Found a Hungarian M52 sniper - worth buying?

[7x57]

Gentlemen, while I'm well aware that genuine Hungarian M52 snipers aren't found every day, especially with a genuine Hungarian scope and mount, on the other hand the one I've found for sale recently is a real mix of at least two Hungarian rifles plus some Soviet parts and thus a total mis-match. Original Hungarian sort of refurb or an (admittedly) nicely made "faked" sniper? So I'm rather unsure - worth buying it or not and what' would be a fair price?

As said - there are mixed two Hungarian rifles - bolt and stock with buttplate coming from a true BC-prefixed sniper, while barrel and magazine are from an early BF series rifle. The strangest part is the receiver, which is stamped "Sz1" on the underside of the tang instead of "02" and a year- so probably no Hungarian part at all and for sure no Soviet part (Polish?, Romanian?). As evidenced by an imprint in the stock's wood, there was originally sitting a "02" and "1953" marked receiver in the stock.

Some smaller parts (sights, cleaning rod) are obviously Soviet parts - rear sight base is Ishevsk-marked, cleaning rod has the Tula star.

Gentlemen, what do you think about this rifle?

See here the pictures:

Hungarian_M52 003.jpg

Hungarian_M52 007.jpg

Hungarian_M52 008.jpg

Hungarian_M52 009.jpg

Hungarian_M52 012.jpg

Hungarian_M52 013.jpg

Hungarian_M52 016.jpg

Hungarian_M52 018.jpg

Hungarian_M52 019.jpg

[7x57]

Some more pictures:

Hungarian_M52 021.jpg

Hungarian_M52 022.jpg

Hungarian_M52 024.jpg

Hungarian_M52 033.jpg

Hungarian_M52 034.jpg

Hungarian_M52 040.jpg

Hungarian_M52 041.jpg

Hungarian_M52 043.jpg

[Junk Yard Dog]

That stock looks Soviet all right, over here M52's made their way into the country in the kits of soldiers returning from Vietnam during our involvement there. Seems the Hungarians helped out their North Vietnamese socialist brothers by selling them a big pile of M52 snipers, it was a prized trophy. Our market has very few of these rifles, far to few to fake, and no supply of Hungarian PU specific parts or Hungarian 91/30's, the EU market would be more likely to have such parts available. This is a question I would expect if the rifle in question was a Soviet model, they are faked over here with wild abandon, every other one you find is likely a fake, the only PU I would trust to be real without having the seller chained to a tree out back while I examined every inch of the rifle would be a M52. I suspect you will have to get in contact with whoever collects PU's In Germany to find out how bad the fake PU situation is in regards to M52's ,Karl-Heinze Wrobel author of Drei Linien Die Gewehre Mosin-Nagant might be able to help if you can contact him. Being in Germany you have a pipeline to Hungary and the other former communist block country's that here in the US we don't have, over here Hungarian PU's are rare and very expensive.

[7x57]

Thanks, JYD. Yes, it would be nice to contact KH Wrobel, but regrettably he doesn't seem to be willing to answer any requests. Already tried it repeatedly in the past, but in vain - never got a reply.

BTW - the sniper pictured above has its serial number 5008 (minus the prefix letters) also stamped into the stock wood under the buttplate. This is the first Hungarian Mosin-Nagant I have found with this feature - and I already did thoroughly inspect more than a handful of them.

[Miller Tyme]

There have been a couple of Hungarian M48's that have shown up mixed in crates of Russian refurbs so a sniper wouldn't be a stretch. Now how the Russians got them, well they could have been pick ups during the 56 uprising and the Russians just kept them, or it could be when MN rifles became obsolete to the Hungarian Army these got mixed into the rifles that they shipped back to the Russians.

Either way it is a cool oddity

[Junk Yard Dog]

Too bad, he was helpful to me in the past with some of my rifles, he contributed to the old board years ago, but dropped out. Maybe he has had enough of boards, or is busy on the next volume of his Mosin books.

[martin08]

To my knowledge, all original Hungarian M52 snipers have a barrel prefix code of BC.

If I were presented with a BF prefix in sniper configuration, I would consider it as a post-arsenal built gun.

[Miller Tyme]

To my knowledge, all original Hungarian M52 snipers have a barrel prefix code of BC.

If I were presented with a BF prefix in sniper configuration, I would consider it as a post-arsenal built gun.

There is a 1950 M52 post recently on Gunboards with a BG prefix.

http://forums.gunboards.com/showthread. ... ian+sniper

[7x57]

Very interesting, this "BG" prefixed sniper. And it obviously came from Germany. I asked the OP over there for some additional information (same serial numbers on barrel shank and bolt, buttplate, magazine floorplate or a mix like on the one I found). If this "BG" also turns out to be a "mix", I'd guess that the Hungarians arsenal-rebuilt M52s with worn-out or otherwise damaged barrels by replacing them with ones from very early production runs (BF and BG are so far the earliest known prefix letters) - maybe because these early rifles were obviously built on high-wall receivers. All later M48s (out of the Cx and Dx prefix ranges) I've seen so far had low-wall receivers.

[NLMosin]

As an FYI on the 'fair price' part of the OP....

Here is one that sold recently. Bought by and on-site bidder. I bid 800 but with the 20.5% fee plus shipping I had to stop. It went for $850. If you look at the pic it is a BC.

hungsnipe1.jpg

[martin08]

As an FYI on the 'fair price' part of the OP....

Here is one that sold recently. Bought by and on-site bidder. I bid 800 but with the 20.5% fee plus shipping I had to stop. It went for $850. If you look at the pic it is a BC.

hungsnipe1.jpg

That one had a mismatched bolt.

[7x57]

Thanks for all replies. In the meantime I got some additional information from the owner of that "BG" prefixed sniper mentioned above and it is also a "mix" like mine. This and some information about a third "mixed" M52 I've received in the last days makes it very reasonable to assume that these rifles are indeed Hungarian arsenal rebuilds of worn-out/damaged snipers, as I guessed earlier. I also got the information that Hungary started producing low-wall receivers only in 1951 (i.e. about from prefix "BI" onwards). So it is only logical that they used barrelled actions out of the first three production lots ("BF", "BG" and "BH") for these rebuilds due to their high-wall receivers. The three M52 rebuilds I've got knowledge of so far are made of two "BF" and one "BG" rifles.

[NLMosin]

As an FYI on the 'fair price' part of the OP....

Here is one that sold recently. Bought by and on-site bidder. I bid 800 but with the 20.5% fee plus shipping I had to stop. It went for $850. If you look at the pic it is a BC.

hungsnipe1.jpg

That one had a mismatched bolt.

I was very tempted anyway seeing as in my circles....tiny circles....I've never seen one up for sale. They were putting it in the 800-1200 range if I remember correctly. The mismatch must be what kept it on the bottom of the range. If I had scratched a $2 lottery ticket that week and won a grand I would have bought it...my fiance won $12,000 at the casino and my mind went racing. After taxes she took the money and bought a sleep number bed.... ...now I sleep better but dreaming about what I would have bought and actually buying two very different things...

[ptamony]

any idea what the Sz1 on the receiver tang mean? mine has the same and 1950 barrel

[7x57]

any idea what the Sz1 on the receiver tang mean? mine has the same and 1950 barrel

Sorry, no idea so far. Already asked people more knowledgable than I, but also no explanation - except that they also had seen such stampings, either "Sz1" or plain "Sz". And this only seems to show up with very early Hungarian Mosin-Nagants (i.e. from 1950).

[ptamony]

was shooting mine in the heavy rain on Saturday and it was happy knocking down the figure 11 target out at 600 yards, with the S&B 174gr bullets. It seems to shoot as well as my Polish rework Izhevsk PU Mosin.
Paul