A question regarding the consistency of my Mosin's factory markings

[Caedo]

Hello all. I'm here again to learn more about my Mosin. The more I think I have this old gun figured out, the more mysteries I uncover with it.

My gun appears, at a glace, to be all parts matching. The barrel shank, butt plate, and bolt body all have the same serial number stamped into them. Stamped, not electro-stencilied. The magazine floorplate also has the same serial number, however there is a three digit number stamped into it that has been struck through.



Judging from the font and style of the struck through marking, it isn't original to the factory that this part was made in.

So what does it mean? I've always taken pride in having a gun with matching parts, and I've always kind of written this odd marking off as a product of wartime haste (it's a 1943 production). However, I've been thinking that I'd like to just solve the mystery and know more about it.

So can anyone enlighten me?

 

[Sergei Mosin]

When your gun was made, its parts all matched. But during the Cold War, most of the Soviet Union's Mosin-Nagants went through a refurbishment process. They were stripped down to a barreled action, all the different parts were separated out, and parts repaired/overhauled/scrapped as appropriate. Then the rifles were reassembled with parts out of the pile. No effort was made to match numbers or parts from the original gun. Then the numbered parts were renumbered to match the barrel - either with the old numbers scrubbed or struck through. The small parts were not remarked and you'll probably find parts from both Tula and Izhevsk - you might even find parts from other arsenals. I have found parts from as many as five arsenals on one Mosin.

Your gun is "refurb matching." It is matching after refurbishment, and its mixed and renumbered parts is entirely correct for a postwar refurb. It is not original matching, but there are very few truly original matching Mosins around, and most of those are Finn captures that somehow escaped having its interchangeable parts interchanged. Many Finnish Mosins are also "Finn matched," again with parts renumbered to match during postwar refurbishment programs. The vast majority of Mosins are mismatched, refurb matched, force matched, Finn matched, or similar. They were built with interchangeable parts, and interchangeable parts get interchanged.

 

[caribou]

Thanx, Sergei!

Just thought Id throw in that Number Font is important when looking for matching numbers, because if you seek "All matching and original" and without updated parts/repairs, as a collector , well look atthe waythe numbers are formed in Font, as that too will match as the numbers do....same number, different font, ='s replacement part.

 

[Sergei Mosin]

Caribou,

Good point. Also, fonts changed over time and were not the same in each country which used Mosins, so you can sometimes tell from the font when and where that particular part was stamped.