Your Call, This Time

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A little backwards history lesson for you all.

This time, I'll provide the pics, you provide the details. [smile]


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hmm, it started its life as Tula, but stock is odd, the sling mounts look pretty crude. The stamp on metal buttstock is Izzy bow and arrow. Also bayonet mount is very interesting. I don't know which bayonet this would support, but likely it would be the key to figure out what happened to this one.
 
hmm, it started its life as Tula, but stock is odd, the sling mounts look pretty crude. The stamp on metal buttstock is Izzy bow and arrow. Also bayonet mount is very interesting. I don't know which bayonet this would support, but likely it would be the key to figure out what happened to this one.

...starting down the right path.

[wink]
 
Looks like an early Mauser H band. Instead of the bayonet lug being pinned to the stock and the H-band slid over it, it was attached by screwing directly through the band spring mounting hole, through the bayonet lug, and into the stock. Not another 8mm conversion is it?

The bolt head might give further evidence.

T
 
Looks like an early Mauser H band. Instead of the bayonet lug being pinned to the stock and the H-band slid over it, it was attached by screwing directly through the band spring mounting hole, through the bayonet lug, and into the stock. Not another 8mm conversion is it?

The bolt head might give further evidence.

T

Narrowing it down!

Still chambered in 7.62X54R
 
Finns used quite a few Mosins as well as 54r rounds extensively, however I don't see any Finn marks.

Because it is still in 54r but made for non Soviet/Russian bayo, I'd guess that this was made to be carried by a non-Soviet/Russian soldier, not Finn (Finns stamped everything if it was going through their arsenal, plus their work is always top notch, never this crude), someone who would be issued Mauser bayo. May be Austro-Hungary? It's old enough to take part in WWI.

Because the "re-arsenaling' is somewhat crude and I don't see some give away marks on it, I wander if this was done as a fix by a second tier army or volunteers, guards. During WWII a lot of weapons were captured and some were re-arsenaled to use German ammo or adopted as is. Typically those were not issued to regular troops but to secondary units or local volunteers. Even units who took Nazi's side. This would be very plausible, but I don't know how to either prove or disprove that.

Also, just noticed, the year came from 191. to 1916 so right around the end of WWI for Russia. It's got to be a capture by some army.
 
someone who would be issued Mauser bayo. May be Austro-Hungary? It's old enough to take part in WWI.

Also, just noticed, the year came from 191. to 1916 so right around the end of WWI for Russia. It's got to be a capture by some army.

Getting closer to solving the mystery!



Because the "re-arsenaling' is somewhat crude and I don't see some give away marks on it, I wander if this was done as a fix by a second tier army or volunteers, guards.

It was rearsenaled again, some years after WWI, but long before WWII. Enough evidence to know where, too.

[grin]

You are on the right track!
 
OK, I'll take another stab.

One of my thoughts was Turks, they captured some from fighting Russians and also Germany supplied a lot of them as military aid to Turkey. Some were bored to Mauser, but some were not. The problem is that there should be crescents or other markings in (Farsi?), like on the distance, which is clearly shown to have arabic numerals.

So now, the other major combatant in WWI was Bulgaria and I'm sure that some Mosins from German captures went down that way. Bulgarians use Cyrillic alphabet. Also, another guess is Greece, although they were on allies list, may be it was captured by Greeks from Bulgarians?
 
M is Austrian arsenal, so may be captured by Austrians, but I can't make out any other markings. There is Pi and F, which are Cyrillic, but it's not Bulgarian.

any more hints, may be which photo to look at more closely?
 
Sling loops look like
Russian slots w/
Austro-Hungarian wire hangers


It's hard to tell but is it made to not have a up hand guard ? It's hard to tell from the two pics showing the rear band if it's tight or lose.
 
I don't see anything on the receiver, proof mark, serial with P on the end. The furniture and back I see Z(N), M and B. Also C after the serial on the buttstock. I'm lost.
 


Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Winner!



Necessity is the mother of invention.
~English Proveb

I used the cliche in order to fend off the inevitable hybrid words which were sure to follow:

1. Mausin
2. Moser

In other words, the desperate lack of firearms on all sides of The Great War spawned some crazy crossbred weapons. I was fortunate enough to acquire one of them in a recent private sale. This rarely encountered H-band conversion of a 1914/6 Peter The Great Tula M91 likely saw possession by both the Russians and Germans (Austrians?), before making its way to the Balkan Region, and finally to the U.S.

I could never hope to attain the literary eloquence of John P. Sheehan, nor the intensity of his research and specimen study abilities, so a link to his article on WWI Bayonet Adaptions Of Captured Model 1891 Three-Line-Rifles is appropriate here:

http://mosinnagant.net/USSR/JPS-bayonet-one.asp

While JPS masterfully covers the topic in depth, I will only add that my specimen does not exhibit any well known German or Austrian depot stamps. But it does have what appear to be a B-stamp on the left buttstock, a Z-stamp just forward of the top buttplate tang, a depot/rack/unit (?) number of 105677 G. on the right buttstock, a minute M-stamp on top or the buttplate tang, a reassigned year from 1914 to 1916, and a small number 65 on the top of the receiver tang. The ersatz sling hangers will forever keep the bottom stamp of the receiver tang a mystery.

Following its double duty on the front lines with Russia and as a second line firearm with the Central Powers in WWI, the M91 shows evidence of subsequent travel to a country such as Romania. It has had its barrel serial number lined out, with a new one applied. The bolt, mag plate and buttplate were force matched to this new number. It received a wedge to buttress the rear sight spring. However, the usually scrubbed Imperial Romanov Eagles do remain intact.

And lastly, some sloppy application of white paint made several runs down the upright standing buttstock before it dried. It isn't very natural looking on an M91, but its yellowing coat tells me it has been there for at least a decade or two, so it remains.

Chambered in 7.62X54R. No Imperial German Gewehr or ersatz bayonets to fit, so that point is still a mystery.

Fewer than two dozen have been documented.
 
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