My new Tula PU Sniper

[jones0430]

I picked up a new PU sniper. I wanted a Tula arsenal and I found one.

[bunkysdad]

Congrats Jones. Looks like fun times are ahead. [emoji14]

[redhat10]

Really nice one to look at..Clean..

[jones0430]

A couple of nights ago I got a chance to fire my new sniper.

The bolt works smooth as butter on a hot skillet.

The chamber must be spotless as there was not difficulty opening or closing the bolt.

The only discrepancy was that the magazine spring may be weak, a couple of rounds didn't get picked up by the bolt and jammed in the magazine well.

It is nicely accurate. I put some 40 rounds through her.

The following is a target from that trip. Range was 50 yards.

[jones0430]

Well, a year later, give or take, a bit of practice and some tweaking in the scope adjustment, I got this result at 75 yards.

[Darryl]

Can we see photos of the import marks????

[jones0430]

As requested. This is the import banner on the Tula. It is on the underside of the barrel.



This one is from my Ishvesk Sniper. Same location.

[Sonny]

Nice..maybe someday I'll get me one of those..

[Darryl]

The reason I asked is......

The early import snipers from CAI never had "scope numbers" on the side of the barrel shank. Not the real ones.

The C and N(?) is usually centered above the Tula star on the shank, but that bothers me less.

Scope numbers on side of shank on Tulas' did not start showing up till years later on Molot rifles. This is not a Molot import, so it is "strange" to see. None of the CAI imported had that nor did the RGUN imports. Next in (years later) was Molot. They started that.

Dolk

[jones0430]

The mount cut out appears old, and square. The varnish appears to have been applied equally over it and the rest of the stock. It could be original, but then, who really knows?

[Darryl]

The mount cut out appears old, and square. The varnish appears to have been applied equally over it and the rest of the stock. It could be original, but then, who really knows?

First thing I always look at is the import marks. The PU's were only imported by a few importers. There were no oneies or twosies of these imported. This tells me how the sniper "should" look. There are minor differences in the importers on the snipers because of where they came from and were rearsenaled. But only "minor" differences.

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Century
RGUNS
Molot (with the help of others, but Molot shows somewhere)
Tulsky (with the help of others, but Tulsky shows somewhere)
SAMCO did some Yugo PU snipers with and without scopes on them.

Yours would fall under Century imports. It's not any of the others for sure. It would have been an early import.

Century imported a lot of snipers, and they imported a lot of parts they put on regular M91/30's and they used a lot of ex-snipers (re-snipered them) M91/30's. This is well known and they are mostly easy to ID.

Two things stand out on your rifle that make me wonder. Not that they are incorrect for a PU sniper, but makes me say hummmmm.
1) The scope numbers on the side of the barrel shank. None of the real snipers from the Century imports had scope numbers on the left side of the barrel shank. Nor on the next group years later (the RGUNS group). That marking of the barrel shank on Tula snipers only started years later after the RGUNS sniper and was seen first time with the Molot snipers (coming out of Russia). So that should not be happening on a Century Import.

2) The stamped numbers in the side of the scope mount. That is less of a concern as it sometimes showed up on Tula snipers, but most of the time they were marked on the side of the mount with electropencil just like most of the RGUNS.

Without having it in my hands, I would not say one way or another about it. It's just that close. There is one other thing I see, but could be my bad eyes again! I just had cataract surgery a week ago and it is tough to really see things well as only one eye was done. In a week, the other eye gets done and then they will be working together again!! New bionic eyes!!

I wouldn't worry about it, it is likely it is fine. In fact because it is an early import, most of them are automatically accepted as real. And certainly the parts and the rifle is a real PU sniper rifle. That is for sure.