Help ID This AK 47

[Wedgy]

I'm cleaning out some room in my safe starting with things I haven't shot in 15 years or have never shot and I found this unfired AK 47. It is pre-ban and has no manufacturers name on it. Just "AK47S 7.62 x 39mm"
Made In China serial #870543*
"(**can't read) Arms Distributing Inc Manhatten Beach CA"
I know that's the importer
Serial # on the bayonette matches.
It's identical to this one but doesn't say "Norinco" or "Polytech"
http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/Vie...Item=329293974

I just learned that it says "Golden State Arms Distributing"







Thanks for the help !!
Nice site too.

[Richard Simmons]

Welcome to Gunsnet!!

Pretty sure it's a Norinco. Nice rifle!

[Partisan1983]

Welcome!!!

[imanaknut]

Welcome to the group !!!

You have one of the very early Norincos. Check the barrel and around the mag well for the word "Norinco" in very tiny letters. I have seen it stamped almost so small it looks like a scratch. And then some weren't stamped, so there is nothing unusual with that either.

The Chinese were probably the first to recognize the American market for modern military firearms, but unfortunately for them at that time there was not much love for "commie rifles". They were the only ones to bite on the American news media calling the rifle an AK-47 and stamped the rifles that way hoping the name would sell it. When the rifle didn't sell well they stamped them 56S which is the Chinese designation for the commercial version of the military 56. The "S" on them pretty much symbolized a commercial version of the military rifle in semi-auto only.

Unfortunately when we the people started to take notice of them, George Bush the First decided that the way a rifle looked made honest people become criminals, so in 1989 he had ATF enforce the sporting purpose clause in the 1968 Gun Control Act which I joke about being the sporting purpose clause of the new ATF second amendment. That move blocked the importation of the 56S as well as others, and because Bush1 believed that the name was just as bad as the evil flash hider or bayo lug or pistol grip, he had the name as well as features banned which gave us the NHM90 and better known MAK-90. Both just 56S with the evil features removed, otherwise they were identical in function and quality.

You have a nice piece of history there, among the first of the Chinese AK variants imported into the land of shall not be infringed.

About the only thing that doesn't look right is the muzzle device. Most 56S and the earlier AK47/S had slant brakes installed.