Starting in 1960, China ran a program to develop an infantry rifle that would combine the accuracy of the SKS with the firepower of the AK. The result was the Type 63, which used the general layout of the SKS along with its short stroke gas piston and an SKS-like fire control system (with fully automatic capability) in combination with an AK-like rotating bolt and a detachable AK-style magazine. The rifle performed well in trials, and as best as I can tell about a million were produced. Mass production quality control was sub=par, though, and rifles in the field failed to live up to the standard of the trials rifles. As a result, the Type 63 was pulled out of service and the Type 56 AK and SKS went back into use until the adoption of the Type 81 year later.
The Type 63 was made in two main variations; initially a milled receiver and later a stamped receiver. There were 3 distinct types of magazines made for them, all holding 20 rounds and with a bolt hold-open mechanism. These magazines can be used in AK rifles, but AK magazines do not function in the Type 63. A lot of Type 63s were sent to Albania after their removal from Chinese service, and others used as military aid or sales to a variety of African countries, where they are still seen today.
If you remove the bolt open tab, could then ak mags be used?
You need to grind down the end that engages the notch in the magazine follower. Although I could never see why it wouldn’t be possible to cut a matching notch in the AK follower, which would in no way prevent it being used in an AK.
clear ether
eon
Why grind if you can remove it ?
Those poor Elbonians.
At least, if https://www.militaryfactory.com/smallarms/detail.php?smallarms_id=610 is not lying, it was relatively light at 3.49 kg
IIRC PLA Generals still had the division in their heads and doctrine just as the soviets had, that a proper rifle was to be issued to replace the manual bolt-action Mosin-Nagant rifles and the AK as replacement of the various sub-machine guns. But the soviets recignized that the AK was able to do both jobs, whereas the PLA took good elemts from the AK like bolthead, trunnion and detachable magazine and put them into an SKS-alike rifle. How the resulting rifle was supposed to be more accurate than an AK especially in fully automatic fire I woukd like to know. Because those traditional rifle stocks do not lend themselves to control automatic fire ajd the gun jzmos around. Did the PKA even make comoarative tests to see if the AK was actually worse than the SKS for orecise shooting? or was it some Oldguard Generals that just kept doing as they always had done things?
in a roundabout way the PLA designed very AK looking rifles with the Type 74 lMG (kind of like a RPK) and type 81 (“AK”). Why didnt they just copy the Soviet Army just issuing AK and AKM, which were already being manufactured in China for export mostly in various versions. What advantages does the PLA see compared to the AK with the shortstroke gas system and the open top? Do they still expect issuing only one magazin and loading strips? Which is the only feature that functianlly for the rifleman differentiates the Type 81 from the AK.
or just a case of “not invented here” made them stick with their SKSAK hybrid type rifles?
I think idea primarily was that rifle was more accurate than AK in semi auto, with FA option. That was probably their intended mode of fire for every grunt, kinda like a doctrine.
I somehow don’t believe that it had only 750 rpm, but would agree if I saw a video.
Given the deeply secretive nature of the Chinese military/governmental system, I suspect that the answers to most of your questions are likely shrouded in a veil of “We ain’t talking…”
The Chinese military/political complex had a rather nasty shock when they went into Vietnam during the early 1970s. That little excursion saw the “plucky little Vietnamese” military doing very unpleasant things to the Chinese forces that the Chinese had simply assumed wouldn’t happen. Until they did.
What followed was a wholesale purge and a bunch of re-thinking that is arguably still going on to this day. It’d be interesting to know all the ins and outs of the small arms programs, but I don’t think we’re going to learn anything significant any time soon.
I seem to recall that there was some guy who supposedly knew a lot about the whole picture, and who was posting on some specialist East Asian military site, but then he got debunked as a major Walter Mitty type who was making it all up. The whole thing might have been an intelligence operation, for all any of us know.
Friend of mine who played around in that field suggested that the best way to learn about Chinese small arms was to go to the various shows and walk around asking questions while looking at things. At least that way, you’d get to know what the Chinese government wanted you to know…
Chinese small arms design seems to have started with “What can we do with what we’ve got?” in the post-Revolution period.
That’s why the majority of the Chinese “volunteers” in Korea were armed with the “Chiang kai-Shek” Mauser in 7.9 x 57; that was what their available industry was set up to make.
According to my uncle who was there on the other side, maybe two men in each twenty man infantry “squad” (understrength platoon) might have the Chinese copy of the PPSh, usually the sergeant and the lance corporal. The officer (2LT) would have just a pistol. Everybody else had Mausers.
By the 1960s they’d moved on to “We can make whatever we want, but we want it to be ours”- meaning, uniquely Chinese and not just a copy of somebody else’s hardware. Yes, Norinco made copies of the AKM and M16, but they were for export. Some weird stuff resulted, like M16A1s chambered for 7.62 x 39 and taking AK or even RPK magazines.
In the last three decades, the PLA has generally followed what everybody else was doing in their own often inexplicable way. The QBZ-95 bullpup infantry rifle being a case in point;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QBZ-95
The trendy “bullpup” layout, but with their own ideas on where the pistol grips should be and chambered for a unique cartridge.
And now it is apparently being supplemented if not replaced by the ZH-05, which is their version of the moribund U.S. XM-28 OICW;
https://modernfirearms.net/en/assault-rifles/china-assault-rifles/zh-05-eng/
Note that the GL “upper half” is apparently a manual bolt-action.
Unlike what Stephen Hunter said about German small arms design, there doesn’t seem to be a “wild strain of genius” in Chinese work in that area. They just do their own version of whatever everybody else is using.
Of course, there’s a lot to be said for that approach. As the old engineering saying goes, “If nobody else does it ‘that way‘, there’s usually a very good reason“.
clear ether
eon
“(…)XM-28 OICW(…)”
What is this and how does it differ from XM29?
It’s XM29, I had a key error. Sorry.
cheers
eon
Eon:
That is very interesting. I had assumed the Chinese “volunteers” in Korea were equipped with Mosin-Nagants. That is what I usually see in photographs. Using home made Mausers would have made a lot of sense, but I had never read that before. The PLA also inherited a lot of Japanese arms, it would be understandable if these were used in Korea too, but I do not know if that was the case.
“(…)Korea(…)inherited a lot of Japanese arms(…)”
If you want to know more about that read https://wwiiafterwwii.wordpress.com/2015/06/19/wwii-japanese-weapons-in-the-korean-war/
The KPA was much more uniformly armed and equipped under WWII-era Soviet and ex-IJA weapons and equipment that the Chinese PLA. Initially, the Chi-coms had a lot of ex-Chi-nat equipment including Lend Lease, and the various legacy Chinese small arms including the “Hanyang” copy of the 1888 Commission rifle, the so-called Generalissimo 7.92x57mm Mauser rifle, the ZB26 Czechoslovak LMG, FN 1924 Mausers, Lee-Enfields, M1917 American Enfields, M1 carbines, lots of Thompson SMGs, Type 30, 38, and 99 Arisakas, Japanese WWII LMGs, and so on. As the war continued, attempts were made to more uniformly equip the Chinese along Soviet lines, and more Soviet weapons and equipment appeared. The Soviets had turned over a great preponderance of the “Kwantung” army’s weapons to the Chi-coms for use in the Chinese Civil War.
@Daweo: That is a good article, thanks!
Daweo:
I am not sure about this article. It does not mention the Mausers, but it does seem to say that SKS carbines were used in the Korean War. I have never seen any photos of SKSs being used.
As I said, I could understand the PLA using Mausers in Korea, but I have never seen any photographic evidence of them doing so.
One of the lesser-known facts about the Korean War was that Mao used it to basically purge China of all surviving Nationalist soldiers and a good number of his rival leaders in the Communist Party. Which is unfortunately ironic…
They also took the opportunity to expend a lot of the Nationalist military equipment they inherited, type-standardizing on things they could make themselves and get from the Soviet Union.
I’ve had long talks with a couple of different guys who were Americans that were involved in the whole unGodly mess that was post-WWII China. Their stories were… Interesting. Both of them mentioned the divisions in the US State Department between the outright Communist sympathizers and the rest, along with the factions of the US military that had grown distinctly jaded dealing with the Nationalists and the endemic corruption. One of them blamed the whole thing on “…those f*cking State Department commies…”, and the other was a lot more nuanced, blaming a combination of the sympathizers and the burn-outs, plus a sense that it was an Augean task. They did both agree that it could and should have been managed a lot better by the US, and that they thought that the supposed “inevitable” fall of China to the Communists was anything but. Both these guys were “boots on the ground” types, and they both later said that they thought the Korean War was a direct outgrowth of the whole China thing; it never would have happened if the Soviets hadn’t experienced the success that they did with Mao.
I forget which specific event in China they both thought was the watershed that led to the Nationalists being driven to Taiwan, but it was interesting that they both identified the same thing independently. I want to say it was the “fall”, or more accurately, betrayal of a major city in Central China, but I can’t remember.
There was a whole lot of skullduggery going on during that era in that part of the world. You rather got the feeling talking to those two that “Terry and the Pirates” wasn’t just a comic strip, but a flippin’ documentary.
I was just thinking yesterday, looking at “M.i.C.” ubiquitous label on some product (and on 95% of products today), what would happen to world economy if meteor/asteroid lands in China and completely destroys it…
I am uncertain why the Chinese added a full auto capability to this rifle. It was not meant to be an assault rifle, though it has an intermediate cartridge, so I wonder what they thought full auto was for?
I am also impressed by the tiny notch in the rear sight. This must have been good enough for the Chinese. I think we use screens so much nowadays are eyes are ruined.
Likely the same reason the US had full-auto on the M14: Someone thought it was a good idea.
At least, the Chinese chambered the weapon in a usable intermediate cartridge…
Full-auto fire is one of those things that is seemingly unnecessary on an individual weapon… Until it’s absolutely necessary based on the situation you’ve wandered into. Breaking contact from an ambush or meeting engagement, final protective fires, the loss of crew-served weapons, whatever. Most of the time, you are far better served by deliberate semi-auto fire; on those extra-special occasions, you really and truly need that full-auto capability. They’re rare, thank God, but they do exist.
Its not the same comparison with m14, as cartridges are ofc different, one is uncontrollable in rifle.
Having FA in that chinese rifle is a good thing, although primary mode of fire is semi.