good work. just a few questions though, and since i am not a statistics guy take them with a grain of salt.
could numbers be on the low side in the early years due to wastage? could entire runs be missing due to being shipped to a different part of the USSR or to other warsaw pact members? would prefixes switch without 9999 rifles being made?
it would seem that only those dated 1949, 1955, and izhevst 1953 are relatively scarce.
I believe that while there were high numbers of SKS carbines that were "spent and discarded" (
for all years), as well as high numbers of SKS carbines shipped all over the former USSR and other eastern block countries, there will always be enough "survivors" in the high number ranges to aid in my calculations, but perhaps not the "very highest" serial numbers in some cases. I agree that any calculation will be on the conservative side.
Yes, without question, not every Cyrillic prefix range had 9999 rifles made. In addition, earlier years simply had lower production runs/numbers. There seems to be a pattern, not due to wastage, whereby the Soviets ramped up production runs, so that by 1954, they were churning out very high numbers of SKS's. I need to do some more analyses on this pattern, to really drill down. Nonetheless, my "big picture" comments are accurate: lower numbers at the beginning (1949, obviously), and a ramping up as the years progressed, peaking in 1954, and then a decline in production. One anomaly is that 1951 seems to have a lower production number of SKS carbines than in 1950 and 1952. Another interesting statistic is that next to 1949 and 1953 Izhevsk, 1952 shows the LEAST amount of non-refurbished carbines. For some reason, they didn't store alot of unused or lightly used 1952 models, or the database is still too small. Time will tell.
One other note, 1955 is rare ONLY because early in that year, the Soviet's ceased to date stamp the carbines, and as such, MOST 1955's are lumped in with the 1956's, and are known as "1955-56 no date Tulas". I believe that, in fact, there were many more 1955 SKS's made than 1956 SKS's.
And to really rattle some chains, and generate some meaningful discussion and debate, there is growing belief (though still a minority) that many "no date Tulas" were in fact manufactured at the Izhevsk Mechanical Plant, not the Tula Arms Factory. This is something that will require a separate study, and is outside of the scope of this database. More to follow on this point !!
There are still some missing prefix combinations (you can call them production runs), but NOT many. That is good news. The bad news is that while there is over 2200 entries, the database needs to grow to increase statistical confidence.
I have temporarily closed the survey due to some "abuse" and sloppy entries. I may re-open the survey at a later date once I have had time to properly automate the "proof" process.
BTW, thanks for taking the time to review the statistics. You might be interested to know that I have intercepted a vintage Russian study on the history of "automatics" in Russia, and the book (more like a research study) covers most vintage Russian military and non-military firearms. The author is quoting a total production figure of 2.7 million Russian SKS carbines. My calculations are hovering at just over 2.2 million. The rate of growth in my total production calculations has steadily slowed, and is now "crawling up". That means MOST prefix combinations have been accounted for in the database, and most of the high (or almost highest) serial numbers have been captured. I am confident that after another 1000 or so entries (perhaps less), my calculations will level-out at approximately 2.5 million carbines... and that will be conservative for the reasons noted above. Therefore, 2.7 million is likely THE number!
Funny, if I had known about this book, I would have been much less inclined to have developed this survey/database, but it's good to have a check of your work!
