i wrote the following , it was in my research file .
Chinese SKS = Military/Commercial/Norinco.
now whats the differences in the three?
Military vs. Commercial vs. Norinco.
-Military: meaning standard SKS produced for the PLA, security forces and border guards. All 3 productions classes (early, mid & late) were used by the military. Quality can range from excellent to good.
-Commercial: SKS produced for civilian use only. It could be a standard SKS assembled from spare parts or a variant (SKS-D) converted from a standard military. Workmanship in these commercially produced SKS varies. You’ll have to inspect them in person to know which ones are good and which ones are awful. Quality are mixed bag.
-Norinco, China North Industries Corporation is a conglomerate that was formed in 1982 to provide R&D, manufacture, marketing and services . Its involved in high-tech anti-aircraft to oil field equipments.
When it comes to SKS, Norinco is basically an exporter, they do not actually manufacture them, they contract them out with factories that jointly develops other firearms with them.
Norinco have been know to export wide variety of SKS from military to commercial so not all SKS exported by Norinco are of poor quality.
Norinco isn’t the soul exporter of the SKS out of China, Polytech is other exporter. the marstar SKS from China are not connected to Norinco.