I was bored on Saturday, so a friend and I went up to Cabelas in Tulalip WA to see what these Molot's looked like and just check if there were any that called out to me. There were around 50 sitting out on the rack with lots of folks looking at them. Some just poking fun and the "beat up trash" and others being a bit more respectful of what the Mosin is. 90% of the ones there were Izhevsk '42 & '43 and they were in stocks of all kinds, pre, war and post war stocks. Condition of the stocks ranged from pristine to banged up and one was cracked horribly behind the trigger and a second crack from the cross bolt. I really don't think that one would have been safe to fire at all, the stock likely would have shattered. There was only one there that was intriguing though. It looked to be a '41 Tula but I couldn't guarantee the date stamp. The 194 was reasonably clear but the 1 at the end, I just couldn't be sure. It was in a post war stock. I know the '41 Tula is desirable and if I could have guaranteed that's what it was, it likely would have come home with me. So I didn't get anything that night but at least had an idea of what Cabelas was offering.
Went to the range with the family and some friends on Sunday and we all had a great time firing my '43. My "other" wife put us all to shame as she drilled 3 rounds all right on top of each other dead bang in the bullseye at 50 yards. I'm used to it, she's a fantastic shooter. After the range, we went south to the Cabelas in Lacey. They too had about 50 sitting on the shelf for me to take a look at. I went through each and every one of them as well. Most were similar to what I saw the night before, Izhevsk '42 & '43s. There were two that stood out to me though. There was a '31 Tula hex in a pre war stock. The bolt and barrel #'s matched but the mag floor plate and butt stock #'2 were struck through and re-stamped. I want a hex so that one was really tempting and honestly It's likely more desirable than the one I brought home. The one I did wind up getting was a Izhevsk '36 round receiver, sitting in a nice pre war stock. All numbers match, no strike through on them. The only one that I'm wondering about is the mag floor plate. It may have been scrubbed and re-stamped but I'm gonna hold of on claiming that until I can get it cleaned up. It has a pretty good amount of grease on it, so will take me a night or two to do. The barrel looks much nicer than my '43, very strong rifling, not counter bored, nice a bright. Has a few very small spots that are likely copper fouling, very few. We'll see what comes out on the patches tonight. There's one small dime sized spot of rust on the receiver but it's just surface rust. Should clean up just fine. While I know that it doesn't change the collectability etc, I really like the nice low serial number on this one..
With the Molot's being possibly less the collectors piece, this one will very likely be my "go to range" rifle. We'll see how peoples opinion on these goes over the next few years. Cabelas is selling a ton of them though. The sales lady writing me up said that they sold at least 15 on Sunday alone. They've got to have a ton more in the back then because the rack was completely full and some how after I bought mine, it was still full
Then bought it if it was a 41 
