1947 M44, looks all original.

[Lee-online]

So today I went to the Gettysburg gun show, but because I just purchased a NEW m91 on Friday, I went to only look.
We all know how that works and sure enough, the place had tables and tables of Mosins and plenty of other surplus rifles.

Digging through a crate of M44's and T53's I found this gem. I asked the seller to hold it while I went to the ATM to get some cash.

1947 M44 with a beautiful blue finish. This is what sold me on it and the pictures don't do it justice. It has no refurb marks, all serial numbers are correct matches and the stock has the last 4 under the butt plate. Every part has the Izhevsk mark if there is a mark. Bore is like a mirror.

[Titanium Hammer]

That's gorgeous! Congrats!

[milmike]

SWEET :thumbsup :

[bunkysdad]

That's really nice Lee. You couldn't do any better. Nice polished blue finish. And you say these were from crates?

[Lee-online]

Seller was just using the crate to display and sell out of. Most were refurbed 1944/45 m44's and just this one 1947. There were also half a dozen T53's in with them. The T53's were pretty nice and the stocks were clean and a blond wood.

He also had a bunch of 91/30's, all in boxes but pulled out and on top so could be handled. They were all nice, mixed hex and rounds but weird that most were Tula at this seller. One was a double date MO 1938/50.

Found a 1891. Izhevsk 1901. no matching numbers, earlier stock with no hand guard, no cleaning rod, a little on the rough side. no [SA] mark but receiver mark dotted out and barrel shank slightly scrubbed by the sight.

Plenty of other sellers, some had sorted them into arsenals, ex-snipers, DDR's etc. Saw a couple of ATI imported Snipers for $700.

I left with a nice rifle so I was a happy chappy.

[bunkysdad]

Indeed. You had a great day. I have always wondered if the M44's were once stored in crates like the 91/30's? I don't think I have ever heard a definitive answer to this question.

[srv1]

That looks like a Molot. Is it? It has been refurbished.

[qz2026]

Same question I had. Did you check to see if it was a Molot or not? Not that it makes any difference to me. Regardless nice catch.

[desdem12]

Sweet. Nice buy

[Gsragtop]

What was the last year of the M44's ??? I know china started up in 53 I think, but when did the Russians stop??

[Longcolt44]

The last year for M44s was 1948. 1947 was a low production year. The one shown here has all the marks of a Molot. If you check under the top handguard it will have a Molot banner on the barrel.

[Junk Yard Dog]

[Kzman]

Splendid! Nice matching number stamped into wood under buttplate, haven't seen this much.

[Darryl]

A lot of Mosins that were fabricated after the war were not refurb'd. It is possible they jusy put a coat of shellac on them and put away. Many of them were not refurb'd because they didn't go through WWII. This is not a "WWII" rifle and was treated differently than the beat up war rifles were.

PW Arms imported a lot of Mosins before they imported the Molot rifles. Not all PW Arms imports are Molots (although, many are now).

This rifle looks like it got a shellac job but not the entire refurb process. Just my opinion.

[srv1]

A lot of Mosins that were fabricated after the war were not refurb'd. It is possible they jusy put a coat of shellac on them and put away. Many of them were not refurb'd because they didn't go through WWII. This is not a "WWII" rifle and was treated differently than the beat up war rifles were.

PW Arms imported a lot of Mosins before they imported the Molot rifles. Not all PW Arms imports are Molots (although, many are now).

This rifle looks like it got a shellac job but not the entire refurb process. Just my opinion.

If this rifle did not go through WWII then why was it scrubbed? It should be a new receiver since they started doing that in 1945.

[Darryl]

A lot of Mosins that were fabricated after the war were not refurb'd. It is possible they jusy put a coat of shellac on them and put away. Many of them were not refurb'd because they didn't go through WWII. This is not a "WWII" rifle and was treated differently than the beat up war rifles were.

PW Arms imported a lot of Mosins before they imported the Molot rifles. Not all PW Arms imports are Molots (although, many are now).

This rifle looks like it got a shellac job but not the entire refurb process. Just my opinion.

If this rifle did not go through WWII then why was it scrubbed? It should be a new receiver since they started doing that in 1945.

The receiver (according to the tang photo above) is 1947r. That means the receiver was made in 1947. That is after WWII. This rifle was made after the end of WWII. It is not "scrubbed". The M44 was made after the war for three years. 1946, 1947, 1948.

Its also why it is wearing a post war stock. If the stock is original to the rifle, that put it very late war to post war.

It's also wearing a "double eared" bayonet lug....1945-1948

It also has the wider base on the front sight 1946 on

And the larger (wider?) globe site (top part of the front sight) also started in 1946.

This is not a WWII rifle, but a very clean (probably all original) 1947 M44.

Unless I missed something.........(It's been know to happen)


Very nice M44, there are a few around, but getting harder to find in this nice of condition.

Dolk

[srv1]

Well the butt plate looks scrubbed, the "r" after the date looks scrubbed and the right side of the barrel looks scrubbed. Also look at the number "19" in how it is double stamped. My guess is that they tried to scrub off the last two digits, the "r" and partially scrubbed off the "19". Would they have used a used barrel? The OP has not stated if it was a Molot or not. My Molot's have a shiner blue than my other Mosin's I had before.

James

[Marcus]

Buttplate is scrubbed and renumbered - no Cyrillic letter prefix and traces of old number visible.

The stock looks like it has the dovetailed in toe piece, but it's hard to tell from the photos. However, even if it does have the solid butt, it might not necessarily be incorrect for the original stock a post-war manufactured rifle....since post-war production was much lower than wartime, it's possible that there were still earlier parts in inventory when this rifle was made.

[Darryl]

Yeah, the letters are not there on the butt plate, I missed that.

While it is possible it is a replacement stock, there is no reason to assume it is. But really, who cares. The main part of this rifle is 1947 clearly. The barrel is not "scrubbed" and the "r" is stamped lightly after the date where it belongs. I see no scrubbing on the right side of the barrel. The finish (bluing) is consistent with the rest of the rifle.

Is this a "collectors piece" I doubt it, but it is a nice 1947 M44 rifle all the same.

Dolk



This is a perfect example of how and why it shows no "scrubbing" of the right side of the barrel. Also shows the lightly struck "r" after the date.

The bluing is consistent and is not "re-blued" either.

[Lee-online]

It doesn't look like the butt plate was scrubbed to me. From the inside it only shows the indents from the marks still on there.



It does have a toe splice, hard to see from the side though.




what about the fonts being an exact match? The #1 is the same on the barrel, bolt and mag, the butt plate is hard to tell because its not a very good stamp. Maybe it was replace? How would a butt plate get damaged and need replacing but not the stock? What about the number under the butt plate? this tells me it is original to the rifle or was added during repair to keep it with the rifle.
Like stated above, there really would be no reason to refurb these if they were non issued rifles, remember just after it was made the Russians stopped production and sold the machinery.
This, like many other of my rifles leave me with more questions about its history than what they tell.