[RyanE]

Looking over Stottman's photos of his enviable collection of AKS74's, it appears that the serial numbers start over in 1980 (see his 1979 serial 959K and his 1980 258K). Was there a reason for this? Given the serial number ranges of post-1980 examples that I have seen, I don't think Izy started over every year like Tula did with the AKSU. Did the numbers start over for the AK74 in late '79/80 as well? In the reference section, there is that 1979 AK74N with an apparent 200K serial number, but there might be a '1' hiding in front...

Help me out.

 

[Stottman]

Honestly, I have not been able to figure out any pattern for any Soviet AKs.. None of them seem to add up or make any sense.. They are either at random to hide production numbers, or they have seperate blocks for rifles designated for different purposes, or maybe even military units....

 

[rayman1]

+1 on that. I've always thought they did their serial numbers in such a way for special block runs as well.

 

[Ekie]

Yes, it appears that in 1980 the year code dropped to two digits and the number started over and have been running consecutively ever since.

I can not make heads or tails out of the 1970's AK/S74 serial numbers.