Mosin nagant question

Boris said:
we know for a fact that rifle was one from a sizable lot that came here direct from Russia, via Eastern Europe. I really don't see why anybody would open the box along the way to confuse crazy capitalists by modifying the bolt than laughing their butts off.

If this came from some Russian storage facility, then it was obviously deemed to be combat worthy. It's not likely that these were in private hands. This being 1944 It may have been decommissioned after the war and send to service somewhere else, like guard duty, training etc. and at some point returned to storage.

Judging by the workmanship, someone has done an excellent job moding it. The bold is not only welded, by area around the joint is raised to get more "meat" around it. I'm not 100% if this was done after the bolt was stamped, but it does match the barrel.

Would something like this be useful to a lefty? I'm trying to think logically, and even if this thing had not PU but say PE scope, it would make things worse. There has to be a reason why this was done.
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Boris, I was just trying to be funny with the Russian laughing thing. As for when that was done,you can see from my post
that the patina on the bolt is very even, and metal will start to rust in a few days, but to get a patina like that it takes a very long time. So I do not doubt that this was done to the rifle while still in service years ago.
 
Bamp said:
View attachment 37632View attachment 37633View attachment 37634View attachment 37635View attachment 37636


Any information about this piece would be helpful. This sniper was received from Royal Tiger. Have been trying to contact them to see if they had any more in same condition, they are not answering phone at this time and they are updating their website.


Forget to mention, serial number on bolt matches receiver, butt plate and magazine.......not forced.
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That mark under the bolt is a Molot import mark. It's all over the lastest M91/30 PU Snipers that AIM and Classic Arms sold. In the case of these rifles they were said to have been stored at the Bryansk storage facility and ended up at Molot to be repackaged and sold as "hunting" rifles to allow transfer through the EU and into the the US by way of InterOrdnance because of restrictions on sales of military rifles from Russia. Molot has a history of humping milsurps and no one knows for sure where these rifles came from but many are absolutely convinced they're authentic despite doubts by many longtime collectors. Molot actually makes a hunting version of the M91/30 PU Sniper with who knows how many reproduction and recently non military produced parts. http://molot.biz/product-e/ko91-30m.php
CIMG1456.jpg

CIMG1426.jpg

CIMG1463.jpg

CIMG1414.jpg
 
PATRON said:
Boris, I was just trying to be funny with the Russian laughing thing. As for when that was done,you can see from my post
that the patina on the bolt is very even, and metal will start to rust in a few days, but to get a patina like that it takes a very long time. So I do not doubt that this was done to the rifle while still in service years ago.
Click to expand...

sorry, I wasn't ragging on you and I agree, it's an old job. I re-welded some things and you can tell after a month, this looks too nice to be a hack job.

WeldonHunter said:
That mark under the bolt is a Molot import mark. It's all over the lastest M91/30 PU Snipers that AIM and Classic Arms sold. In the case of these rifles they were said to have been stored at the Bryansk storage facility and ended up at Molot to be repackaged and sold as "hunting" rifles to allow transfer through the EU and into the the US by way of InterOrdnance because of restrictions on sales of military rifles from Russia. Molot has a history of humping milsurps and no one knows for sure where these rifles came from but many are absolutely convinced they're authentic despite doubts by many longtime collectors. Molot actually makes a hunting version of the M91/30 PU Sniper with who knows how many reproduction and recently non military produced parts. http://molot.biz/product-e/ko91-30m.php
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true, but in good tradition of "capitalism" these comrades don't exactly go a long way to refurb them. I'm pretty positive that they grab them out of the storage, do cosmo wipe and put them into boxes for an instant profit. This lot was pretty decent finish, but they weren't refinished even by shitty standards. I really doubt that they would go all this length to reweld a broken bolt in the worst location. Once you pull the bolt out, there is absolutely no way that you would weld it there by accident. So if an idiot did it, he would have been a really smart and an excellent welder not to **** up the groove.
 
Boris said:
Would something like this be useful to a lefty? I'm trying to think logically, and even if this thing had not PU but say PE scope, it would make things worse. There has to be a reason why this was done.
Click to expand...

I was just thinking the same thing. If there was a scope on it, then reaching over the top would be a pain. It would seem to be much easier to reach under the gun, and that would make it easier to draw the bolt back in that position.
 
One thing which appears different also is this rifle is missing the CH markings on the receiver as well. Most if not all snipers had them but during war time some were pushed out without the markings.

The bolt being marked with the updated stamp as another member stated was to get these into the country as hunting rifles.. Mine is located on another part on the bolt body.

Some feedback I received from Gunboards was that during refurb for storage there was often mistakes made due to poor quality control. Sorry Boris, but the rifle would not function that way in an effective manner in a battle situation.

As far as my collector books there is no mention anywhere of a bolt in that configuration. However one guy from GB did PM me and said he had seen a bolt similar but it was on a Finn rifle and it was not a captured sniper.

I would call Royal Tiger and send it back. As to you not being able to reach them I spoke to Lynn in sales today. They are flat out busy so maybe you caught them at a bad time.

The owner of I.O. travels to Russia and Poland frequently. Go to I.O. web site to watch a video of him talking about his ARCHER rifle.

In short.....the mystery continues.
 
I thought I seen a snazy sniper bolt handle.......that looked pretty nice to boot.
A side not. The mosin is not left hand friendly. No matter where you place the bolt
 
That was a good find WeldonHunter, a PEM sniper with the foward mounted bolt handle.
 
We all were looking at PU snipers, I have a PEM and the bolt handle is more towards the middle but heck, who ever built it is OK in my book, its still one hell of an accurate rifle.
 
Well thanks guys but I can't take credit for that find. Hombre is the user that not only found that a while ago when we were on the hunt for old videos showing Mosin Nagants but when another user posted about this thread and the forward mounted bolt Hombre remembered he'd seen it in that video. We all watched it and no one mentioned anything about those bolts. Yeah they may be PEM or actually PE snipers but I've never seen an arsenal forward mounted bolt handle and this sure makes you rethink what we know about Mosin Nagants in general. Just more information to put in our arsenal of knowledge. One thing about collecting Mosin Nagants is it's never boring. :D
 
here is a pic from the Soviet Mosin sniper manual, on how rifle should be reloaded, NOT like AR-boys think it should be reloaded in a tacticool way. Boot to the head from the drill instructor will convince you that this is how it should be done.

reload.jpg


Having bolt further toward the front has an advantage, especially in prone position where elbow room is at premium. The issue is that Russians always favored "efficiency of manufacturing" over some private's pain, and making bolt to far is more complicate and less sturdy due to proximity of the bolt head neck.
 
ugh, I see no one is begging me for the answer, so I'll have to get it off my chest anyways ... well, not really, at least the first part of the story.

This is part 1 of 2, of the actual answer, and when you know it, this will blow your ****ing minds away and everything that you knew about Mosins, there is just so much depth to these rifles, I'm truly in awe.


After tons of searching, letters and a post on Guns.ru, I got one answer from user НФ, to his complete credit: the rifle you see here:

new_sniper2.jpg


is similar to this:

u2.jpg


in 1932, short run was given to Marksmanship Club Dinamo and rest were used to equip some of the military branch that guarded the border, OGPU. This would not be a common knowledge, since those guys don't advertize their firearms or techniques. Further, there is a rare manual that specifically describes the dioptric sights and specifically elaborates on the bolt modification:

563630.jpg


It states that bolt handle has to be all the way to the front, otherwise you will not be able to open the bolt completely.

As further proof, here is a list of available devices for Mosin rifles available in the 30's, one of them is this dioptric sight "Destroyer", #13:

546056.jpg




Apparently, at least one complete rifle exists in the wild and these sights although extremely rare, are still possible to find. Here is one on what looks like SVD:

1844517.jpg



One possibility is that original rifle was destroyed and bolt reused in spare parts .... you think that you know the answer now??? You know shit! The rest of the story is coming ...
 
I've to do some translating before posting the final part, may be this eve ... and some work (you know the crap I'm paid to do instead of researching), but here is another tidbit. There were a whole lot of different semi-aftermarket peephole sights for Mosins. Some mounted on receiver body, some on the bolt. I'll post more pics later, but this is a great news to those who do milsurp rifle shoots (like me) and feel at disadvantage without peephole sights. Granted that peepholes are nice for shooting static, not moving targets, I can at least get a repro version that was actually milspec and used in conflicts, consequently it should be completely legit for iron sights milsurp shoots where you can only use original equipment or repros.

1633289.jpg
 
Nice work on the research.

So Brian... since the rifle is useless w/out the correct sights, I guess I'll take it off your hands for half of what the normal 91/30 sniper goes for.[smile]
 
SKS Ray said:
Nice work on the research.

So Brian... since the rifle is useless w/out the correct sights, I guess I'll take it off your hands for half of what the normal 91/30 sniper goes for.[smile]
Click to expand...
Thanks for your offer, however if I'm correct, the mentioned sight was for the rifle issued in the 30s, this rifle was manufactured in 1944.

Boris has additional information direct from this rifle's birthplace. He did all the research and i will give him the pleasure of informing NES members of this rifle's history.

I thank Boris for his time and efforts.... It is truly amazing what he found.
 
now ... the last chapter in this story ...

so two days ago, I finally found that lead, that in late 20's to early 30's Mosins were made with peep sights. I went nuts on digging up info, going through threads etc. until my eyes were bleeding. Before going to sleep I was convinced that I knew the answer. The only thing that I was having second thoughts about is that bolt "from 30's" only had one serial ever ... and it was matched to a rifle made in 1944. Weird.

Like a ****ing twist out of some crazy movie, the timing could not have been any better. I wrote a bunch of emails in different places and didn't get much back over the past week. Yesterday, I came to work thinking about just sharing the final results. I found one email in my inbox ... from Vyatskie Polyani, it said ....

Constructor's Bureau at Izhevsky Mechanical Works looked into the feedback from the battlefield and developed an improvement to the bolt, by locating the bolt handle to the front to reduce the effort to open bolt due to dirt and defective ammo. (keep in mind Soviet snipers used regular factory ammo in WWII [shocked] ) A test lot of rifles was made at IzhMash in 1944 and shipped out. Due to end of war, nothing further was done with this and paperwork was shelved.

This rifle IS from that lot. [shocked] They were sorry that rifle of this historical significance went abroad and promised to look into fixing that process (no doubt to prevent cosmoline thirsty capitalist pigs from getting more rare Mosins) ... and did they say "This rifle IS from that lot." ??? Yes, they ****ing totally did. [shocked] Mind blown! I just spent all this time and effort researching peep sights on Mosins, something I had no idea existed before and now it's total 180 turn of events.


Well, the good news is that this rifle instead of being a bastard of parts is actually a completely matching, all original, perfect condition, one of the rarest '44 Izzy that no one knew about. Totally unreal and what a story to boot!

Brian was kind to my tears to let me take a photo in his shop. Awesome!

01.jpg



Brian, what a catch! PATRON, thank you for asking what seemed like "stupid question" in the beginning, ... thank you for that movie ... many shots of vodka for everyone!



КОНЕЦ




... or is it?
​
 
This info should be shared in the thread I posted on Gunboards in the Mosin section. Lots of guys were scratching their heads over there even though a cure for "sticky bolt" was mentioned as a possibility.
 
Awesome job on the research Boris! Great score Brian and thank you for showing me this rare rifle in your shop earlier this week
 
OUTSTANDING Boris.
I spoke to Lynn today at Royal Tiger and asked her to look for another one....and yes I am going to buy it.
I know, I have to many already but heck, whats one more!!!!
 

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