Interesting laminated 91/30

[Redbear]

I drove up to AIM SURPLUS today and asked to see a Laminated 91/30. The rifle they brought to me looked beautiful, but everything was EP'd matching, not stamped. I asked him if he had any that were all stamped matching, he said "No, they are all EP'd". I was very discouraged, and almost gave it back when I pulled the bolt back and saw these;







I was fairly sure these plugged holes in the receiver are the holes from a former scope mount. I checked the left side of the receiver, and found this;



I'm 99% sure this is an ex-sniper rifle in a laminated stock! After looking at those I looked up at the man and said "I'll take it!"

Is this a former sniper? did I do good for my $133 OTD?
Picture of the whole rifle here;
http://venus.walagata.com/w/dinasty/rifle.gif

The ammo/tool pouch was also very strange... it was all black leather, with black pebblegrain outers instead of the brown pebblegrain stuff. The oil and solvent bottle had caps that had a rubber stopper in one and a cardboard stopper in the other. I wonder which stopper should go on which side... I'm thinking the rubber is for the solvent, the cardboard for the oil... which side of the bottle is oil, and which is solvent? weird bottle. interesting assecories, at any rate. Thoughts, questions, comments, concerns?

[6526]

what year and arsenal? also, what does the outside of the rcvr look like around those plugs?

[Redbear]

This one is 100% matching, but it is all EP'd matching. Trigger pull is a little heavy, but is VERY smooth and crisp. has about 1/2" take up on it. very good for a single stage trigger! The bore is almost mint, but not quite... it was definately in use, as there are some signs of slight wear, but it is very very minute... it is still bright and shiney with sharp lands and grooves. It is a '43 Izhevsk. The outside of the reciever doesn't really show the plugs... there are some traces of lines that could possibly be the plugs, but it's hard to tell... I think the outside fo the reciever was polished and then reblued when it was rearsenaled, as the wartime produced guns are usually very rough, yet this one has a smooth round reciever.

[WolfsburgBob]

Take it back.

No,...You are getting sleepy,.....very SLEEPY!

SEND IT TO ME,...SEND IT TO ME!

[6526]

Maybe it's an ex sniper that lost its ability to group tight and was re arsenaled and demoted to standard grade. To my understanding, they chose their snipers from stock rifles that grouped well from a rest, then out fitted them with the down turned bolt and scope. It could be that yours didn't make the "second cut", or "drifted" later on. With a constant source of potential snipers, it would be more feasable to plug the holes sooner or later, than to rebarrel. Anybody else ever heard of a rifle like this?

[Hoss]

Yes, its an ex-sniper. For more information, I'd suggest visiting www.mosinnagant.net

[Redbear]

Well, it isn;t because it groups poorly... It was shooting 3" groups at 100 yards for me, and that's good as I have all that powdered glass imbedded in my eye fromt he car accident, I very rarely can shoot that well... it was shooting low though, I think I need to file the sight down just a hair. Many snipers were de-commed after the war becuse they just plain didn;t need that many anymore.