What is the verdict on Classic's M38's

[redeuce]

Whic brings me back to another post I made earlier. Royal Tiger has these listed in a different way, wonder if it's a clue, or nothing.

Original / Re-Arsenal​ed
Original (+$100.00)
Re-Arsenal​ed


They aren't listed as refurbished, but re-arsenaled.

[Rongo]

Bingo on the bores. As I stated earlier, I'm monitoring most of the firearms boards and listening to the reviews. There hasn't been a ton of them posted yet, but so far every bore review is shiny or like new. So far, no counter bores. It's way too early to tell, but it seems about 70% of the existing M38's have been counter bored. If all of a sudden, there are multiple offerings of thousands of these with all pristine orignal bores, .....? I think the M44's are the same way.

Makes you wonder if they just offered up the most pristine ones first or??? I hate having to guess about these damn molots.

Whic brings me back to another post I made earlier. Royal Tiger has these listed in a different way, wonder if it's a clue, or nothing.

Original / Re-Arsenal​ed
Original (+$100.00)
Re-Arsenal​ed


They aren't listed as refurbished, but re-arsenaled.

Just some marketing crap I would think.

[Izhevsk762]

It's the clean and shiny bores, perfect metal that has me wondering. I would say maybe 20% of the refurbs I bought had bores that came close to like new, and while the metal is refinished on all of them, it shows it's age under the blue more often than not. Light pitting, dings and deeper scratched, grind marks. Every report I have heard so far has remarked on the startlingly nice condition of the bores, it's as if none of these rifles ever saw war and years of issue to the Soviet army's. Great for a shooter, that's what you want to see, but to a collector who has been collecting Soviet refurbs for eight years and has amassed a good number of them it sets off alarm bells that something is not quite right. I just wish they would tell us what's up, if they are producing new barrels as well as other Mosin parts using the old tooling at Izhevsk that itself would be fascinating to see.

Bingo on the bores. As I stated earlier, I'm monitoring most of the firearms boards and listening to the reviews. There hasn't been a ton of them posted yet, but so far every bore review is shiny or like new. So far, no counter bores. It's way too early to tell, but it seems about 70% of the existing M38's have been counter bored. If all of a sudden, there are multiple offerings of thousands of these with all pristine orignal bores, .....? I think the M44's are the same way.

Maybe it was policy that the Ukraine refurb facility counterbored their M38s all without regard for if it needed or not, and maybe the ones in Russia proper were a case-by-case basis?

Since Russia isn't talking it's difficult to figure out things like this sometimes.

[Junk Yard Dog]

The Ukrainians never refurbished anything or had Mosins to refurbish, the Soviet state had the Mosins and oversaw the refurbishment. Ukrain just happens to be were they placed the facility and stored the rifles after they were finished, in fact I do not believe we even know for sure if all of them were refurbished there or at other facilities across the USSR as well, or if any of them were refurbished there. We call them Ukrainian refurbs because that is were the pile was found and imported from, but that does not mean they were refurbished there, they could have been all done at Izhevsk and Tula for all we know or the Russians will say. The Refurb stamps found on the Ukrainian imported rifles are Soviet stamps, and are also found on 91/30, and carbines imported in issued condition from the Balkans.
The bores on most of the refurbs, counterbored or otherwise, show signs of use and wear. Very light to mid level pitting is a common sight down in the grooves, lands show some wear, I have one 91/30 that missed it's counterbore and has a crown that is worn past use. This is very common with any pile of refurb Mosins as would be expected of rifles that served before, during, and after the war, yet all of a sudden we are seeing bores that sound as if they were never shot. Now I have not been able to examine a Molot bore, but I am going to assume at least some Molot owners know milsurps well enough to be able to describe the bore properly, but so far nobody is telling me they got a crap to fair bore, or other issues.

[zeebill]

I frankly would feel better if they had a fair to crap bore! I just can't help but wonder about the collectability of Molot rifles including the current sniper crop. They have made a lot of money for some people that is for sure. I also wonder how many people actually now have "real snipers" versus before the Molots? Makes my two feel much more comfortable in the safe being they go back to the early years of sniper imports. Even back then at $500 or so they to me were expensive if nothing else. Dang strange situation for sure! Bill

[Junk Yard Dog]

It's questions like this that have kept me far away from sniper collecting, they were being faked long before now. I started and stopped with the Hungarian.

[surffly]

While I have little experience with milsurp rifles, but I do have experience with vintage motorcycles and parts.
I will say that every now and again a lot of parts comes up that claims to be true NOS, this is happening less and less these days, but it does happen.

Maybe these were just a pile of never issued rifles that have not come to market.
Would stand to reason that a lot of the "easy" to sell rifles are harder to find and importers have to think outside of the box a bit.

[Junk Yard Dog]

In this case they are importing them from a country that has a ban in place by presidential order on the importation of any military firearms. Another question we are trying to figure out is exactly what had to be done to get these rifles past the ban? The Obama administration isn't going to lift that ban, so something positively was done here, but what?

[bocephus]

I don't think it would be unreasonable to think Molot could be making barrels and still turning a profit. You can go to a sporting goods store and buy a brand new hunting rifle for $200. If we can buy mosins for $100 and the retailer still makes a profit off of that, I'd imagine molot can buy mosins for next to nothing. If all they have to do is make a barrel and attach it to parts they already have there is still plenty left for profit.

But why bother, the market has shown they'll buy barrels of unknown condition all day. Classic sold out before anyone had reported seeing a single rifle. The only why bother that makes sense to me is they are the mitchells of Russia. In our eyes they are destroying a piece of history, in their eyes they create fine Russian rifle!

[redspoon]

How about the barrel meets the receiver match lines, maybe some of the new owners of these Molot M38's, could give us a report on how many lines on receiver vs the barrel. Then again not sure if the receiver lines are scrubbed when re-barreled.

[Rongo]

It's questions like this that have kept me far away from sniper collecting, they were being faked long before now. I started and stopped with the Hungarian.

I still wouldn't mind getting one... But there's a lot more items on my want list ahead of it so it may never happen.

[Rongo]

I don't think it would be unreasonable to think Molot could be making barrels and still turning a profit. You can go to a sporting goods store and buy a brand new hunting rifle for $200. If we can buy mosins for $100 and the retailer still makes a profit off of that, I'd imagine molot can buy mosins for next to nothing. If all they have to do is make a barrel and attach it to parts they already have there is still plenty left for profit.

But why bother, the market has shown they'll buy barrels of unknown condition all day. Classic sold out before anyone had reported seeing a single rifle. The only why bother that makes sense to me is they are the mitchells of Russia. In our eyes they are destroying a piece of history, in their eyes they create fine Russian rifle!

I don't know about them making barrels, but I wonder if they are doing inserts or doing some kind of thing like it? The barrel stampings look vintage but they all seem to have mint bores?? Come-on.

[Junk Yard Dog]

Only the US military history connection pushed me to buy the PU, otherwise I would have bought another M1903, had it been a regular Soviet PU refurb it would still be sitting on the shelf. The man who captured that rifle handed it to me, and told me in his own words a little bit about that event. Even without the rifle that was worth the money. History is what I collect.

[Rongo]

Only the US military history connection pushed me to buy the PU, otherwise I would have bought another M1903, had it been a regular Soviet PU refurb it would still be sitting on the shelf. The man who captured that rifle handed it to me, and told me in his own words a little bit about that event. Even without the rifle that was worth the money. History is what I collect.

I remember that story... It's an honor to be that rifles caretaker.

[TrainWreck]

Let me through another onion into the stew. I took apart my 1944 M38 (Classic) to see what I could see. The only import stamps are one under the barrel just behind the front sight (IO Inc. Monroe NC.) and the Molot stamp on the receiver. All parts show no wear other than some "handling" marks except for the dings on the stock close to the butt plate. One thing I saw that I thought a little curious is both of the end caps, one on the stock and one on the top fore piece, are painted black but the edges that parallel the barrell are very shiny with very rough sharp edges. It's like the metal was cut last week. I have close to two dozen MN's and none of them have end caps like this. They are all dull colored, not sharp, and all painted over. I wonder...................

[Junk Yard Dog]

We are all wondering things about these rifles, I will add this one to my list, it's getting longer by the day.

[WeldonHunter]

Let me through another onion into the stew. I took apart my 1944 M38 (Classic) to see what I could see. The only import stamps are one under the barrel just behind the front sight (IO Inc. Monroe NC.) and the Molot stamp on the receiver. All parts show no wear other than some "handling" marks except for the dings on the stock close to the butt plate. One thing I saw that I thought a little curious is both of the end caps, one on the stock and one on the top fore piece, are painted black but the edges that parallel the barrell are very shiny with very rough sharp edges. It's like the metal was cut last week. I have close to two dozen MN's and none of them have end caps like this. They are all dull colored, not sharp, and all painted over. I wonder...................

If you could take some pictures and post them so we can see what you mean that would be most helpful.

[surffly]

Other molot rifles have been referred to as brand new by milsurp retailers

[bocephus]

Can anyone provide a source for this import ban? The only thing I can find specifically lists Mosins as being allowed to be imported from Russia.

[Junk Yard Dog]

It's been in effect since the Clinton era, I no longer remember the details, but they have been quoted by someone on the board before in another thread. Note that until the last few months we have seen exactly zero milsurp imports from Russia itself, all have come from the former republics or Eastern Europe, the ban is the reason why. All we have seen from Russia are commercial rifles.