The Russian Mosin Nagant Forum

Hi everyone,
I currently own an 1944 Izhevsk PU Sniper for 18 years and I would like to have your analysis.
I'm curious to know if it's real refurbishment sniper or not (60s).
The rifle arrived in Italy in the 90s.
I will add more photos.
Paolo

I add more photos

last photo

Its a legit refurb 44 Izhevsk PU sniper. The scope is a replacement as the original scope number has been ground off. Rvidence of this is in the pics of the reciever lip where the left side of the barrel meets up. Not real common to see these not restamped gor the new scope number, but not rare either

Grinding Mark's inside circles area

Very similar to mine which is also a '44 Izhevsk with a scrubbed scope serial number that hasn't been restamped but has a faint "4" still visible.Your rifle also has the same "WF" stamp on the barrel shank near the receiver, this is the mark of the German firearms import/export company called Waffen Frankonia.The small stamp to the left on my receiver is a British nitro proofmark I believe.

German proof marks on both yours and mine show they were proofed for Nitro in Mellrichszadt, Germany, these marks were used between 1968 and 1992.



It also looks as though your stock has been refinished post Soviet refurb as it looks as though there is finish on the scope mount cut out edges, I think these were left unfinished by the Russians.

Thank you very much for your informations.

I wonder if our rifles were from the same batch imported into German by Waffen Frankonia?, apparently the previous owner of mine had it for nearly 30 years so the timeframe isn't far off.

Good question, I do not know exactly which year has arrived in Italy. I remember that the old owner said he got it from German importer, he filled out an order form where he could choose between 3 conditions of conservation state.
There was no catalog with photos, you could not choose which rifle! He chose only the best condition on the order form.
I remember he talked about the Berlin Wall, so I can speculate that it arrived in Italy between 1990 and 1991.
I bought it in 2001.
I remember well that he told me all this information but I was young and I did not dare to ask copies of the documents. I will try to contact him.

How hard is it to get guns in Italy?

Obviously the Italian State controls very well every person who requires permission to detain weapons. Once you get the license to buy and use the weapons, for weapons of new generation, no problem to find (absolutely no automatic weapons). The difficulty for ex ordnance weapons is to find the right piece! Collectors are there and in the past years many beautiful weapons entered in Italy. As always, studying (is never enough), hunting the piece, buying.
I recently bought this book ( Collecting the american sniper rifle 1945 to 2000) for the study of Garand M1D before buying.

paulinho wrote:Obviously the Italian State controls very well every person who requires permission to detain weapons. Once you get the license to buy and use the weapons, for weapons of new generation, no problem to find (absolutely no automatic weapons). The difficulty for ex ordnance weapons is to find the right piece! Collectors are there and in the past years many beautiful weapons entered in Italy. As always, studying (is never enough), hunting the piece, buying.
I recently bought this book ( Collecting the american sniper rifle 1945 to 2000) for the study of Garand M1D before buying.

Good luck with buying a legit M1D as they are easy to build since all you really need is a Barrel for a D since the mounting system is part of the barrel and there are no clear records of the s/n's they where produced in because they used recycled recievers. . The M1C and Mc1 are a lot harder to fake because of the work require to the reciever to afix the mount and they have a known s/n range.

Thats why I like the Springfield 03A4, virtually impossible to fake because of the positioning of the barrel shank model numbers and s/n.

This target is incredible! Would you be so kind to give me the rejection of ammunition?
thx

Hi wawa,
I sent you a PM