NGD - Another day, another gun... 91/30 Izhevsk Mosin Nagant

[Razor]

Wife let me order a M91/30 Mosin a couple of weeks ago for my birthday. I ordered this one from Bud's Guns. I was kind of skeptical from ordering from Bud's as their reviews can get pretty bad, but at $155.47 shipped I was willing to take a chance. I had been wanting a chance to use my C&R, and it was a perfect opportunity.

I requested a Tula if at all possible in the notes, but since they don't offer a hand select I knew it would be a long shot. When the box arrived I opened it up knowing there wouldn't be a Tula, but I was surprised to find an all matching red letter 1943 Izhevsk. This one has one of the best bores I've seen on a Mosin. I didn't even have to run the JB's Bore Bright through it. Nice and shiny with strong lands and grooves. Muzzle wear is excellent, and it wasn't counter bored. There wasn't a lot of cosmoline in it, except for the chamber and the bolt which didn't take too long to clean up. Wood is in real nice condition, headspace is excellent, and the firing pin protrusion was dead on out of the box too. It also came with a takedown tool, oiler can, cleaning jags, non-matching red letter bayonet, and cleaning rod guide cap.

I know consensus is that there's nothing that makes a red letter overly special, but since this was one of the first ones I had seen I'm real happy with it. I can't wait for Spring to come so I can get to the range with this one!

[bombtek]

Edited to say, I REALLY like mosin's...that's a nice gun you got there :-)

[straycat]

Bud's is local to me so I have dealt with them a lot.
Bud Wells sold his store to a local banker and its called The Gun Whse now and those guys are dicks.Its called Bud's gun shop/The Gun Whse.
So they bought the name for the most part.
I do believe if you buy online its actually coming from Bud Wells himself because he owns the online business and he is a great guy to deal with.
You got a nice one right there and the hex receiver is a plus to a collector.

[xenophobe]

Check all the parts and see if they're marked Izhmash as well. Most of these were rearsenaled at least once, some several times and matching guns can still have a mix/match of parts. I had an original finish that I reluctanly sold a long while ago. I got $450 for it so I didn't mind seeing it go that badly! lol

Love shooting Mosins... they're a lot of fun!

[straycat]

Very hearty guns and very accurate at long distance.
Old milsurp guns are fun.

[Razor]

Check all the parts and see if they're marked Izhmash as well. Most of these were rearsenaled at least once, some several times and matching guns can still have a mix/match of parts. I had an original finish that I reluctanly sold a long while ago. I got $450 for it so I didn't mind seeing it go that badly! lol

Love shooting Mosins... they're a lot of fun!

Yep, everything I looked at was stamped Izhevsk: bolt, barrel bands, bayonet, etc... I have a Finn M27 and a Izhevsk M44 among my other Milsurps and they are a hoot to shoot also. I've thought a few times about selling the Finn M27, but can't bring myself to do it because I had a Finn capture Westinghouse Mosin that a I sold a couple of years ago, and I've regretted selling it more than a few times. I doubled my money on it, but I reget letting it go because of all the history it had from World War I through the Winter War to now.

[WRC]

NICE!! I picked one up quite a while back when they were $50..
Gotta love the 7.62x54

[xenophobe]

Yep, everything I looked at was stamped Izhevsk: bolt, barrel bands, bayonet, etc... I have a Finn M27 and a Izhevsk M44 among my other Milsurps and they are a hoot to shoot also. I've thought a few times about selling the Finn M27, but can't bring myself to do it because I had a Finn capture Westinghouse Mosin that a I sold a couple of years ago, and I've regretted selling it more than a few times. I doubled my money on it, but I reget letting it go because of all the history it had from World War I through the Winter War to now.

Ah, then yours was actually reasenaled or freshly built at the factory. I didn't see any rework stampings. Box with a line through it.

The US built Mosins are rare and collectible, but weren't really all that great. A whole bunch of them didn't get inspector approval. But they're really neat.

Yeah, I miss my Mosins. My original finish Izhevsk 91/30 had the most gorgeous bluing and factory original laminated stock... those were usually added as replacements, but you can't fake that original Mosin bluing. My pride and joy was an East German marked M44, which I actually got out of a $100 box from Century if I remember correctly.

[Razor]

Ah, then yours was actually reasenaled or freshly built at the factory. I didn't see any rework stampings. Box with a line through it.

Yeah, it has several rearsenal marks on it. They're hard to see on the receiver, and there's a nice one on the stock too. I'm sure it's been scrubbed and restamped, but I was happy there weren't any lineouts.

[xenophobe]

It's really hard to say. Many of the Russian guns were reworked by Eastern Bloc countries, but those will usually show the inspector markings and may not necessarily have rework marks. They did rework a bunch of them relatively recently. They also built a bunch of new guns on old parts, those would most likely not have any arsenal rework markings... the best parts went to the snipers and the highwalls. They have all the correct markings but are new. From what I understand a bunch of parts were found in the white and they reworked some batches with those as well. They had tons of left over parts with no idea what to do with them until they saw Americans buying the stuff. lol

All in all, can't really go wrong. Excellent cartridge and I love the carbines. They're little cannons.

[bombtek]

Completely off subject, but have any of you tried out that blue wonder cold bluing kit? I just did a ww2 star model b 9mm that looked beat to shit. More white metal than original bluing left on it. Sanded it 400/1000/2000 grit paper with the supplied gun cleaning gel used as a wet sand. Then followed the directions....HOLY SHIT ....it looks like a brand new gun!!!

[Razor]

Completely off subject, but have any of you tried out that blue wonder cold bluing kit? I just did a ww2 star model b 9mm that looked beat to shit. More white metal than original bluing left on it. Sanded it 400/1000/2000 grit paper with the supplied gun cleaning gel used as a wet sand. Then followed the directions....HOLY SHIT ....it looks like a brand new gun!!!

I've tried my hand at rust bluing, and I was amazed at the results. I can't remember if I posted a thread about my Colt and Sistema when I did them. I'll have to look and see. I love tinkering with guns and being a armchair gunsmith. I just traded my Swede M96 Mauser for a M1 Garand barreled action. So that's my next project.

[bombtek]

How long did that take? I have to imagine that it took a while

[Razor]

How long did that take? I have to imagine that it took a while

A couple of evenings after work until from say 7pm to 1am, and then one full Saturday. It wasn't bad at all. I used Mark Lee Express Blue, and it worked great. I would do it again in a heartbeat. I still have plenty left, and have used it to touch up barrels that have been recrowned. The longest process hands down was carding (polishing) all the parts after they came out of the oxidation process.

http://www.brownells.com/gunsmith-tools-supplies/metal-prep-coloring/metal-bluing/specialty-bluing-chemicals/express-blue-1-prod8795.aspx

Here's a link to the thread that inspired me and a lot of others. It's a long thread, but it's very good reading for sure!

http://forums.1911forum.com/showthread.php?t=382492