Something odd about this Mosin Nagant besides the bubbarizing done on it.

[hang fire]

Several years ago I picked up a prebubbarized MN carbine with 20.25 inch barrel and chopped forearm. Not sure if the barrel was cut down too, it has a Lyman ramp front sight. Can find no import markings and neighbor I got it off of said he was working nights at a gas station in 1968 and traded ten gallons of gas for it. He said no one had made any changes to it since acquiring and he had never fired it. I have shot it some with cast boolits sized 314" and it is accurate.

The quality of the receiver machine work is very good and far beyond any Soviet work I have seen, smooth with hardly any machining marks, receiver internal is polished and blued. The Tula barrel has very little bluing left and is stamped on top with Tula star, SN and 1937. The receiver is stamped beneath tang with the Tula star and 37, which puts both barrel and action as mfg. in 1937. Just to the rear of the recoil lug it is boldly stamped, KH167, the trigger is stamped 6 on the left side and 1 on the right. Trigger pull is very light with crisp let off.

But what I find odd is the 21 different small symbols (research has revealed nothing about them) stamped beneath the barrel just forward of the receiver. Is it normal to find this much symbol stamping on a Mosin Nagant?

I suppose it could be a Vietnam bring back, but there is no provenance I recognize.

 

[RevDerb]

Have you been here http://7.62x54r.net/ ? The markings are generally referred to as cartouches and do have specific meanings. Enjoy your MN.

 

[hang fire]

Nada, not even in the meaning unknown marks shown there.

 

[Cosmoline]

I've seen a lot of those stamped mystery marks on Mosins. I don't think anyone knows exactly what, if anything, they stand for. But I can tell you that Tula 37's were top quality product. It was an old and proud arsenal going back centuries, and continued those traditions in spite of the change in governments. The wartime dropoff in finishing details you see is in large part because the Germans had pushed up right next to Tula itself, and production had to be shifted east of the Urals.

The "KH" sounds a little more unusual. Any photo of it possible?

 

[hang fire]

Will get some pics.

 

[hang fire]

Pics are not he best.

 

[Shadow 7D]

Most likely, if you got it in the 60's, it was pre-import marking, as I thing that came in with CGA??

If it was in the 60's and from russian, then most like it it come one of 3 ways, Finland, and my be one of their models, you can check for Fin markings, as they used many of the 91/30 as they were until they had time and resources to re-arsenal them,

the Spanish Civil war, and in this it's a bitch, some were stamped USSR or similar, like 'made in russia' this was done by the Importers, NOT the Spaniards or USSR, 37 is late, last known shipments to the Spanish Republicans was 38. The Spaniards did some funny things to their MN, usually replacing the front sight and stock or stock cartouches, I have one that was given to a British Union 'Aid Society' by the Republicans.

Last is a Vet bring back, there were MN used in Korea and Vietnam, those would not be import marked, but unless you have documentation, it's impossible to prove.

Please show all the stamp markings, One thing to say, they loved to stamp those things.