The SKS was manufactured at Tula Arsenal from 1945 to 1958, and at the Izhevsk Arsenal from 1953 to 1954, resulting in a total Soviet production of about 2.7 million carbines. Throughout the Cold War, millions of additional SKS carbines and their derivatives were also manufactured under license in the People’s Republic of China, as well as a number of countries allied with the Eastern Bloc. The SKS was exported in vast quantities and found favour with insurgent forces around the world as a light, handy weapon which was adequate for guerrilla warfare despite its conventional limitations. Beginning in the 1980s, a number were also sold on the civilian market in North America, where they remain popular as hunting and sporting rifles.