Weldon's update

[MN Fan]

Sweet!! Both look great! Excellent photos too. Very, very nice Weldon...congrats!

[bunkysdad]

Oh man looking good. Promises to keep, and miles to go before you sleep.

[WeldonHunter]

Ok gun number 2 is done. You'll have to go back to the first page to see it. I've added it to the post I made with the before pictures. For each post I put these in I'm putting a subtitle with the guns basic info. and which one it is in the cleaning process. I'm putting together the gun racks at the moment and figuring out which wall they're going on. Side note. I bought these two gun racks from....wait for it...CheaperThanDirt. Bad word again. I left these in the box because I wanted to assemble them when I needed them. Well as their stuff goes being mostly junk so goes the first rack. It's an Allen four gun rack Model # 18550. The screws it came with to assemble it are the wrong screws and are to short to go through the side board and into the center supports. I had to find some screws around here and the ones I have are better abyway. Exterior heavy screws.
This is more proof that CheaperThanDirt is a place I will never do business with ever again. I can only imagine what the other rack has wrong with it. It's a San Angelo Model # SA-10704. I guess I can't expect much, they were only about $25 or so. They'll do the job and I don't care that they're cheap but I wish they at least had correct hardware. The other racks I have are one from the 60's that I've had since I was a kid and 2 that came from the thrift stores here in Louisiana for about $3 to $5. Yes believe it or not we find gunracks here in the thrift stores. Lots of hunters here but you have to be there at the right time or someone else will snatch them up. They're homemade too and very sturdy. I've even found scopemounts and other gun stuff at the thrift store but I didn't want to wait until I find more racks so that's why I bought the ones from CTD.

[WeldonHunter]

Got the racks hung. I'm on rifle number 3. This is one of the m91/30's with round receiver an is a 1942 Izhevsk. Just starting on it so pictures are to come. Here's what the new racks look like. The third gun in the racks is the Polish M44 I already had. One thing to note. I started looking at the serial numbers that were put on the guns by the importer and one of the guns has a 7 as the last number in the serial number on the gun and on the original inventory lable from the importer but the FFL dealer listed it as a 1 instead of a 7 on the receipt they gave me. They put their own stickers on the box and that number is also a 1 instead of a 7. The girl that checked these in misread the gun I guess because the numbers are really hard to read on the gun but the box has the correct serial number that the gun has stamped on it. I know she read the number on the gun because she warned me about how greasy they were when she inspected the guns for the numbers. I'll have to call them tomorrow to see if this is a problem. At least I know that AIM registered the sale of the correct number to me. Oh and one other thing about that gun is it's the other Hex and it's a 1932 Tula with what looks like matching bolt and receiver serial numbers. Might be a forced match but I'll have to check it better when I clean it.

[MN Fan]

I could sit in that room drooling for hours...

[desdem12]

[WeldonHunter]

I could sit in that room drooling for hours...

LOL, me too and I do every night. It's my bedroom. There's another rack out of the picture that you can't see also. I put these racks across from the head of the bed so I can lay in bed and watch tv and look up at them when I want to. I have another Rack in the hall with the work guns on in. I debated on putting it in the room also but I'll leave it where it is. I have to be able to grab one on my way out if I here the dog after something that's after the animals at night and that's more than a few times a week.

[WeldonHunter]

Ok last update for today. No pictures. I have before pictures for the next one but I'm waiting until tomorrow to post the before and after all at once. I cleaned one of the round receiver 91/30s and it's a tried looking gun. Both of the rounds came from TGI appears. This one is a 1942 Izhevsk with all matching numbers. It's got the clip on escutcheons where the sling goes through the stock and the one on the butt plate is missing unless they didn't have them there. The other round is a 1938 and is also all matching numbers. That one looks to be in a little better shape. I'll list more details about the one I cleaned when I post the pictures and I will be posting 2 tomorrow. The other one is the other M44 and it looks nice from what I can see. It's 1944 Izhevsk with what looks like a matching barrel and bolt, force matched floor plate and possibly force match butt plate. It's counter bored and what I can see through the grease has a fairly nice bore but it may be tired. I'll know more once it's cleaned. That leaves only one other gun and that's the other 91/30 hex. I took a quick look at it and it's a 1932 Tula. Looks nice. That's as much as I can say because I put it back before I went any further. That'll be the last one to clean.

[desdem12]

The 42 has a war time stock on it and did not have an escutchen on the but and just a liner in the front one. That is the correct stock for it so not missin anything. Can't wait for the pics

[WeldonHunter]

The 42 has a war time stock on it and did not have an escutchen on the but and just a liner in the front one. That is the correct stock for it so not missin anything. Can't wait for the pics

Oh cool. I just noticed the same thing on the M44 that's next up for cleaning as well as the Polish M44 I have. I know I'm going to forget stuff that I find. Like that round receiver has lots of paint on it too. That and the stock has a place where your thumb goes while you're holding it to fire that's been carved out slightly. I don't know if it's done for better grip by someone or if there was damage to the stock and it was corrected by just cutting the damage out at the arsenal. It's not real deep. Maybe an 1/8 of an inch but it's about an inch or so in length. I'll take pictures of that tomorrow too.

[WeldonHunter]

OK here's the next one. It's an M91/30 1942 Izhevsk round receiver with a war time stock. Thanks to Desdem12 I now know that. I thought it was just missing the escutcheon in the butt stock. It's a well used rifle. All matching numbers with what appears a few forced numbers. I'm not sure and you all can look at the pictures and hopefully help me decide about that. That is if the pictures are clear enough. This camera is real hard to get clear pictures with. It's a small Casio that has self focus and if I turn it off there doesn't appear to be a focus feature manualy so I have to try over and over to get the pictures right.

That said it's got the Russian black paint on a lot of places. I noticed the stock has a place that's been ground down. It's on the underside of the front part of the stock on the left side under the rear sight. I just took a few more pictures of it and they'll be included. The bore is pitted from what I can see. I ran a few patches through it soaked in BreakFree CLP and some brass brushes, then more patches. It still looks dark and pitted. I'll have to do a better cleaning job later but I may do that after shooting it. One other thing I noticed. When I put this gun in the gun rack above the Hex I just cleaned it looks like the Hex is about an inch longer than the round receiver gun starting somewhere in the middle of the gun. Just an observation I'm sure you guys know all about. The importer Tag on this is from TGI. I didn't put the Bayonet on this one for picutres because I test fitted it and it almost got stuck so I stopped.


Before cleaning.











After cleaning.


























These are pictures of the place on the stock that looks to have been ground down.

[ponycarman]

Very nice! I love the dark wood.

Perhaps the soldier who carried the rifle had small hands or something and did the work on the stock to get a better grab on it? I don't know but that makes it unique.

Sent from my LS670 using Tapatalk

[firefighter5765]

Now there are some very nice guns...good job on them and on the pics too. I never realized there were so many marks on these guns that mean something. Can't wait to get a few more of them and have a little fun. Going for a sniper rifle next, going to try and find one in a crate of regular ones first but if that doesn't work I found a place that has them complete with newer scope from the Tula armory for 399.00 plus shipping and tranfer fee. Is that a good deal, if not any suggestions?

[sclinesr]

[MN Fan]

The groove may not be an rare identification mark, but it would make the rifle very special to me. Some where, for some reason some time ago, someone ground that groove into the stock. That's pretty amazing.

Congrats Weldon...gorgeous rifles!

[desdem12]

Sweet love a 42 wearing the right stock. She's got some character.

[cyknight]

[WeldonHunter]

Thanks guys. I'm having a blast doing this. I have to admit I'm not doing a super, take them all the way apart, cleaning. I'm wiping the heavy stuff off of them and leaving it for now. I'm cleaning them enough to see what I have and so they don't get to much of the grease on stuff in the house and hanging them until I can shoot them. I figure leaving some of the grease on them isn't going to hurt because it's helped them stay in the shape they're in now. This gun does have charactor. The bore is tired and pitted and my biggest brass cleaning brush went through it fairly easy so I'm interesed in seeing how this one shoots.
I just finished cleaning the other M44 and it's a nice one. It's counter bored but the bore is fairly clean and shiney from what I've seen. The bore brushes went through with resistance and it cleaned up nice. It's a 1944 Izhevsk with matching numbers. The bolt might be forced but I know for sure the floorplate is forced and the butt plate and bolt may also be forced after grinding the old numbers down. All off these so far except the other M44 are stamped serial numbers even the forced numbers. That one M44 has some stensil pen forced numbers. No more pictures tonight. Ran out of sun light. I'm starting on the next round receiver. It's a 1938 Izhevsk with what appears to be all matching original numbers. No lined out numbers and the stamping looks to be consistant and maybe not ground down and restamped. If so it will be my first and only matching Mosin Nagant. So far I've only found one long muzzle protector in the tool kits and that one was with the M44 I just cleaned. Maybe there's another one in one of the other 2 kits. This is like a treasure hunt. I highly recomend it if you can swing it.

[bunkysdad]

maybe the stock had some damage from a bullet or shrapnal, or perhads bashed in a enemy soldiers pot helmet. Maybe the armorer smoothed it out the best he could, or maybe he drank too much vodka and dropped it against the table. We'll never know. nice rifle, the dark red is nice.

[Fred_G]

Nice looking guns. Congrats on the score! I feel like a slacker only owning won Mosin...

Love your ammo can 'work bench'.

Thanks for posting the photos.