TODAY IS GLORIOUS DAY COMRADES! WE NOW HAVE GREAT VICTORY RIFLE!
Picked this up yesterday. I don't know why exactly, I passed that rack of Mosins many times and it didn't catch me. This time, it seems, was divine intervention. I got it with my limited knowledge of hex>round reciever and counterbore =bad. Other than that, I didn't know anything at all. Well, I got it home and started looking up what all the different stampings mean. Turns out it is a, updated dragoon made in 1928. No rust, stock is in good condition for any gun. Everything works as it should. Everything matches except the bayonet, even though the reciever was made in Tula and everything else was Izvehsk (sp?). I named it Natasha. Named after Natasha Fatale from the cartoon and uh...it was the only other female Russian name I could think of.
I don't see what the big deal was with cosmoline. It didn't seem that hard and was actually kind of fun, except taking the handguard off. The oil can on the other hand...It was - I'm being completely serious here - covered in at least 1/8" of cosmoline all around. As for the finish that was flaking off mentioned earlier, it turns out that when it was refurbed, all they did was spray some cheap black paint on the worn areas. It's not much of it, so not even worth going into detail. Before I started, I still didn't have any idea what the bore would look like because the muzzle was still gummed up. After I ran some patches, it looks like a great bore. No pitting at all on the lands and you can still see the rough machine work in the grooves. After cleaning, the magazine and bolt worked much better too.
This whole learing process involved has been really fun. It's amazing how much history is in these old "cheap-o beater guns."
pictures as promised:
