Can't Find an Importer's Serial Number on my Turkish Mauser?

[LJ-MosinFreak-Buck]

Hey guys,

Moderators, feel free to move this to the proper forum, it being a rifle I figured I'd post it here.

My Turkish M38 Mauser was made in 1940, and imported by P.W. Arms of Redmond, WA; I can't find the importer's serial number. Aren't these required on imported long guns?

Since the only numbers I can find on the rifle are on the action, sight leaf and adjustment, (bottom metal has a different number, 6 digits vs. 3 everywhere else) I'm not going to give the number(s) in case that these do take the place of the importers SN.

Are my suspicions correct or?

Thanks in advance.

 

[GCBurner]

If it has a factory serial number on the receiver, the importer is not required to put another number on it anywhere. If it was imported prior to the Gun Control Act of 1968, it's not even required to be marked with an importer's stamp to show who imported it, as far as I know. I have some rifles bought prior to '68 with no import stamps at all.

 

[LJ-MosinFreak-Buck]

I knew about the '68 thing, I own two long guns that don't have serials at all, my Marlin Model 80 and my Steven's shotgun.

Didn't know that about the importer/factory serial. But my K31 and Mosin both have the importer's SN, but what I don't understand is the Mosin and the Turk were imported by the same company? And the Mosin has the importer's SN.

 

[Gunnerboy]

sometime in the 90s i belive it was when they had to put a import serial #

 

[LJ-MosinFreak-Buck]

That may be, my Mosin must've been an early import, being 00XXXX

 

[Vaarok]

Mosins have their serial on the barrel, thus the importer has to stamp the receiver itself. The Turk already has the serial on the receiver, so it needed no molestation.

 

[rule303]

The Mosins have a serial # added because of the cyrillic characters, it was less work to give them a new serial, rather than translate each individual rifle and restamp with the translated characters. On most mausers, the original serial number meets ATF requirements.

 

[LJ-MosinFreak-Buck]

Gotcha.