Norinco sks

Neato! Back in 1992-93 (Somewhere back then) a buddy introduced me to a friend of his who had imported about 60 pallets of the Chinese SKS's and at least two million rounds of ammo. At some non-descript warehouse off Colorado Blvd. in Pasadena, Ca. I bought an in-the-box rifle and 100 rounds on stripper clips for 99 bucks. Mine didn't have the nice wooden stock yours has, it had a hollow brown "phenolic" stock that apparently was from the late 1960's and was made during a run up to supply Vietnamese/Chinese forces with guns.

(Here is a picture of one on the SARCO website)

You bought a good looking SKS! As the guys said above, get the good stripper clips and avoid the temptation to put on a larger mag, they're really hit and miss reliability-wise.

Let us know how it shoots for you when you get a chance to exercise it out on the range.

Stay safe.

They are fun rifles. And look up ballistics of a 7.62x39mm soft point. They are effective.

Agree on sticking with the 10 round fixed mag.
Got mine cheap cause it only had a 20 round Tapco that was damaged. Probably from removing it while the bolt was closed. Ran fine with a new Tapco mag, but awkward to change mags and you can only change mags on an open bolt.
later swapped back to a fixed mag, but they’re not cheap, and getting harder to find.
The Tapco can be opened up for strippers but it feeds better from the fixed mag.
If there’s any residual cosmoline or heavy crud on the firing pin, it could slam fire. It’s rare, but worth checking to make sure the firing pin isn’t sticking.
Every SKS I’ve ever seen in action was accurate & durable. Internal parts are still readily available, although stocks and bayonets have jumped in prices as a lot of people who bought em cheap and dropped em in aftermarket stocks must have tossed their furniture & hardware in the trash.
The three main barrel types are short collar threaded, long collar threaded and pinned. If you remove the action you can see what type you have, if you can’t date yours from the reciver markings that will at least give you a ballpark idea. Mine’s an ‘89-90 based on the s/n and I think was one of the last years for threaded collar before going to pinned.

wesmonster said:

Got mine cheap cause it only had a 20 round Tapco that was damaged. Probably from removing it while the bolt was closed. Ran fine with a new Tapco mag, but awkward to change mags and you can only change mags on an open bolt.

Click to expand...

The problem of only being able to install or remove Tapco mags when the bolt is open is easily solved in a few minutes with a Dremel.

Several YouTube videos show how to do it.

Looks like a modestly struck (or worn) arsenal /636\ stamp. It is a standard configuration, mil-spec/mil-production carbine. The bayonet lug was likely cut to make it legal for sale in the US market when there was a lot of confusion about whether bayonets were legal or not. Any standard configuration Type56 produced prior to 1985 is a mil-spec mil-production firearm.


How many digits are there in the receiver serial number?

And, Is the barrel threaded or pinned?

If the barrel is threaded it will be a 12th year gun -- but the serial archive I've seen suggests that /636\ didn't start production until the 13the year of production-- but that data is somewhat older.

If the barrel is pinned, according to the serial prefix -- 1 20 -- it may be a January production (1) from the 20th year of production , 1975.