SKS refurb history questons

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Smason

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Howdy,
I was wondering about all the SKS refurbs there are out there. Hoping someone can give me a history lesson on the refurbishing process.

-who did all the refurbs and where were they done?
-when would the guns have been refurbished?
-is anyone currently refurbishing SKS's?

any other history or information about the SKS refurbishing process would be appreciated.
Thanks
 
Good questions! There is a sticky in the Milsurps section, titled "Refurb marks on Mosins" that answers the first question (possibly)
that is: 1st Grau in Bakalyta ? and 5th Grau in Alatyr ? Which I presume are armories and the names of the cities closest to them.

The second question: When? Perhaps when the SKS was taken out of service? Someone will chime in about this shortly.

The third question: Still being done? I doubt it, but would like to hear different.:confused:
 
SKS's have been refurbished since they were first issued. First by the Russian armories and refurbishment depots. Each Country that made them or issued them must have had places to maintain the used ones. Some of the refurbishments are modern as the ones that North Sylva bought from Germany and imported in the last year or two were rumored to be lend lease returns from South America that the Russians just got back and refurbished and then sold. These were refurbished but obviously they are not to the same standard as back in the day. As the countries using the SKS's are predominately Com Bloc nations the information is not readily available as the info was not broadcast or published. Here is a list of some of the Russian refurbishment depots that we know about.

View attachment 53160
 
The most full list of marks I found here (all in Russian, sorry):
http://guns.allzip.org/topic/36/1416490.html
It mainly repeats the list above posted by ljones, but there is some additional info.

Apparently, even in Russia there are no full list of the markings. The secrecy in the Soviet Union/Russia surrounding everything in the government is very paranoidal.

Especially if it's something which is totally innocent (like refurbished WWII weapons) and something which cannot be sold. For example, you can go on any Moscow market and find a CD with a copy of police database of all inhabitants in Moscow, for maybe 20 or 50 dollars. But at the same time, if you go to an industrial area in Russia and start taking photos of some stupid fences (and everything industrial in Russia is surrounded by ugly and usually crooked concrete fences), you will likely be arrested very quickly (but then probable will be released for a bribe, too).

When I was in the University, we studied some of electrical systems of Soviet military aircraft, nothing related to weapons etc., just support systems, navigation, etc. We had to stitch our notebooks together, number all pages in them, and they were checked by an officer and locked away in a safe in the end of each study day, so we could not take them home. The information in them was very basic and obviously known to "NATO spies" for a long time, but that were the rules.

So enthusiasts collect the info on markings bit by bit. Even though they participate in museum conferences dedicated to WWII firearms, etc, apparently, they do not have access to the military archives. Somewhere in the government/army there must be the list of all markings, but until somebody finds a way to buy this list somehow, the situation is unlikely to improve. Or could be just a haphazard decision of a government bureaucrat to release the list to an author writing a book on rifles, for example. One thing is certain about Russia, they are totally unpredictable from a normal logical point of view (they have their own logic, but it's very weird).

That's just my observations.
 
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