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53/56式 - 狙击步枪瞄准镜 (Type 53/56 sniper rifle scope)
7.62x39 - ?x - China - Type 53/56/63

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In the late 1960s with the Vietnam War begining to hit its' zenith China felt the need to aquire a sniper rifle for its troops. Due to the deterioration in Soviet-Sino relations the new weapon would need to be domestically designed and produced. The developent of the rifle was assigned to State Factory 296, with development and production of the required scope given to State Factory 338. Between 1967 and 1970 State Factory 338 would develop and produce scopes for the project. The resulting scope would be heavily influenced by the sights State Factory 338 was already producing for the Chinese produced copy of the ZPU-4 AA system (also known as the Type 56).

Three different rifles were eventually produced and tested. The Type 53 a bolt action rifle in 7.62x39, the Type 56 a modified SKS, and the Type 63 (presumably based off the Type 63 select fire rifle). Scopes were marked either Type 53 or Type 56 and appear to only differe in the markings on the elevation dial. In testing the rifles performance was disspointing and none of the rifles were selected for further development.

It would not be till a decade latter in 1979 after confronting SVD rifles during the Sino-Vietnam war (对越自卫反击战/Chiến tranh chống bành trướng Trung Hoa) that China would restart development of a sniper rifle, decsiding to reverse engineer the SVD rifle and PSO-1 scope resulting in the Type 79/85 rifle and scope.











Images



Example of markings.




Elevation dials showing the difference between the type 53 (1100m) and type 56 (800m) variants of the scope.




Survivng examples of the Type 53 and Type 56 sniper rifles seen at the Small Arms Museum of the 208th Institute (208所的轻兵器博物馆).




Reticle.



Serial Numbers

It appears all scopes use the same serial number block regardless of model marking. Unclear if some scopes were marked Type 63.
Supposedly only 6 test rifles were produced, before the project was cancelled, yet scope production appears to have been around 100 examples.

Serial	Marked	Images	Notes
1000066	Type 53	1
1000072	Type 56	1
1000073	Type 53	1

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