A counterbored Mosin 91/30 Tula to add to my colletion..is worth it or better pass???

[saturno_v]

I had originally 3 beautiful Izhevsk 91/30 pre-WWII (2 1938 and one 1939) in perfect shape (I suspect one is unissued), accurate, shiny bores, sharp rifling.
All of them are with light color wood.

I sold one (the one in "worse" shape) at a tidy profit (I bought all 3 of them for $79 at GI Joe's)

So I was willing to buy my last Mosin for the collection, a 91/30 Tula and with dark wood (I'm not interested in the M44 or the M38) do diversify a bit.

Around here the days of Mosins at $69 or $79 are long gone..The cheapest you can buy at the moment are at GI Joe's for $99. And the average quality went significantly downhill...Big 5 nowdays sells the worst Mosins..pure junk.

So today I stopped at the store and saw this Tula 91/30 dark wood in the rack

The wood was in great shape, very smooth action, the bore and rifling was not bad at all....strangely the bayonet was installed.

I had to work with a rubber mallet with the store clerk to rotate the bayonet and take it out...no sign of burrs, rough surface or dirt....putting the bayonet back was as hard...it was like the bayonet ring or the tip of the barrel was slightly bent but I could not visually verify any deformation.

The muzzle presented a significantly large counterboring (it looked like a 9 mm rifle from the muzzle!!!), about 1 1/2 or 2 inches deep.

So my question is: The counterboring is capable to restore some decent accuracy??? (I do not have any experience with counterbored rifles, never had one)

Is going to significantly reduce the appeal of the gun?? I know it's only $99 but I thought with time my Mosins could gain some value appreciation.
After all I already made some money selling one of my Izhevsk....

When you look at the muzzle is visually "disturbing" for the trained eye....definitely something is immediately off...such large caliber Mosins do not exist!!....

Should I get this rifle or pass on????

 

[chestnut ridge]

This still seems like a reasonable price for a otherwise nice
Tula. I share your concern with counterbored muzzles. I
would probably buy it.

 

[Coronach]

Counterbored guns can be very accurate. They can also suck. I would say that the counterboring is only an indication that the gun has seen at least moderate use, not that it is necessarily bad.

Mike

 

[GD]

Counterboring was done to increase the accuracy of the rifle. I have about 10 counterbored Mosin rifles and all are pretty good shooters. Tulas are slightly more desireable, so from an investment standpoint, it seems worth it. The stiffness in the rifle bolt is probably from dried cosmoline. The bayonet probably needs a little dremeling to get it to fit - it is not unusual for a mismatched bayonet to be difficult to put on.
Personally, a counterbored rifle does not bother me in the least - I know it was done to improve accuracy and it usually did.

 

[Coronach]

Well, it is ostensibly done to improve accuracy, but there were crates full of perfectly accurate M-Ns that also had it done to them because they looked like the might need it. It wasn't like Ivan was test-firing these things before doing it. It was a standard operation in re-arsenalling some guns.

Mike

 

[saturno_v]

The stiffness in the rifle bolt is probably from dried cosmoline.

I never said that the bolt was stiff...the action actually was very smooth!

 

[Z71]

The only counterbored Mosin i have is a 1943 Ishevsk M38.

The M38 is counterbored over an inch, and the rest of the bore ain't that good. But the carbine does shoot well, so I'm not complaining.

 

[LJ-MosinFreak-Buck]

all counter boring does is repair the blown out crown that tended to happen while in combat or dropping the gun or whatever. You've got to remember that most of these mosins have seen combat, and are in need of a little care. The arsenals counterbored the worst muzzles and stored 'em. They'll just like new when they are counterbored. Plus, if they're counterbored, you get more of a bang and more of the muzzleflash than a non counterbored rifle in my experience.

If I were you, I'd buy it.

The bayonets were made to be hard to come off in battle. That would explain SOME of the difficulty in getting the cold steel off. Soviet doctrine still believed the bayonet to be a useful, and hence, reliable and required weapon of combat. There have been recorded times of when troops had to use their bayo's. They were made to stay on for a reason.

 

[DMK]

I wouldn't worry about the counter-boring itself, however I would carefully inspect the chamber throat area (where the rifling starts) and the condition of the rifling down the bore in general. Is it worn down and are the edges of the rifling rounded?