bought a 91/30 now i have questions

[brian falcone]

new member here. after owning only shotguns and .22 rifles my entire life my son convinced me to buy a mosin nagant. problem was i couldnt find any around here. eventually a beat up type 53 carbine showed up at a local dealer so it bought it along with two crates of ammo. picked up a used stock at a gun show in NH. and swapped them out as this one is much better. but then last month i went to another local dealer and he had 6 crates of 20 surplus 91/30 hex receivers packed in cosmoline with cleaning kit and slings. while looking through through the one crate they had open i noticed some had brass hand guard caps and others did not. while some had silver or chrome cleaning rods and others were black. the rifles looked to be in nice condition with no corrosion marks on the bores and the stocks were in very nice shape almost as if they were never used. . went back a week later and all the brass capped ones were gone but the salesman claimed they all were brass just some were painted. so i bit the bullet and bought the lightest colored , nicest condition one out of the remaining 10 or so in the crate. the bore is absolutely spotless.the bolt is in very nice shape with no pitting anywhere. its stamped 1927 on the receiver and from what i read about the markings its a tula . it also has a silver cleaning rod . but the end caps are steel not brass. also when i took it apart to clean the grease off i noticed touch up paint in areas where the barrel meets the stock. the numbers all match including the bayonet . i was told a lot of the mosins were refurbished and repacked in the 50s . any way to tell if it was refurbished? are the hex receivers more valuable? if it was refurbished what was the process they used ? thanks for any info. looking forward to being part of the forum brian
p.s. ill try and get some pictures

[SA1911a1]

It was refurbished, the Hex rifles do bring a small premium. and the '27 date is pretty spiffy. The Soviets used brass and steel hardware on the hand-guards, there is not major importance in which ever you get. There is nothing unusual about the black touch-up paint. The cleaning rod is probably just "in the white" (unblued). You have a nice, historic, rifle. Try not to be tempted to "improve" it. Keep in mind, that any changes to the way it came from the arsenal will drop the value of the rifle. With two crates of ammo you should be able to get that new bore, and your shoulder, well broken in.

Do bring on the pics. We love gun porn.

[brian falcone]

will do. im not changing anything on the 91 30. the chinese carbine had a stock that was just beat to hell. i kept the stock but swapped it out with a european stock which i stripped and stained black.

[brian falcone]

carbine.jpg

[brian falcone]

ammo.jpg

nagant.jpg

nagant 2.jpg

[Junk Yard Dog]

Go back and get more cases of ammo, that's the Czech silver tip, excellent ammo and an older ammo import. I was buying that stuff by the five case lot almost ten years back. It's lacquer coated steel case, you must be sure to clean that chamber very well after using it or the rounds can start to stick due to lacquer transfer to the chamber walls and heat. The rifle is a post WW2 Soviet refurb from the Ukrainian hoard. These were imported in huge numbers from the late 90's to very recently, you should see if the dealer will sell you one of the 20 round crates, these are collectable and becoming more expensive now when you can get them.

[brian falcone]

Thought about asking the price on a full crate. Be tough to hide it from my better half though . Y father wants to go down there tomorrow and see if they opened another crate . He wants one as well.

[brian falcone]

Thanks for the info.I haven't fired any of the surplus ammo yet. Still have about 250 rounds of Tula that I picked up at Wal-Mart ...got Into the habit of buying two boxes every friday.

[Longcolt44]

Just remember the surplus is corrosive and the Tula is not, clean appropriately.

[Junk Yard Dog]

I was thinking more the empty crate once the dealer sells all the rifle out of it, but your idea of buying a full crate is good also

[brian falcone]

ok. went back tonite and the crate of nice hex receivers is sold out . the newest crate has a bunch of round 91/30s with both brass and steel tips and these are in rougher condition .lots of pitting and repairs on the stocks. some of the rifles had a small ridge line or point running along the top of the reciever. and theres rough tooling marks on several of them.all had matching numbers on the parts and the cosmoline is much thicker and darker on this batch ...these are priced 70 bucks less than the nice hex ones from last week.the years ranged from 1921 to 1944 i believe. these looked well used . i asked about the empty crates and they sell them for 95 bucks each but all 6 are already spoken for. i think im going to go back and pick out a brass capped version with the ridge on top. looked different and im convinced theres no harm in owning another one.

[thughes]

i think im going to go back and pick out a brass capped version with the ridge on top. looked different and im convinced theres no harm in owning another one.

Heh heh....and so it starts.

[Junk Yard Dog]

The rifles are wartime built, they have that rough look because the wolf was literally at the door and the Soviets needed arms right now. They were sending men into battle with nothing but what the Lord gave them in their hands against German machine guns and tanks. Final finishing, something that does nothing for the actual working of the rifle, was dispensed with in favor of speed. Nothing like the so called " last ditch" Japanese Arisakas made after 1944, they can be unsafe, Tula and Izhevsk made the rifles correctly, they just didn't pretty them up before sending them out. The Germans turned out some slightly rough rifles also by the end, but of all the wartime built rifles from any combatant, US built rifles maintained high standards of fit and finish from beginning to end.

[Fledge]

i think im going to go back and pick out a brass capped version with the ridge on top. looked different and im convinced theres no harm in owning another one.

Heh heh....and so it starts.

Someones developing an addiction. Intervention anyone? NAH!

[steelbuttplate]

Anything 91/30 from 1921 to '36 should be hex. The ones with chrome rods, look for finger joint stocks and SA stamps on the receiver, they are Finnish.

[bunkysdad]

There is a slim chance that you'll find a Finnish Mosin from the crates although it has been seen. The rough finished metal on the receivers of the 42 and 43 date rifles in my opinion are well worth having in any collection. At first glance maybe they seem less desirable but as you learn the history and the timeline of when these were made you'll have a new appreciation for them. These are going up rapidly in price. Keeping them original (as refurbed) will maintain that increasing value. Now staining a stock black, that is another story entirely. That is a good way to reduce a rifle to garage sale value.

[redeuce]

'27 was a great start. I have one and love the five line markings. Nice.

[brian falcone]

i still have the original beat up stock for the type 53. the one i stained was a finnish stock i found at a gun show for 25 bucks. i can allways change it back if desired. the old stock had a really bad repair done with nails on the butt end of the stock. the hex 91/30 i will not change. the more i look at it the more im surprised at how nice of a condition its in. the rough ones are appealing to me. going to go back this week and look again.

[Junk Yard Dog]

Nails, I have seen that on some of the Romanian used Mosins. Communism failed badly in Romania, the government of Nicolae Ceaușescu, dictatorship actually, was perpetualy short of money. That's what you start seeing very crude repairs to military equipment, some of it was Soviet aid passed down from more prosperous Iron curtain countries. They used it hard. When funds were available the Romanians made a very nice M44, better fit and finish that the Soviet models, but they didn't make many of them.

[brian falcone]

Took the 91/30 and the t53 out to the gravel pit and between the two put about a hundred rounds through them the new one has a much smoother action than the Chinese carbine. but the latter is more accurate.much louder too. I really like these rifles. Its too bad I didnt know about them when they were priced lower but im happy with them even though I know I paid a high price for them.