Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and today courtesy of Ozark Machine Gun
we are taking a look at a North Vietnamese SKS.
This is one of the so-called 'trinity' of very scarce SKSs in the US,
the others being North Korean and East German.
Now these are actually largely Chinese manufactured,
although that wasn't the intended outcome.
So basically this project began in 1959
when Chinese Factory Number 296
(that numbering system we won't get into here, but that's an outgrowth of the arsenal
numerical system that was put together in China during like the 1930s,
based on each province having a number)
at any rate, it was Arsenal 296 which manufactured SKS rifles, among other things.
And they were interested in setting up a series of foreign, basically export,
helping other people set up production for the SKS.
And this would be their project number 1, their very first export attempt, North Vietnam.
Later ones would include places like Albania, but that's outside the scope of today's video again.
So, 1959 they set up a proposed plan to build an arms factory in North ... Vietnam,
and the North Vietnamese approve it, construction begins shortly thereafter.
And by 1962 the factory is actually ready to start spitting out products.
Now this was intended to be a pretty serious arms factory.
It was intended to manufacture both small arms: rifles like this, pistols,
also up to heavy machine guns, and also to manufacture tooling.
Presumably to help expand manufacturing to other facilities as well.
We'll get to what ultimately happened to the factory after we take a close look at this.
But the way it began was the Chinese Factory 296 supplied this Vietnamese Factory Number 1
with basically all of its core components.
... And this is fairly typical for setting up a manufacturing plant like this.
You would see it with Russian assistance to a variety of countries setting up Kalashnikov production
... as the things got started, before the factory was able to be manufacturing all of its own parts,
they would get a lot of parts from a Russian advisory factory.
And that's what the Chinese did here. So throughout the production of these rifles
Factory 1 never really did get up and running making a lot of its own parts.
And so what we see are basically Chinese SKSs with North Vietnamese markings
that were made in North Vietnam.
So let me show you those unique markings.
The key marking on these rifles that distinguishes them primarily as North Vietnamese
is this simple star with a digit one in it. And that indicates North Vietnamese Factory Number 1.
Now the serial numbers are six digits, but
we can decode those and actually get some information out of them.
The first two digits are the year of production, so this is a 1963 production gun.
As I said, they started in '62 they would run until '65,
and they actually had a single unbroken sequence of serial numbers.
So this is actually the 676th gun produced, which came out in '63.
By the time we get to the 1965 dates the actual sequential serial number has got up to about 6,000.
So the folks over at [sksboards.com], one of the moderators there, a guy named Darren,
has done a fantastic job of collating a record of known North Vietnamese SKSs in the US
(or well really anywhere), but he has a great database of like 75 of them
that very clearly shows this date and serial number progression.
So if you have one by the way, check out that thread. I will link to that form in the description,
and you can add your number to his database to help make it more complete.
The highest number he has on record there is I believe 5,870 something,
which gives us a final total production number of about 6,000 guns. So really not very many at all.
That serial number is repeated on all the major parts. So we have it here on the bolt carrier.
We have it here on the stock. There are actually a couple different fonts that were used.
They changed over time, early on you have these narrow tall digits.
Later those would change to wider spaced and wider numbers stamped into the stock.
We'll see it marked here on the back of the receiver cover.
And then on the bottom of the magazine,
and the bottom of the trigger guard.
These rifles have all of the characteristics of relatively early
Chinese produced rifles, because of course that's where the parts come from.
So you'll see first pattern rear sight blocks, these long shank threaded barrels.
The Chinese would later switch to a spike type bayonet, but early on they used blade bayonets,
and that's what will be found on the North Vietnamese examples.
The stocks themselves are probably the only parts of these rifles that were
actually manufactured in Vietnam, instead of simply being assembled there.
And that's because a wood stock is going to be one of the easiest parts to start up production of.
... These are all veteran bring back guns by the way,
... they've never been formally imported from anywhere.
So you will not find them with import marks, and you don't really have to.
Unlike Chinese rifles where there's a lot of potential deception and fakery
about what's a Vietnam bring back gun and what's a commercial gun.
Where maybe someone has ... hidden or removed an import mark.
Well, the North Vietnamese ones were never imported,
so all of the ones that exist in the country are vet bring backs.
And you'll see this has a clearly worn vintage Chinese style sling on it, which fits perfectly.
One of the questions that comes up when looking at these rifles is,
why would Vietnam make such a small number of rifles over a four year period?
Aren't there more efficient ways to be getting small arms?
Didn't they get a ton of stuff from China? ...
How hard would it have been for one of the Chinese arsenals, like Arsenal 26,
that supplied a tremendous number of guns, to simply make 6,000 additional ones
and supply them to North Vietnam instead of going through all the work of trying to set up a factory?
Well, the answer is as much psychological I think as it is logistical.
First off, setting up a substantial factory in ... North Vietnam
would have had long-term serious benefits for things like arms repair,
as well as being able to manufacture arms within the country and save the risk
of having to transport them over borders and across long distances to get into North Vietnam.
Beyond that there is this desire for self-sufficiency that I think pretty much
every small nation fighting for its own independence really has.
It's a matter of national pride to be able to say that, "Hey, we made our own weapons,
we're not totally dependent on China to give us everything that we need."
I mean, maybe they were, but they'd like to try and have some
good basis for saying that they weren't, and I think that's completely understandable.
The factory set up to make these was about 12 kilometres north of a place called Yên Bái,
(or Yen Bai), which is sort of a north western suburb of Hanoi. So we're talking basically in the Hanoi area.
Production began in '62, production ended in 1965.
And by that point the factory still hadn't managed to really get up and running.
My understanding is they maxed out at about 55 ... workers, which is not enough
staff to ... be doing the sort of thing they were expecting
which was thousands of rifles per year or hundreds of heavy machine guns per year.
Ultimately they were supposed to have a forging facility, barrel manufacturing capacity,
a lot of elements that never actually got to completion.
Well, 1965 rolls around and the US starts a strategic bombing campaign in North Vietnam, Rolling Thunder.
And ... I don't have any specific data on this, but the generally understood outcome is
Rolling Thunder hit Factory Number 1, and that cut off production in 1965.
Now the Chinese would come back and help assist in rebuilding and retooling the factory,
but it wouldn't be until the late 1970s that it was actually in a position to start manufacturing stuff again.
So that is why we see SKS production always relegated to
pretty much all Chinese parts with date codes from '62 only until '65.
You'd think, "Hey, they could really have used a lot more guns continuing after '65."
But they didn't have the capacity to build them because the factory got bombed.
So that is an overview of the North Vietnamese SKS.
These are extremely rare in the US.
The only ones that came back, as I said, were war souvenirs brought back by GIs from the Vietnam War.
And they are often actually kind of overlooked as Chinese guns.
So there may be more of them floating around than collectors recognise.
So something to keep an eye out for.
A big thanks to Ozark Machine Gun for loaning me this to show to you guys.
If you're ever in Missouri don't miss the chance to stop by at his very cool rental range
and check out a wide variety of modern and historical machine guns.
Thanks for watching.
[ sub by sk cn2 ]