[Marcus]

A friend of mine just bought a cherry Russian M44. It`s got different sight markings on it than my Romanian does. The sight graduations go 1 2 3 4 etc. and don`t seem to corespond to hundreds of meters/yards. I seem to recall that Russian guns used an odd Russian system of measure to graduate their sights? Can someone refresh my crummy memory? :) Marcus

[Stinger]

No, I believe it is set up for meters.

You are probably thinking about Arshins (?), but I don't believe that system was used much in the 20th century.

Stinger

[Sir Galahad]

The original Czarist Russian M91 Mosin Nagant used arshins. The 91/30, M38, 91/59 and M44 uses meters. The communists adopted the metric system to be progressive.:D

[foghornl]

If those are the proper sights, the markings are in meters. Some of the first series of M-N 91 rifles used a range marking called "arshins" (arshini?)which was supposedly the length of the average step of an infantry man on march....about 78% the length of a meter, approximately 30.7 inches =1 arshin.

That was changed to meters by replacing part of the rear sight.

Here are a couple of websites to visit with more info on M-N rifles:

www.mosin-nagant.net

www.russian-mosin-nagant.com

[Marcus]

This is wierd. He says the rear sight on his only has 5 numbers on it (1-5). I asked him to stop by with it so I can take a look. Marcus