An Old Warhorse With Many Tales To Tell.

[Junk Yard Dog]

I remember buying one for $15 a couple of years back, flea market, seller thought he was taking advantage of me. Many people who should know what these bayonets are instead have no clue, I see them misidentified as 91/30 WWII bayonets all the time, and priced accordingly.

[captkirk222]

I know, but everyone I've seen is correctly identified and priced accordingly. I guess we're not as clueless in Kansas as some people think we are. What I do see commonly out here is common items like 91/30 bayonets passed off as "rare, one of a kind, WWI/II relics" to the uninformed. I have good luck with rifles, but apparently not bayonets.

[Lee-online]

Cool old rifle.

I remember seeing that scored line on a few different older M91s barrel shanks. Must be a tooling mark from rebarreling.

[captkirk222]

Well, I got some more pictures of the old gal. I am now quite certain that the bore has been relined, which would explain the remarkable condition of it. Unfortunately for this rifle's status as one of our best shooting rifles, it looks like the chamber has been sleeved. I still want your opinions on this, so have a look.

[Junk Yard Dog]

Looks like it, it shoots good? Then don't worry about it and enjoy it.

[BubbaDX]

Sleeved barrel or not, that is still an extremely nice Mosin!

[captkirk222]

It's just that I have heard tales that sleeved chambers, as in possibly rechambered to 8x50r and then sleeved back to 7.62x54r, were considered to be mildly unsafe. I suppose this could be gun folklore and not be the truth, but I am rather attached to my face and would like to remain that way. I approach things like this with caution because I do know that when things go wrong, they can go very, very wrong. At least the fact that the old gal likes light bullets is helpful in keeping pressures low. I still say this is my favorite mosin and I don't think anything can change that.

[Junk Yard Dog]

Why were they considered unsafe? Seems like this rifle has seen several lifetimes worth of hard use without a problem.

[Longcolt44]

The Italians did barrel sleeves. A Mosin "P" series rifle has a sleeved barrel also.

[captkirk222]

Junk Yard Dog- As I said it may just be some old story meant to scare someone away from milsurps, but I do know of one case of a sleeved chamber or chamber insert conversion that is generally considered unsafe-Chilean 1895 Mausers that were bored out and sleeved to 7.62x51. The problem with those, as I recall, is heat and gas pressure over time can melt/cut through the silver solder used to hold the insert or sleeve in place. I think that on those they bored out the barrel to .30 cal and drilled out the chamber, then soldered a chamber insert in place. This could leave a minute gap that gas pressure could possibly expand into and eventually push the insert out. Just a note though, I may be young, but my memory isn't always perfect. I did mange to find a picture that will help illustrate what I am babbling about. The good news is that I see no signs of any such gap on this rifle, but I don't exactly have a borescope. (hmm... we should get one of those sometime.)

[Junk Yard Dog]

The Finn's rarely made a mess of things when it comes to rifles, there were some issues with earlier sleeved rifles, but I don't recall any mention of injury's, just degraded performance and ruined sleeves. The 1895 conversions are dangerous for many reasons, not the least of them is the 1895 small ring action was never designed for the modern 7.62x51mm's pressures, and the work was carried out by? The Finn conversion was returning the rifle to fire the cartridge it was intended to fire. With any ancient relic you don't want to get carried away and push it too far, 300 round shooting days would be unwise, but 10-20 rounds now and again are unlikely to hurt it.

[captkirk222]

Yeah, I was starting to think that I was comparing apples to oranges. I guess I just want to be able to enjoy the rifle for its capabilities without worrying about damaging it. I guess I'm forgetting that it's a mosin and it has already been there and done far more than I will ever do, it's not merely some fragile piece of plastic like so many guns are today. (I may be using a bit of hyperbole here.) I think I'm done worrying about it, after thinking about it enough, I'm sure that it's fine and will continue to be so for a very long time. I will be keeping an eye out for any signs of trouble, but that's always a good idea.