Sks and SVT Refurb. Where and when were these done?

wbaad

wbaad

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Hi all,
This may be covered elsewhere, but what years/factories/countries did the refurbishing on the soviet rifles? Is there any way to tell? Would be cool to see some photos of the arsenals.
 
There were a few arsenals, not always the original arsenal that made them either from what I've read. Where and when is impossible to tell. I've seen three SKS that had additional dates on the receiver to the rest of the serial number. They were one of either 1959 or 1960, but it gas not been verified as of yet if that us the refurb year. The mark on mine us similar to a year stamp on a russian PU scope refurb mark.
 
Its hard to find arms building info from cold war russia, and after the cold war, records were destroyed, or abandoned, etc. One of the harder things to research IMHO
 
I've been under the impression that a lot of the surplus soviet firearms that have been imported to Canada have come from the Ukraine.

Is that incorrect ?
 
Nobody really knows. Conventional wisdom is that most were refurbished in the late 1950's to very early 1960's and put into cold storage -- starting around the time that the AK-47 had completely replaced the SKS in both front line and support use. I have heard from a number of credible sources that the overwhelming majority of SKS's here in Canada have come from the Ukraine (former Soviet republic). What I can tell you is that based on the level and quality and style of refurbishment, they were done at different locations, with differing emphasis on QC !! I am sure the SKS's refurbished at Tula or Izhevsk arsenals were done with the highest degree of care and attention to detail, but there were other arsenals or "factories" that didn't employ the best metal and wood workers! The later were likely "make work" locations to keep the locals employed.

Some of the nicest refurbs (IMHO) are the ones with the new producton laminate stocks or carefully refinished hardwood stocks, blued bayonets, and sometimes other reblued parts (though many are in their original metal finish). Often nothing has been replaced, other than the stock and the addition of a blued bayonet and perhaps a new gas piston. On the other end of the spectrum are super ugly refurbs, where they looked to be re-assembled from a mixture of poorly force-matched parts and crudely painted by the hands of children or "special needs" people! Most refurbs fall somewhere in between.

It has been often said that some refurbs have replacement barrels. Really? From the hundreds of SKS's that I've inspected, I have yet to see proof of a replacement barrel. I suspect that the time and effort to replace a barrel would have been cost and time prohibitive, and those SKS's with crap bores were put in the smelter pile. There were so many, why would they bother? But hey, proove me wrong. :)
 
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