To get the year of manufacture, add the first digit in the serial number to 1956.Ĭheck the two numbers at the beginning of a German SKS serial number, it is the date of manufacture.Ĭheck the four-digit number underneath the stamped star, it is the year of manufacture. The Romanian SKS rifles check the end of the serial number, there is a dash followed by four numbers, this is the year produced. These 2 numbers are the last 2 of the year produced. The Albanian SKS has a dash at the end of the serial number followed by two numbers. Please know that some rifles do not have any markings, but many Russian, Chinese and Korean models do. The first thing that needs to be done is to examine the Rifle for and Asian or Cyrillic markings, in an effort to identify the county of origin.
SKS Serial Numbers | Serial Number Lookup and dating an SKS Rifle With the many challenges to the end of the 2019-2020 school year and the amazing job administration staff and students did to. The Mesa Vista Consolidated School District is gathering feedback on issues important to you as we plan for upcoming school year. Our district office is located in El Rito, New Mexico. We aim to ensure that students receive the resources and encouragement needed to achieve their academic goals and become productive and successful citizens. This shared information resulted in SKS rifles being manufactured by the Soviet Union, China, Yugoslavia, Albania, North Korea, Vietnam, and East Germany, Romania and Poland and with several variations.Īt Mesa Vista Consolidated School District our teachers, staff, and administrators focus on the success of each student in the district. One major reason that the design became so prolific is that during the Cold War the Soviet Union shared design and production details with its allies. The SKS remains popular and is also used by several African, Asian, and Middle Eastern armies, as well as guerrillas in Bosnia, Somalia and throughout Africa and Southeast Asia. The SKS rifle and its many copies still can be found today in use by various third-world militias and insurgent groups as well as in civilian use especially in Canada and the US.
The next few years saw the SKS carbines acting in non-infantry and ceremonial roles until about 1990. Advantages over the SKS were the selective-fire option, a rifle that was lighter, had more magazine capacity, not to mention that it was less labor-intensive to manufacture. The quality of the early Soviet carbines was quite high as compared to some later manufacturers.Īlmost as soon as the SKS was brought into service, it was made obsolete for Soviet purposes by the new AK-47 by Kalashnikov. Initially fielded in early 1945 against the Germans, the SKS was not adopted officially by the Soviet Army till 1949 and was produced by the Tula Armory until 1955. This rifle was a less radical 'just in case' for the AK-47's experimental design. The SKS was to designed and produced as a service firearm that would have a limited lifespan between 2 rifles but utilized a reliable operating mechanism design. For example, a serial number 2958E44-1967 indicates that the SKS was. These four numbers indicate the date of manufacture. At the end of the serial number, there is a dash followed by four numbers. Look at a Romanian rifle's serial number. For example, a serial number 044922-67 indicates that the SKS was manufactured in 1967.As an example, the MAK90 I had before I sold it had a serial number of 60618. They will have a five-digit serial number without a year of manufacture indicator. Some MAK90s which were in-country already when the 1989 ban was passed were 'caught in transition'. The first two digits of your serial number indicate a manufacture date of 1993.