline.
But you looks like an expert, tel me why it's not a real when other fellow cgn'ner said that it is.
Ratnik is right on when he said that the recoil buffer in mount is not working on this kind of notch.
And I believe that they where made in field workshops in WWII .

Finds of rifles in relic condition with such notches are known.

 

[Travis Bickle]

This is the best thread on this entire site in a very long time.

Thanks Ratnik for all the info.

Do you know of any sources that have the original Soviet SVT40 manual translated to English by the way? I've been trying to find one for a long time now.

 

[SteelCap]

Finds of rifles in relic condition with such notches are known.

Are those notches not where the mount of the scope sits?

 

[Horilka]

I suppose Ratnik wanted to say that some rifles with field-made notch were refurbished (including re-blueing) after the war, so technically such rifles could have made their way from Ukraine to Canada. Am I right, Ratnik?

 

[Ratnik]

Yes, absolutley.
Here is example of such refurbed rifle. I already post this rifle above.
Note at the last photo, that some pitting (reblued during refurb) is also inside notch. This is deactivated rifle

Quantity of imported rifles from Ukraine is not small, so some interesting variations definitely exist
Here is quantity of exported rifles from Ukraine in 2004-2013

 

[agentcq]

We have had this debate before. I think that the evidence is pretty clear and until new documents or information are recovered we need to accept that the only "Factory" SVT snipers were produced at TULA. Nevertheless you could have an Izzy or "Kovrov" which was converted during the war into a sniper at a depot. As Ratnik and other sources have stated, relic Izzy snipers have been recovered at battle sites.

It was very common on both sides of the Eastern Front for depot centers to convert or salvage weapons. I saw one interesting SVT at P&D in Edmonton with over 20+ stock repairs, many of which were in the middle of the stock/butt. I can only assume that the stock was hit by shrapnel, the stock repaired and a new receiver/barrel installed in the repaired stock. It seems like a great deal of work to go to such extremes to save a stock, but it was done. In hindsight I should have bought or at least taken a picture of the said rifle.

 

[lavoltiges]

dear jpboivin

if you say that this is probably true is that this is true
the expert is you apparently

for me it looks like a notch made ​​with a rat tail
in a garage or outside on a battlefield if you want

the history of the recoil pad for my part I think that due to ratnik
why put a different spring?

maintenent you can send a photo of your notch VIC THOMAS gun forum board and you will get your answer quickly

 

[SteelCap]

The more I read this thread the more I want to get one....and I said to myself only one rifle. Is SVT-40 with original scope (sniper) hard to find? I only see Mosin with scope around.

 

[catapult]

Here is mine. It has the C proofmark on right side and also on the left just below the rail.
its a Tula 41 mounted on an original but refurbed svt scope dated 41. Mount is repro