I was fiddling with my Mosin Nagant today and thought I’d show you one of the more confounding things about my rifle.
It’s a 1930 Tula Ex-Dragoon that was worked over by both the Tula and the Izhevsk armorers, judging by the stamps.
The first time I took it apart I found these marks in the cleaning rod channel. They’re too regular to be random, and too irregular to be machined. I thought that they might have been from someone trying to pry the ring off, but the shape and consistent depth seem wrong for a tool mark made by something used as a lever on a concave surface. The channel that they’re in tapers and it’s pretty tight to get in there, none of the tools the weapon came with will fit in for more than the first two or three marks, if at all. I showed it to Cave and he immediately said “kill marks” but that doesn’t seem likely to me either. Why hide them under the cleaning rod?
Have any of you seen something like this?
Those channels may well have been cut by hand using a chisel. Tap it down vertically to a marked depth several times along the length of the channel, then horizontally to slice out the chunks. It would only need a vice or a clamp to keep the stock from rolling around, it wouldn't take much setup time that putting it in a press or a mill would, and you could do the work just about anywhere with unskilled labor. 1930s - not wartime expedient, but perhaps peasant make-work?
ReplyDeleteAs in when they were making/working on the stock? It's possible, although they have the appearance of having been cut into it after it was sanded smooth. I'll dig out the big camera this weekend and see if I can get better detail on them.
ReplyDeleteI had to pull my '43 Tula out of the safe to take a look at it, it's smooth all the way down the cleaning rod channel. Maybe a knife of some sort? It wouldn't make sense to put kill marks down the inside of the cleaning rod channel, unless the soldier was trying to hide them from his NCO or something.
ReplyDeleteI suggested perhaps they were to mark time in, or deployments, which the husbeast promptly countered with conquests during leave. *eye roll*
ReplyDeleteJust checked mine and it has no such marks. Of course, its never been re-arsenaled. It would have rifling it it had been rebuilt! I'm going to cast my lot with the "Kill Marks" crowd. The first thing I thought when I saw them was that the soldier was hiding them from his NCO. Maybe someone on one of the milsurp sites would have a theory.
ReplyDeleteThanks Lantry. I'll have to look around and see if I can find a good one that has open membership when I get done dealing with the plague we have going on here.
ReplyDeleteYes, Agirl, you are very interesting, but you already knew that... :P
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