M-39 question

[Junk Yard Dog]

It may resemble a Beretta but it isn't, good luck if you break something on it. Some people say they suck, others love them, the issue is some are crap, and some were made on a Tuesday when everyone had recovered from the weekends excesses and hadn't started to daydream about Friday yet. My experience with Egyptian arms comes from the Maddi AK, Rasheed, and Hakim. The AK is a crude looking piece of shit but nothing I did to it made it fail to fire, ever. The Hakim is OK when the shooter understands how to set the gas regulator valve correctly for the ammunition being used, the Rasheed is a piece of shit, at least mine is. It's plagued with failures to fire caused by poorly fitted and occasionally broken parts, it is now in the non shooting part of the collection. I am told this is not the common opinion of the Rasheed, just of my particular rifle, built Monday morning at 8am, or Friday ten minutes before closing time at the arsenal. I do cut the Egyptians some slack, they had to build an arms industry from nothing after years of depending on colonial masters for arms. They learned by importing experts from Sweden, and the Soviet Union, the smartest move they made other than adopting the AK was the SAFN49. These were made in Belgium, and are of exceptional quality. Pistols may be considered a common soldiers weapon today, but army's of the past used them as badges of rank, Officers, NCO's, Secret police. Not every sidearm adopted for government use was well suited for the job of being in the front line trenches . We were lucky enough to have John Browning, S&W, and Colt to think up sidearms for our military, Egypt did what they could to copy Beretta, a company with a 500+ year history in the firearms business, good luck with that. I would suggest spending a bit more and getting a real Beretta, keep the Egyptian copy for the wall display. The Nambu is another example of the handgun not being taken seriously as a soldiers fighting weapon, another badge of rank to be used when executing some prisoner, leftover 19th century thinking. Rifles back then were given extensive testing and field trials, models finally adopted had a long list of lesser efficient cousins lined up behind them that didn't make the grade. It would seem that many countries outside the USA, and Germany considered handguns an afterthought, often it was left to the individual officer to purchase their own. Some of the sub machine guns were less than perfect also, the Sten was made from scrap iron, or so it often seems, but they did function if accuracy was not an issue. Again, not the primary infantry rifle, you can get away with lesser secondary weapons if your primary is good, just look at the Soviets and the 1895 Nagant revolver. Underpowered compared to the adversary's sidearms , but that didn't matter so much when the Mosin with it's 7.62x54r round was there to even the odds.

[WW1-WW2rifleman]

I completely understand the concept that many countries view the handgun in a very different light from the US and Germany. The Russians are probably the biggest offenders in my opinion of not taking their military needs seriously. I’m looking through the history of WW1 right now and finding reports of just how badly the Russians were equipped. Don’t get me wrong the Mosin Nagant is a wonderful rifle but, was in very short supply according to their military’s requirements. Considering the rifle was adopted in 1891 there’s no excuse in my opinion to have only 1 rifle for every 5-6 soldiers. It’s hard to exploit an advantage in men when they don’t have the weapons necessary to fight. The Nagant revolver issue is more of an issue of the inventors not understanding the limits of their design and underestimating it. France is notorious for this and while Belgium’s FN is really good most of the time *cough 1906 in .25ACP cough* the Nagant brothers were definitely more knowledgeable about rifles than handguns.
I also understand Egypt’s issue with having to build from scratch after European colonialism ended sometime in the first half ish of the 20th century. I have a huge interest in geopolitical history and am catching up on firearms’ knowledge. The Rasheed is the Egyptian SKS and I’ve heard a couple of condemning reviews of it which I mainly attribute to the more extensive use of the Rasheed in comparison to other nations’ use of an SKS type rifle. The Hakim is the Egyptian equivalent of the Ljungman. I am not a huge fan of this rifle as the action kind of scares me a bit. I’m not that coordinated to avoid Hakim thumb. The Maadi is an AK. What else needs to be said? Those rifles are dead nuts reliable. Anyone who feels the need to prep or just wears a too tight tinfoil hat should have an AK of some shooting quality. The problem I have with the Helwan Brigadier is that the Egyptians didn’t consider the climate in which they lived. I’ll bet if I had been able to field strip the pistol I would have found either extensive wear from sand and heat or I would have found a sizable amount of sand and salt between the slide and barrel assembly as the slide is cut open way too far on that model. Every single military veteran I have talked with hates the M9 for similar reasons upon a few others. Still was nice to hold a foreign military surplus firearm.


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[J0h1F]

Ok, thanks for posting this link.
I have previously heard that during the Soviet-Finnish wars that many 91/30s were captured and converted to other more suitable variants by the Finns. Among those variants is of course the 91/30. From what I heard the 91/30s that were captured had their barrels cut down when converted to a shorter variant. I’m not sure of the validity of this but, that was what I heard. Anyway, I’ll look over the information on the link. I have not seen a m39 in real life but, I have seen a 91/30. I still regret having to pass it up.

While M91 barrels could be cut and reprofiled for M39, the M91-30 barrel was a bit thinner at the 25 inch mark where the M39 front sight was installed, and thus it couldn't have been reprofiled for the M39 as the front sight would be too loose.

What was done to the captured rifles, was the following:
- if the barrel and stock were in good quality, the rifle was just SA stamped and issued
- if the stock was bad but barrel was good, it was scavenged for parts (and the barrels might have been used to re-barrel captured M91-30's with bad barrels)
- if the barrel was bad but the stock was good, it was either re-barrelled (hence the Finnish barrelled M91-30) or scavenged for parts
- if the barrel and stock were bad, it was scavenged for parts.

Both new Finnish M91 barrels were cut and reprofiled for the M39 and in very rare cases complete foreign barrelled hex receiver M91's were cut reprofiled and refitted with M39 parts, but I've never heard of any M39 made from an M91-30. There are some rare cases where a round receiver is used in the manufacture of M39's, but all of which I've seen have had Finnish barrels.

The Finnish M39 (and M91) barrels had an internal diameter (grooves) of .30975 (7.87 mm), unlike the Russian M91 and Soviet M91-30 barrels which were .312 (7.92 mm). This was made to maximize accuracy on the Finnish standard issue D166 round, which was .310 to be both accurate with minimal barrel wear in both the tight .308 (7.83 mm) M28 and M28-30 barrels as well as the Russian/Soviet Mosin-Nagant and Finnish Lahti-Saloranta and Maxim .312 barrels.

[steelbuttplate]

M-39 barrels have a slightly smaller inside diameter I think, than a 91/30. Ya can't shrink 'em. I had a 91/30 Tikka potbelly, would it have been the same as a M-39 bore?

Very good explanation in #23. What was the diameter on Finn rebarreled 91/30's.

[WW1-WW2rifleman]

Ok, thanks for posting this link.
I have previously heard that during the Soviet-Finnish wars that many 91/30s were captured and converted to other more suitable variants by the Finns. Among those variants is of course the 91/30. From what I heard the 91/30s that were captured had their barrels cut down when converted to a shorter variant. I’m not sure of the validity of this but, that was what I heard. Anyway, I’ll look over the information on the link. I have not seen a m39 in real life but, I have seen a 91/30. I still regret having to pass it up.

While M91 barrels could be cut and reprofiled for M39, the M91-30 barrel was a bit thinner at the 25 inch mark where the M39 front sight was installed, and thus it couldn't have been reprofiled for the M39 as the front sight would be too loose.

What was done to the captured rifles, was the following:
- if the barrel and stock were in good quality, the rifle was just SA stamped and issued
- if the stock was bad but barrel was good, it was scavenged for parts (and the barrels might have been used to re-barrel captured M91-30's with bad barrels)
- if the barrel was bad but the stock was good, it was either re-barrelled (hence the Finnish barrelled M91-30) or scavenged for parts
- if the barrel and stock were bad, it was scavenged for parts.

Both new Finnish M91 barrels were cut and reprofiled for the M39 and in very rare cases complete foreign barrelled hex receiver M91's were cut reprofiled and refitted with M39 parts, but I've never heard of any M39 made from an M91-30. There are some rare cases where a round receiver is used in the manufacture of M39's, but all of which I've seen have had Finnish barrels.

The Finnish M39 (and M91) barrels had an internal diameter (grooves) of .30975 (7.87 mm), unlike the Russian M91 and Soviet M91-30 barrels which were .312 (7.92 mm). This was made to maximize accuracy on the Finnish standard issue D166 round, which was .310 to be both accurate with minimal barrel wear in both the tight .308 (7.83 mm) M28 and M28-30 barrels as well as the Russian/Soviet Mosin-Nagant and Finnish Lahti-Saloranta and Maxim .312 barrels.

Oh ok. Yeah, I was wondering about this. Maybe it was just a case of mistaken identity then. I don’t know much about the Mosin Nagant in it’s Finnish heritage. I only somewhat know the Russian and Soviet variants. Thanks for the explanation of the Finnish m39.


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[TnBuckeye]

This thread made me think and go back and read some stuff again, always 2 painful and dangerous activities for me!!!

I ran across this excerpt on the M39 page on mosinnagant.net...

“Other unusual variants of the m/39 include some known with a round receivers instead of the tradtional hexagonal type. These rifles are post war rebuilds utilizing some 91/30 receivers availbale to the depots. Barrels used run the gamet of standard Russian m/91-30 versions to even US made Wetsinghouse and Remington model 1891 barrels. Other oddities inculde specialty rifles like a version modified for a trench firing attachment and those used for sniping and night vision optics. The versions used during the Continuation war as a sniper’s rifle was called (in order of issue) the m/39 PH, m/39 SOV, m/39-43 and the m/39-44.”

I recall seeing photos of NEW and Remington barreled m39s, and round receiver m39s. I can’t recall even photos of a m39 with a Russian 91/30 barrel. Has anyone here seen one?


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[Darryl]

This thread made me think and go back and read some stuff again, always 2 painful and dangerous activities for me!!!

I ran across this excerpt on the M39 page on mosinnagant.net...

“Other unusual variants of the m/39 include some known with a round receivers instead of the tradtional hexagonal type. These rifles are post war rebuilds utilizing some 91/30 receivers availbale to the depots. Barrels used run the gamet of standard Russian m/91-30 versions to even US made Wetsinghouse and Remington model 1891 barrels. Other oddities inculde specialty rifles like a version modified for a trench firing attachment and those used for sniping and night vision optics. The versions used during the Continuation war as a sniper’s rifle was called (in order of issue) the m/39 PH, m/39 SOV, m/39-43 and the m/39-44.”

I recall seeing photos of NEW and Remington barreled m39s, and round receiver m39s. I can’t recall even photos of a m39 with a Russian 91/30 barrel. Has anyone here seen one?


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Again, .... Please refer to this page.

http://7.62x54r.net/MosinID/MosinBarrel.htm

Please note the area in front of the barrel shank. The area where the site sits on a M39.
You will note that that area on a M39 is much thicker then on a M91/30. So a M39 site would not sit properly on a M91/30 barrel.
I don't see how you could use a M91/30 barrel for a M39. I know they used M91 barrel blanks to make M39's, but I always wondered when they used the term "blanks". Perhaps they were not fully machined on the outside yet??

comp.jpg

[TnBuckeye]

This thread made me think and go back and read some stuff again, always 2 painful and dangerous activities for me!!!

I ran across this excerpt on the M39 page on mosinnagant.net...

“Other unusual variants of the m/39 include some known with a round receivers instead of the tradtional hexagonal type. These rifles are post war rebuilds utilizing some 91/30 receivers availbale to the depots. Barrels used run the gamet of standard Russian m/91-30 versions to even US made Wetsinghouse and Remington model 1891 barrels. Other oddities inculde specialty rifles like a version modified for a trench firing attachment and those used for sniping and night vision optics. The versions used during the Continuation war as a sniper’s rifle was called (in order of issue) the m/39 PH, m/39 SOV, m/39-43 and the m/39-44.”

I recall seeing photos of NEW and Remington barreled m39s, and round receiver m39s. I can’t recall even photos of a m39 with a Russian 91/30 barrel. Has anyone here seen one?


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Again, .... Please refer to this page.

http://7.62x54r.net/MosinID/MosinBarrel.htm

Please note the area in front of the barrel shank. The area where the site sits on a M39.
You will note that that area on a M39 is much thicker then on a M91/30. So a M39 site would not sit properly on a M91/30 barrel.
I don't se how you could use a M91/30 barrel for a M39. I know they used M91 barrel blanks to make M39's, but I always wondered when they used the term "blanks". Perhaps they were not fully machined on the outside yet??

I️ am with you Dolk. It doesn’t make common sense to me at all. But I thought that reference was interesting at least.


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[SA1911a1]

I completely understand the concept that many countries view the handgun in a very different light from the US and Germany. The Russians are probably the biggest offenders in my opinion of not taking their military needs seriously. I’m looking through the history of WW1 right now and finding reports of just how badly the Russians were equipped. Don’t get me wrong the Mosin Nagant is a wonderful rifle but, was in very short supply according to their military’s requirements. Considering the rifle was adopted in 1891 there’s no excuse in my opinion to have only 1 rifle for every 5-6 soldiers. It’s hard to exploit an advantage in men when they don’t have the weapons necessary to fight. The Nagant revolver issue is more of an issue of the inventors not understanding the limits of their design and underestimating it.

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A lot of the stories about one rifle to five men is American cold war propaganda and Holleywood movies. Yes, there was a time that the Russians were under-armed, because of the rapid growth of their army. The Mosin-Nagant was the functional equivalent of the K-98. The Russians were well enough armed to drive the "Master Race" back to the burned out capital of the "Thousand Year Reich."

If you want to talk about troops being under-armed, think about the Americans who had to go to war in the Sherman tank. The Germans and the Russians had better tanks. Against German tanks, tank destroyers and anti-tank guns, the Sherman riders were barely better than suicide squads. Or you could talk about American submarines who went to war with torpedoes that did not work, or American sailors on destroyers and cruisers who didn't have the training, torpedoes, or night optics the Japanese did. Countries learn how to make war during the process of fighting the war, the ones that correct their errors quick enough win.

[steelbuttplate]

I tried to go on gunsnammo.com , a few other sites this weekend. It seem like all the small stockpiles of M-39 are gone. Were those that Classic had really the last of the last? Just checked. Classic has ONE Tikka left, auctioning at $1369

[steelbuttplate]

I tried to go on gunsnammo.com , a few other sites this weekend. It seem like all the small stockpiles of M-39 are gone. Were those that Classic had really the last of the last? Just checked. Classic has ONE Tikka left, auctioning at $1369

Bump. Now $ 1413.00. I think I'm reading they had 11,000 rifles in that last load.

[WW1-WW2rifleman]

I tried to go on gunsnammo.com , a few other sites this weekend. It seem like all the small stockpiles of M-39 are gone. Were those that Classic had really the last of the last? Just checked. Classic has ONE Tikka left, auctioning at $1369

Bump. Now $ 1413.00. I think I'm reading they had 11,000 rifles in that last load.

Yeah, I was seeing the M39s on Classic a couple of months ago. Sky, Sako, VKT in various conditions ranging from $249-$379. This Tikka M39 is a whole lot of someone else’s prize as far as I’m concerned. Just because only a very few M39s were manufactured there is no reason to pay $1400+. Then again I’m not into unicorn collecting. I’d rather investment collect but, that’s just me.


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[zeebill]

People who collect off online sources are paying fools prices that I have no intention of paying or frankly charging either. I just bought my 49th M39 from a fellow collector who I will likely sell to in the future. You know I would not have bought this rifle if I had to pay 1400 for it and I would not charge that price if I sold anything to him in the future. If you are that unimaginative to only use a source that sells M39's at 1400 dollars than you deserve to pay that price. We regularly see rifles of nice quality that are M39's go for $500 or less at many local and larger shows and in local sale boards too. I don't want to hear the old song and dance they don't sell or appear around here for that price because if you make the effort and look they are out there! I bought most of the M39's I own for around $110 or so and not that many years ago. Assuming that safe full of M39's I have is worth $500 a piece I have $245,000 worth of M39's out there now if my old style math is right. I had well over 100 at one time but when Burns started screwing with them I sold a bunch off fearing the value would go to hell if he was found out. I shuttled many good rifles I bought from him away for awhile but people cared not that they may have a sullied piece in there safe. They bought even more as he raised the prices ridiculously even in the face of obvious tampering. He sold out to Classic which even raised the prices higher yet and mislabeled things over and over and still people bought and bought. I bought a few from time to time and usually at far less than what internet prices showed me. Assuming my $110 M39 has raised 5 times in value for what I bought it for that $1400 M39 should sell for $7000 in the future some day. Do you see that? Some where in this post there should be a grasp for reality and I don't think the price for it is $1400! Many prices asked these days in my mind are not possibly reachable in the next 30 years or more yet people are paying them! The answer to what you are willing to pay is entirely personal but there must be some logic behind the figure too. One thing to keep in mind is right now a lot of moneyed people are looking for new areas to invest money and indeed some may be on the boards you are reading these days and also may be the cause of these higher prices being paid on todays market. What is the answer? Reasonable and prudent dealing with people you know at a personal level. If you don't know anybody in that area try and find them through talking with them when you see them at different events. I go to many auctions make one bid and talk the rest of the time to people just trying to see where they come from and who they really are in their everyday life. I can't own all the cool guns in the world but I can try and know all the people who own them! I can go to all the places guns are bought and sold though and see friends and make new ones too. Gun collecting is much more fun at a personal level! Bill

[millman]

Bill your old math is off by about 220,500. Try $24,500.

[zeebill]

Bill your old math is off by about 220,500. Try $24,500.

No glasses in here sorry about that! Thanks for the pickup! I get through life with a lot of help from my friends these days! Bill

[WW1-WW2rifleman]

Uh lol. I didn’t say I was going to get a M39 through Classic and I’m pretty sure that no one else did either. I have found a site online that charges a lot more affordable prices than Classic. Heck, my lgs that’s notorious for high prices is more affordable than the $1400+ asking price for the auction M39. Classic doesn’t even charge those amount for a regular M39. They’re running an auction that has a severely inflated price because of the arsenal it came from. Tikka made a little more than 1k of these M39s instead focusing on other projects while Sako, Sky, and VKT made the M39s primarily. So, this whole inflated price thing is a one off for the M39 due to the arsenal stamp. Not my ‘cup of tea’ but some poor soul will gladly eat it up.


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[Junk Yard Dog]

All M39's are the same, they all shoot good, all use the same parts built to the same specs, only the date and arsenal stamps differ, and sometimes the style of stock. When it comes to internet sales the seller can ask for whatever they like, getting it can be the challenge.

[Darryl]

Wait, My M39 Tikka is now worth WHAT!!!

I paid $100 for it a few years ago. I told everyone they were rarer then what some have said. I doubt they are $1400 rarer, but.

Tikka M39's are very hard to find and have been for years now. There are hundreds of M39's around for sale "ONLINE" that are cheaper then I can find at any gunshow or in a gun shop. Also, the selection is a hundred fold (in online dealers)then from shows or gun shops. There is no way anyone can dispute that , not anyone that is a serious collector. Another place is "for sale forums" on other forums. There is a lot for sale there also (every day).

Dolk

[steelbuttplate]

Sold, for $1739. It was stated by Classic to be "museum quality". My Sako's are also museum quality, they were used in WW2.

[Longcolt44]

The idiot that paid the final price won it because the other idiot that he had a bidding war with dropped out. Can you say shill? They have a $1700.00 Tikka up for a contest winner now.