*** VERY IMPORTANT ***
THE SOLE PURPOSE OF THIS THREAD IS TO PROVIDE HISTORICAL AND TECHNICAL INFORMATION
DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES MODIFY YOUR RIFLE IN ANY WAY THAT MIGHT RESULT IT TO BE CAPABLE OF FIRING FULLY AUTOMATIC
I DO NOT GIVE PERMISSION TO ABUSE MY PICTURES FOR NON LEGAL PURPOSE
THE RIFLES SHOWN IN THESE PICTURES ARE LAWFULLY REGISTERED AND LEGALLY POSSESSED
THE RIFLES SHOWN ARE NOT (AND WERE NEVER) LOCATED IN THE US
***
THE SOLE PURPOSE OF THIS THREAD IS TO PROVIDE HISTORICAL AND TECHNICAL INFORMATION
DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES MODIFY YOUR RIFLE IN ANY WAY THAT MIGHT RESULT IT TO BE CAPABLE OF FIRING FULLY AUTOMATIC
I DO NOT GIVE PERMISSION TO ABUSE MY PICTURES FOR NON LEGAL PURPOSE
THE RIFLES SHOWN IN THESE PICTURES ARE LAWFULLY REGISTERED AND LEGALLY POSSESSED
THE RIFLES SHOWN ARE NOT (AND WERE NEVER) LOCATED IN THE US
***
It was known in the Western World that there was a selective fire variant of the Soviet semi automatic SVT40 rifle, called AVT40. Until some years ago though it was unknown that actually there was a ton more of these rifles. It turned out that the Russians from mid 1942, except for the 1942 sniper rifles, delivered ALL rifles from factory with a selective fire trigger group. To be able to resell those to Western countries they were then switched back to trigger groups that allow semi automatic firing only. If you, though in fact have a rifle which was produced from June 1942 onwards (and is not a 1942 sniper rifle), then this means your rifle left factory with a selective fire trigger group and therefore once was a machine gun.
Recently I was fortunate to find a rifle which was captured in WWII and "escaped" the Arsenal Rebuild to semi automatic trigger group. And I thought this would be a great sample to look at in detail on how to not only show what was different with those [former] factory selective fire rifles, but also how simply the Russians have achieved to make the rifle fire fully automatic.
The rifle we are going to look at is a bolt [and of course magazine] mismatch, otherwise factory matching, and as already mentioned not arsenal rebuild, meaning in original configuration as in WWII. And worth mentioning in this context, now properly owned as selective fire rifle atop. For the beginning to start with a general view of the rifle from both sides, right:
Left:
Receiver from top - note the 1943 date which clearly identifies the rifle for leaving factory as a fully automatic rifle:
... and a detail shot of the left side, showing the serial number on the receiver:
... and on the stock:
The fact that this rifle maintains the original selective fire trigger group is proofed in this image, where you can see the original factory serial on the trigger group bottom - stamped, as it should be - as well as you can already see one additional difference the Soviets made, the additional cutout for the third position of the selector/safety flag:
What is also distinctive for these factory selective fire rifles is the late flash hider with the much larger holes:
Another big telltale for an automatic rifle is that the Soviets marked the stock A (well, actually "that Russian A") atop for the selective fire variant on the right side of the butt stock:
Now, I thought a good idea would be to compare this rifle now externally with a factory semi automatic SVT40 rifle and look at the differences, which are just the trigger group. Therefore I did this picture assembly, with the 1940 semi automatic rifle on top and the 1943 selective fire rifle on bottom:
From this right side image you can clearly see the additional cutout for what is usually known as the safety switch on these rifles. So yes, actually the Russians [ab]used the safety switch and gave it a third position, for the gun to allow to be switched to full automatic mode.
To make the differences better visible and show them in detail I pulled the trigger groups on both rifles and put them next to each other. First start with an image from the left side, where not much difference is visible:
... but the difference becoming more and more obvious if looking at from the right side:
