Machodoc
Old Guy
The overwhelming majority of these pre-war and wartime rifles were re-arsenaled. They were brought back from battlefields, arsenals, or wherever, stripped down, and the parts were put into bins and barrels according to the part type. Then all the receivers would be refurbished, all the bolts, etc., etc., until they had bins of refurbished parts. The refurbishing process would usually include grinding off the old serial number (or lining or x-ing it out). These parts would be reassembled and re-stamped into rifles with matching parts. That said, there are relatively few of these rifles out of Russia that have not been mixed at some point. The biggest difference was how they were treated when they were re-assembled and stamped.
Some have all matching numbers that appear to be all original parts ... as made with the rifle. Most of those are not, however, but they look good. I've just picked up another one that's "all matching numbers," but the "matching" bolt, for example, is made up of both Tula and Izzy parts ... including an Izzy part with a serial number that matches the rest of the Tula-stamped rifle parts.
Some are clearly assembled with mixed numbers. It sounds like you may have one of those. It's not a bad thing ... it's just more clearly assembled with mixed parts. Or if you are saying that the numbers are all identical, with the exception of the 8 and 9 digits being different in an otherwise identical sequence, it could just be an interesting error ... write it off to Smirnoff, perhaps.
Others have the numbers openly obliterated in some way and re-stamped next to the original number. Still others have been "scrubbed" and force-matched with numbers put on with an electro-pencil, rather than a stamp. I suspect that these may have been among the later re-arsenals, but I'm not at all certain of that. Some Russian SKSs from the early '50s have electro-penciled markings on them, as do some of the earliest Sino-Soviet SKSs.
Yes, it feels better to get one that appears to have all original and matching numbers on it, but not very many of those actually are all original. The really nice looking rifles that are coming in will usually also have a lot of stamps on the stock and other parts. This suggests that they have been re-arsenaled ... and almost certainly "scrubbed" and re-stamped. That's the current conventional wisdom, anyway.
Enjoy shooting it!
