SKS which one to buy?

[SKS Ray]

This is a good area to clear up. Norinco is not a manufacturer, they are an export company that was set up in the early 1980's. Red China was still building the guns. Norinco was selling them.

China also had huge stores of SKS's from every year of make. You can find the "Norinco" stamp on guns that are old or new. It just depended upon which cache the exporter got their hands on. The vast majority of the Norinco stamped guns were late production, though.

This.

And speaking of Paratroopers... they were made from SKS rifles that came from all different arsenals and years of production. I have one that originally was a Sino Soviet. Thats an early code /26\ stamp rifle with a 4 digit serial number that is considered to be the first Chinese SKS produced. This was when Russia stopped producing them in 1956 and the Chinese took over and were using left over Russian parts.

Many of the old Chinese models produced in the late 50s and early 60s found there way to Vietnam. Heres a cool old pic from that era showing US soldiers finding a crate of them:

 

[Pilgrim]

the markings on this indicate it is an early 60's model. There are no import marks on it. I don't know if it's 'special' or not.

 

[martin08]

the markings on this indicate it is an early 60's model. There are no import marks on it. I don't know if it's 'special' or not.

Any gun that you own is "special", Pilgrim.

But that one was cut down for commercial sale, it just missed the importer stamp.

 

[TTA89]

Wow, that create picture is awesome.

 

[Ski]

Get the Yugo...
If you can find an unissued with factory tag, and clean blued barrel...laucher, sights, bayo etc.....
cleaning off the cosmoline is part of owning one.
It's fun tagging a post it note at 200.
Having a zastava factory tag is a nice...

I "heart" my sks

 

[mac1911]

get your C&R its the cheapest way to purchase anything other than chinese..... I purchased a romanian and its a great shooter.
sometimes you can find some decent bubba'd sks for cheap.

 

[BearArms]

get your C&R its the cheapest way to purchase anything other than chinese..... I purchased a romanian and its a great shooter.
sometimes you can find some decent bubba'd sks for cheap.

Speaking of this if you put anything "Tapco" on an SKS you should be banned

 

[50 BMG]

I would go for an unissued Yugo, built like a tank and they are back in stock at many dealers.

 

[mac1911]

the prices droped a bit also, under 300.00 with C&R

 

[martin08]

Another alternative is to build your own. They can look kinda nice!

 

[turbo38gn]

Another alternative is to build your own. They can look kinda nice!

Very nice, love the wood...