Foreign Mosin-Nagant Markings

This section is dedicated to showing the markings of Mosin-Nagant rifles manufactured by foreign nations for the Russian army.  Our current example was made in the United States by the Remington company.  In these two pictures you can see the markings unique to Remington who made many rifles for the Russian government during the Great War.  Westinghouse also manufactured weapons, but we do not currently possess an example of one.

   

The Bolt Assembly

The M-91 rifle bolt is identical to the bolts used on all  Mosin-Nagant rifles (except the M-91/30 sniper variant with the turn-down bolt).  It has been called overly complicated in design, but this was largely due to its creator trying to avoid infringing on the Mauser patent.  Still, it is rugged and reliable, even if it is hard to take apart.  The mark on the bolt (highlighted in red) is a Sestroryetsk Arsenal marking.

 In the center right picture you can see the fully disassembled bolt.  Other than the arsenal marking mentioned earlier, the only other marking was a serial number stamped into the bolt handle.  We have a close up of that number in the bottom right picture.

The bolt of any Mosin-Nagant rifle will fit in any other such rifle, but still should not be fired until being checked by a competent gunsmith due to differences in headspacing and firing pin protrusion.

 

Front Sight Assembly

Here are some views of the front sight of the M-91 infantry rifle.  It is a non-adjustable post sight that that is not covered by any sort of protective hood like later M-91/30 versions.  The front of the rifle and even the cleaning rod can also be seen in these pictures.  The blurry markings in the bottom right picture are US import markings that would not originally be found on the rifle.

   

Rear Sight Assembly

Here are some views of the rear sight of the rifle.  The curved site in these pictures replaced the earlier flat sight when the M-1908 'spitzer' bullet was introduced.  The sights were originally measured in an old Imperial Russian measurement called arshens, these can be seen in the upper right photo.

It is graduated out to 3200 arshens.  For shooting at targets less than 1200 arshens away the sight was flipped down, and the markings on the left side of the sight were used.

For engaging targets much further away the sight was flipped up.  The weapon could then be sighted out to the rather optimistic range of 3200 arshens.  The numbers on the sight can be seen in detail at right.  The sight has no adjustment for windage.

When the Soviets took power and switched to the Metric system the left side arshen marks were crossed out and their metric equivalents placed on the right side.  These are shown on one of our examples below.  Finnish rifles also have these markings on metric rifles.

    

The Rifle and Bayonet

Like most M-91 type rifles the infantry rifle can mount the standard M-91 bayonet.  In these three pictures you can see how the bayonet attaches to the rifle by means of its locking ring.  Note how it fastens around the front site.  The locking ring was considered to be weak in comparison to the earlier Berdan II bayonet and was eventually replaced when the M-91/30 bayonet was introduced.

  

Accessories

The M-91 infantry rifle was equipped with many accessories to keep it clean and otherwise maintain the weapon.  The picture to the right shows an oil/solvent bottle and its pouch.

We currently have no Czarist ammunition pouches or cleaning kits for our weapon.

 

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