Hello everyone, new member here.

This weekend I picked up a 1957 Tula "letter series" SKS from my LGS for $800. This rifle is in impeccable condition, with no signs of refurbishment. Every single part on the gun matches, which you will see in the photos below. The bluing on the rifle is near 100%, even on the buttplate, leading me to believe it may have even been unissued (I'll leave that decision up to the experts, I'm just making observations). It is in a gorgeous red laminate stock, that has a few small dings from storage but is in good shape otherwise. I believe it is an original laminate stock, since it has all the inspection cartouches around the forward cross-bolt. Anyway, time for some more info on this beauty.

I took her into my woods for a quick photo shoot (link to more photos below):


The serial is on the side of the receiver, along with the small Tula star typical of the "letter series." This rifle has the "backwards N" suffix, indicating 1957 production. CAI stamped the English translations of the Cyrillic letters below them during import.

It has matching numbers on every serialized part, visible in the album I will link below.

The stock has the matching serial stamped on the side, with no signs of another number being crossed out or sanded off. There are inspection marks near the forward crossbolt on both sides of the rifle. It is my understanding that these cartouches identify it as an original laminate stock, as one replaced during refurb would not have these marks. From my research, these late production "letter series" guns were the only SKS's that would have been issued in a laminate stock right from the factory. The buttplate has a tab at the top, indicating an original stock as a replacement laminate stock would not have that feature.

Here is my album of photos of this rifle: https://imgur.com/a/9xHbjVM

In my opinion it appears to be all original in as-issued(potentially unissued) condition. There are no signs of it going through refurb. The bore on the gun is perfect, but I don't have a good way to get a picture of it. The laminate stock seems to be a factory original, because of the reasons I pointed out above. I'd love to hear what the rest of you think of this gun!

-Kyle
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