Parkerized 90/30 Ex-PEM Sniper and Bayonet

[Rongo]

Great Post Jim.

[qz2026]

Great Post Jim.

Not much to say after that. My thoughts after reading this post was... hummmm, PW ARMS is in cahoots with who ______? Fill in blank.

But Jim is right, I think. It is more than likely local and it is very interesting it was purchased from an outfit called Family Firearms & Finishes that happened on a crate of these rifles I don't think the answer to this is complicated. I know that Bill indicated that he had a couple M-39's straight from the importer like this. OK then, the anomaly is Bill's rifles not these where 18 out of 20 in a crate are alleged to be Russian refurbs, as I recall from the Ukraine. Has anyone ever seen refurbs like this coming out of the Ukraine? Now virtually a whole crate received by Family Firearms & Finishes? Now, if I see a bunch for sale from SOG or Century, I'll change my tune, as we all will and try to figure out what these really are but until then - bubba.

[zeebill]

The Old Philosopher has out did himself! Well spoken Jim! Being older and having seen a few of like things to what Jim is describing I have this built in Red Herring detector. I smell something here but frankly have no idea where to point the finger. I personally know of one anomaly of Mosins excepted by many that a single collector is responsible for and I know he laughs often about it as I do too. Why would someone do something like that? I have no idea but in retrospect it is increasingly funny to see which experts buy it and who doesn't, it never fails to amuse me when it is brought up but it is hard with increasing years to frankly keep my mouth shut and go on as if nothing has happened.

Oh on coatings Parkerizing is indeed a generic term for Phosphating as pointed out to me by someone on another forum. This coating can be done with many metals like zinc and manganese but the older style like I have on my carbine is supposedly done with iron I believe. Before someone on here jumps me about that I thought I would clear that up because I was very vague and in error on what I stated.

I too have no ax to grind and could care less about where these things came from or who did them but it is fun to consider where they could have arrived and created all this hub-bub. Years ago with the M39's I grabbed, I cherished anomalies but now I just try and collect rifles of known sources with tried and true possible histories. To me those rifles are like collecting possible bring backs without papers or known provenance, far to shaky for me to indulge in at this age. To each his own I guess but I do enjoy the weighing the possibilities though. Bill

[Judi and her Mosins]

I know I seen one of these same type pak. Mosins on an auction site within the lat year. I thought it odd also why the price was so cheap if it was a rare Mosin. I have to say that the case against being done in Russia or Finlaand are all very strong. Maybe a phone call to Family Firearms can shed more light here. Perhaps they have more to add to this case.

Luke FF your convictions on this are very strong. No one is chewing you on this. But this has become a some what of a question of how and why. I think maybe if Family Firearms would be available to answer some of the questions made from JYD or Dolk. We may be able to have more of a insight. Just my and I expect change. Judi and her Mosin's

[Junk Yard Dog]

Of course there is shellac on the metal, if someone is going to park a rifle why would they stop there? A quick shellac job would not add much cost, and it's not that hard to match the commie red shade if you know how. Have a look also at the serial number on the bolt, it's parkerized after being stamped, so they built an entire rifle, numbered it ( along with the thousand or so others done that day) then took it apart being extra careful to keep all the numbered parts together, parkerized it, then put it back together with the same parts? That would require the individual handling of each rifle, in a government sized refurb program that would have been immensely time consuming, they would have batch parked the parts before final assembly, and serial numbering at the end of the process, not the start of it.

OK, but then please explain why all the import serial numbers are consecutively numbered (I've seen pics of the other rifles in this batch) and how none of the import marks are parkerized over. And again, I refer above to the refurbished PPSh-41s that have turned up in Ukraine with the same sort of finish as this.

As for the shellac job, there's a nice dent on one side of the stock, right where one would expect it to be when placing it in the packing crate. If this gun had been refinished before being sent out to a buyer, that sort of thing would have been cleaned up beforehand.

It's buyer beware when dealing with any outfit selling used firearms, most will just pass along something as they received it, others will try to "improve" it a bit to get more buyers, and they will bullshit you, just take Mitchells Mauser's and Gibbs rifles ( among others) as a good example of this. As someone who has been royally screwed by a gun selling outfit in the past with just such a bullshit story as the "parkerized Mosin" I will say straight out that I think this is a Bubba rifle, I think someone sidelined a crate of Mosins and Parked them to see if they could sell them at greater profit. Welcome to the I bought a Bubba rifle and thought it was real club, mine was a Gibbs Enfield No7 7.62mm Carbine, and I paid nearly $275 for it back before there was no internet making it easy to check up on such things before buying. Every collector gets stuck with something like this sooner or later, mostly by the time we have been at it 20-30 years we get a nose for sniffing out the bullshit.

Alright fine, if that's what you want to believe, have at it. My conclusion is obviously different than yours.

When you buy a crate of 20 rifles from Century, or any importer they will be consecutively serial numbered unless the importer cherry picked a few rifles out of the box and replaced them with more ordinary examples. The importer removes the 20 rifles from the crate, marks them, books them, and replaces them. Obviously whoever parked them ordered a crate of 20 as small dealers, even the one here in my own town, are likely to do. I believe I mentioned one easy way to keep the import mark visible when applying a coating of any sort. If it was just a bluing job then no worries, bluing is very thin, the engraved import mark with it's all important serial number will remain perfectly visible as is required by law if a dealer is to sell a weapon. Coatings like paint, or park will possibly partly, or fully fill in such light engravings making them illegible, steps need to be taken to ensure that does not happen, it's not rocket science.

As for the dent in the shellac, I am not sure I understand your point, because if the rifle was placed back in the crate for storage before being sold then such a dent as would be found on the original finish would reappear. Dents however are more likely to be found in wood rather than shellac, and if you don't steam, or sand a dent away before applying a new coat of shellac then it will just be there in the new finish.

PPSH41's I do not collect, they remained in service far longer than the Mosin with regular, and police forces, I understand they are still in some limited use today. It is possible that any number of modern coatings would be applied to them, being a different class of weapon with a different service history and mode of storage they are immaterial to any discussion about Soviet era refurb Mosins refurbished for militia use from the 1940-early 70's

[Junk Yard Dog]

More info, straight from the source:

http://forums.gunboards.com/showthread. ... ost2804327

I highly doubt that PW arms would take the time to totally disassemble just 18 guns (not the whole crate) even handguard caps, crossbolt, buttplate, strip the old bluing or rust off the parts (only reason to refinish), re park them, reassemble them to new stocks (not to mention to acquire newer stocks), shellac the stocks and then wholesale them for $95 each? If so, that is the worst business model I have ever heard of considering labor costs.

If they were to do that, why just them? You would see a lot more of them out there to make it worth their time and investment. Instead you see a lot of guns with rust and other finish imperfections coming from the same importer. My friend packed up over 100 crates with consecutive importers serial numbers in just that buy and they were the only parked guns in the batch. They even sent back a few crates because of seriously rusted guns. He has packed gun for almost 16 years for the same company and has never seen any parked guns.

As to the repeated question, I was a painting contractor for 3 decades and I can tell you it is not painted with anything.

I can clearly see were some park leaked into the import marks shown in that GB thread, sloppy work, but not to the point of illegibility so they did take some steps to avoid it.

[zeebill]

Man Luke FF we are really beating you up whether we mean to or not! So sorry about it but nothing about this whole situation seems totally explainable and many of us are taking different looks at what the other is seeing. When something like this pops up and is unexplainable it becomes an anomaly overnight and some people feel strongly the need to have one or at least desire one. This makes the value to certain people go up and indeed when I was younger and more prone to gamble a bit I would have been chasing one down. I have found that looking back at things over the years what I gambled on for the most part in time became less valuable than when I got it. Conversely what I should have grabbed as many of as I could find became more valuable in time. We all seem to share a great propensity for lack of foresight as human beings. I would guess only time will show us what these rifles are and then never be real clear about it in the end view.

All I am trying to do here is warn you before you make the choices on these as to whether you want to buy or corner the market be conservative in your choice and let known things and not feelings guide your actions.

I have been reading up on Parkerizing and phosphate coatings everything I read says electro-chemical process and dipping below chemicals is required for real Parkerizing to take place and I too have seen all these kits advertising Parkerizing that JYD has noted and wonder what these really are doing versus the real process. I will also point out the current crop of Soumi semi-autos is Phosphate coated and after all the machine work and coatings goes for around $400 to $500. This US produced, I think so, when they do all the work and coat them there is some money left on the bone for profit at a US cost of production. In just what people are pointing out elsewhere I tend to agree with the thought that what we are looking at here is zinc coating or zinc phosphating or coating. Again this process would require dip tanking and use of electro forces to be real Parkerizing or zinc phosphate coating. That for sure would require a bit of time and effort.

Lots to be considered here and all have brought up good points. You guys are going to make me brain dead with all the points you have made and the constant staring at pictures for clues! Bill

[Family Firearms]

It's buyer beware when dealing with any outfit selling used firearms, most will just pass along something as they received it, others will try to "improve" it a bit to get more buyers, and they will bullshit you, just take Mitchells Mauser's and Gibbs rifles ( among others) as a good example of this. As someone who has been royally screwed by a gun selling outfit in the past with just such a bullshit story as the "parkerized Mosin" I will say straight out that I think this is a Bubba rifle, I think someone sidelined a crate of Mosins and Parked them to see if they could sell them at greater profit. Welcome to the I bought a Bubba rifle and thought it was real club, mine was a Gibbs Enfield No7 7.62mm Carbine, and I paid nearly $275 for it back before there was no internet making it easy to check up on such things before buying. Every collector gets stuck with something like this sooner or later, mostly by the time we have been at it 20-30 years we get a nose for sniffing out the bullshit.

After reading all the posts and having our name thrown out as a Bubba outfit, counterfeiters or some how scam artists and to be put in the same class as Mitchells Mausers, I had to register and post. That is if it don't get deleated.

Our reputation speakers for itself. I can say I invented sliced bread or we are the greatest but after a decade of supplying hand picked guns for collectors, we have only had 1 unhappy camper and nothing would make this guy happy. I guarantee everything that goes out and pride ourselves on NOT BUYING crates of Mosin's but hand picking through them to find guns not only for our customers but for me as I collect Mosin's as well. This was only the second time I bought the contents of a crate (and it was not the whole crate). My friend told me they were different and cool so I had to check them out. I had to have them shipped versus picking them up so that added to their cost.

We have agreements with a few different distributors where I can go and look through stacks of Mosin's and I look through more guns every week than most people see in a lifetime. If I go through 100 guns, I may pick out 5 but they will be what our customers want. I also have relationships with several of the other Mosin sites out there and supplied pics for everyone else to refer to and further the collections field. I have also collected guns and mainly Mosin's for 25 plus years and have more than 150 in my personal collection. Our company is just the wife, son and I.

I was a painting contractor in my previous life, sold the company to concentrate on my collecting full time and get my 01 FFL. We did parkerizing, bluing and dura coating for years. I was diagnosed with MS and haven't refinished any guns for a few years now as I can't be around the chemicals anymore (this is even documented in our section of the forum). As for classic chroming guns, I thought that was an abomination but if people bought them,more power to them as this is a free country. Advertising them as parade rifles is flat out deception, people revolt and get pissed off but a cheaper one time price and people will forget and flock back to them. Personal integrity keeps us from doing business like that. I always think how I would feel if someone did that to me and we will not sell what we will not use oue selves.

Phosphate parkerizing is not an electro process and is easy to do and anyone can to it at home but you can't fill numbers with wax as the water is heated and it would melt out fast.

As for the importers mark, there has been a recent change in size and depth it has to be due to ATF specs and most use a dot matrix process. Sometimes it prints clearly, sometimes not depending on the condition of the tip. The pics I posted over at surplurifleforum were quick pics with my iPad as I was getting ready for the gun show that week. I will be more than happy to send anyone better pics, just PM me you email address.

I have never posted these were anything other than something I have never seen before. We conferred with major collectors from around the country and got their opinions through their experiences which was also posted over at our forum.

The facts are they came from a sealed crate from the Ukraine NOT Russia like the Molots. That is why there could be a mix of guns from all over the place. We DID not parkerized them. The importer DID NOT parkerized them. If you can not believe this then I don't know what to tell you. The whole point is to converse about them and try to figure it out if that can even be done. Nanny booing, calling people frauds, adds nothing to the conversation.

[Junk Yard Dog]

It's buyer beware when dealing with any outfit selling used firearms, most will just pass along something as they received it, others will try to "improve" it a bit to get more buyers, and they will bullshit you, just take Mitchells Mauser's and Gibbs rifles ( among others) as a good example of this. As someone who has been royally screwed by a gun selling outfit in the past with just such a bullshit story as the "parkerized Mosin" I will say straight out that I think this is a Bubba rifle, I think someone sidelined a crate of Mosins and Parked them to see if they could sell them at greater profit. Welcome to the I bought a Bubba rifle and thought it was real club, mine was a Gibbs Enfield No7 7.62mm Carbine, and I paid nearly $275 for it back before there was no internet making it easy to check up on such things before buying. Every collector gets stuck with something like this sooner or later, mostly by the time we have been at it 20-30 years we get a nose for sniffing out the bullshit.

After reading all the posts and having our name thrown out as a Bubba outfit, counterfeiters or some how scam artists and to be put in the same class as Mitchells Mausers, I had to register and post. That is if it don't get deleated.

Our reputation speakers for itself. I can say I invented sliced bread or we are the greatest but after a decade of supplying hand picked guns for collectors, we have only had 1 unhappy camper and nothing would make this guy happy. I guarantee everything that goes out and pride ourselves on NOT BUYING crates of Mosin's but hand picking through them to find guns not only for our customers but for me as I collect Mosin's as well. This was only the second time I bought the contents of a crate (and it was not the whole crate). My friend told me they were different and cool so I had to check them out. I had to have them shipped versus picking them up so that added to their cost.

We have agreements with a few different distributors where I can go and look through stacks of Mosin's and I look through more guns every week than most people see in a lifetime. If I go through 100 guns, I may pick out 5 but they will be what our customers want. I also have relationships with several of the other Mosin sites out there and supplied pics for everyone else to refer to and further the collections field. I have also collected guns and mainly Mosin's for 25 plus years and have more than 150 in my personal collection. Our company is just the wife, son and I.

I was a painting contractor in my previous life, sold the company to concentrate on my collecting full time and get my 01 FFL. We did parkerizing, bluing and dura coating for years. I was diagnosed with MS and haven't refinished any guns for a few years now as I can't be around the chemicals anymore (this is even documented in our section of the forum). As for classic chroming guns, I thought that was an abomination but if people bought them,more power to them as this is a free country. Advertising them as parade rifles is flat out deception, people revolt and get pissed off but a cheaper one time price and people will forget and flock back to them. Personal integrity keeps us from doing business like that. I always think how I would feel if someone did that to me and we will not sell what we will not use oue selves.

Phosphate parkerizing is not an electro process and is easy to do and anyone can to it at home but you can't fill numbers with wax as the water is heated and it would melt out fast.

As for the importers mark, there has been a recent change in size and depth it has to be due to ATF specs and most use a dot matrix process. Sometimes it prints clearly, sometimes not depending on the condition of the tip. The pics I posted over at surplurifleforum were quick pics with my iPad as I was getting ready for the gun show that week. I will be more than happy to send anyone better pics, just PM me you email address.

I have never posted these were anything other than something I have never seen before. We conferred with major collectors from around the country and got their opinions through their experiences which was also posted over at our forum.

The facts are they came from a sealed crate from the Ukraine NOT Russia like the Molots. That is why there could be a mix of guns from all over the place. We DID not parkerized them. The importer DID NOT parkerized them. If you can not believe this then I don't know what to tell you. The whole point is to converse about them and try to figure it out if that can even be done. Nanny booing, calling people frauds, adds nothing to the conversation.

I don't know you, we have never done business so far as I know and I don't have time to deal with the points here at the moment, the work that makes me money comes first, however I do not believe I mentioned your name even once, Classic, and Gibbs, even Mitchells, but not you, I believe the original poster mentioned you.

[zeebill]

My bad I should have written electrochemical process which is described as submerging the pieces in a heated vat of phosphoric acid till they stop bubbling while holding the vat at a certain temperature. In the same breath they record that there are several other methods on doing this too. The metals are of course included in the vat and are what covers the metal. Someone on another forum said that judging by the color these guns used zinc do you agree?

The surplus rifle market has been changed so much by world and this countries politics nothing new would surprise me. The validity of these rifles like as not no matter how honest and forthright you try to be there will be naysayers and that I would say goes along with the territory of these being different. It will come down to a personal decision of whether you want one, are willing to pay the price, and believe they have value and are collectable. For me I have none and want none buy I am older and much more conservative than I was years ago when I got the different M39's which I still have out in the safes.

If I have learned nothing else I can at least say I never knew the extent of the boundaries of the word Parkerizing. Good Luck sorting this one out fella's as I am on to bigger and better things! Bill

[martin08]

I have a non-import marked 1909 Sestroryetsk with a parkerized finish. Done here? Finland? Germany? Who the heck knows.

I have not posted the gun on this forum, as it clearly not an original Mosin Nagant finish, nor is it a typical refurbishment finish. But maybe when I get the time, I'll post it in this thread. Why? Just because. We can keep all the parkerized Mosin discussion in one place, everybody can have a look, and then decide for themselves.

[InOmaha]

I wonder if they may have been done in a Russian Arsenal training class? The same way you see the occasional engraving done over here by gunsmiths in training. Dig out a crate, hand them out to the class, practice coating, then in typical Soviet fashon, box them back up and store them for later just in case.

Just thinking out loud.

[Junk Yard Dog]

It's buyer beware when dealing with any outfit selling used firearms, most will just pass along something as they received it, others will try to "improve" it a bit to get more buyers, and they will bullshit you, just take Mitchells Mauser's and Gibbs rifles ( among others) as a good example of this. As someone who has been royally screwed by a gun selling outfit in the past with just such a bullshit story as the "parkerized Mosin" I will say straight out that I think this is a Bubba rifle, I think someone sidelined a crate of Mosins and Parked them to see if they could sell them at greater profit. Welcome to the I bought a Bubba rifle and thought it was real club, mine was a Gibbs Enfield No7 7.62mm Carbine, and I paid nearly $275 for it back before there was no internet making it easy to check up on such things before buying. Every collector gets stuck with something like this sooner or later, mostly by the time we have been at it 20-30 years we get a nose for sniffing out the bullshit.

After reading all the posts and having our name thrown out as a Bubba outfit, counterfeiters or some how scam artists and to be put in the same class as Mitchells Mausers, I had to register and post. That is if it don't get deleated.

Our reputation speakers for itself. I can say I invented sliced bread or we are the greatest but after a decade of supplying hand picked guns for collectors, we have only had 1 unhappy camper and nothing would make this guy happy. I guarantee everything that goes out and pride ourselves on NOT BUYING crates of Mosin's but hand picking through them to find guns not only for our customers but for me as I collect Mosin's as well. This was only the second time I bought the contents of a crate (and it was not the whole crate). My friend told me they were different and cool so I had to check them out. I had to have them shipped versus picking them up so that added to their cost.

We have agreements with a few different distributors where I can go and look through stacks of Mosin's and I look through more guns every week than most people see in a lifetime. If I go through 100 guns, I may pick out 5 but they will be what our customers want. I also have relationships with several of the other Mosin sites out there and supplied pics for everyone else to refer to and further the collections field. I have also collected guns and mainly Mosin's for 25 plus years and have more than 150 in my personal collection. Our company is just the wife, son and I.

I was a painting contractor in my previous life, sold the company to concentrate on my collecting full time and get my 01 FFL. We did parkerizing, bluing and dura coating for years. I was diagnosed with MS and haven't refinished any guns for a few years now as I can't be around the chemicals anymore (this is even documented in our section of the forum). As for classic chroming guns, I thought that was an abomination but if people bought them,more power to them as this is a free country. Advertising them as parade rifles is flat out deception, people revolt and get pissed off but a cheaper one time price and people will forget and flock back to them. Personal integrity keeps us from doing business like that. I always think how I would feel if someone did that to me and we will not sell what we will not use oue selves.

Phosphate parkerizing is not an electro process and is easy to do and anyone can to it at home but you can't fill numbers with wax as the water is heated and it would melt out fast.

As for the importers mark, there has been a recent change in size and depth it has to be due to ATF specs and most use a dot matrix process. Sometimes it prints clearly, sometimes not depending on the condition of the tip. The pics I posted over at surplurifleforum were quick pics with my iPad as I was getting ready for the gun show that week. I will be more than happy to send anyone better pics, just PM me you email address.

I have never posted these were anything other than something I have never seen before. We conferred with major collectors from around the country and got their opinions through their experiences which was also posted over at our forum.

The facts are they came from a sealed crate from the Ukraine NOT Russia like the Molots. That is why there could be a mix of guns from all over the place. We DID not parkerized them. The importer DID NOT parkerized them. If you can not believe this then I don't know what to tell you. The whole point is to converse about them and try to figure it out if that can even be done. Nanny booing, calling people frauds, adds nothing to the conversation.

Ok, I have a few minutes, if you are going to be in the business of dealing in milsurps and you suddenly come up with a small number of something that deviates from the huge numbers of similar product then you can expect to be talked about. Collectors, and that is what we are here, not dealers, we are the customers, we will pick apart your product, we will suggest every possibility for its origin, we will go on about it at some length. those of us who have been in this game a long time, guys like Bill, Dolk, Myself, and a few others, we have seen it all, heard it all, been told everything under the sun, we become skeptical about everything and we take absolutely nothing at face value, and we live to pick apart mysteries until we get to the answers. 25 years as a collector and 150 + Mosins is impressive, however you are not a collector anymore, you are a dealer now, you are on the other side of the counter, your job is to separate collectors from their money and turn a profit doing it, you had best grow a thick skin because you will hear it all. personally I have never heard of you, you might have started dealing after I acquired the bulk of my collection, and that was some time back now, but then I don't spend a lot of time seeking out every gun seller on the net, there are hundreds of small dealers out there. Because we do not know you and you are suddenly appearing out of thin air with something that deviates from the norm we will speculate as to how this came to be, some of that speculation will be harsh because us old farts have been stuck before, we have been told every sort of bullshit story by any number of sellers over the years. I have been at this 40 years, some of us even longer, we are a tough crowd around here, this is not a board were " sponsors" dictate the content of posts and things are kept mild. I did not mention your specific name, that you can blame someone else for, I did hold up some other well known names as examples of bullshit piled higher and deeper, all known in the collector community for playing fast and loose with the truth when it came to selling.

Get used to this if you want to make a living selling guns, especially milsurps, once your product hits a board it will be picked apart. I am a lifetime in the scrap metals, and antiques business, you think we played hard with you here? You have no idea! As for the home Park kit, I saw the finished result, I know he worked at home on a little table, he pissed me off to no end at the time and I have never forgotten it, the shmuck did a Winchester Garand next. I don't remember who sold the kits, that was back in the 90's, but likely it was Numrich when they had the retail store up in West Hurley still open.

[martin08]

O.K.

More parkerized fun. This one was done a long time ago. It has ample edge wear, and from some angles and in the right light, it has the aged "greenish/gray" look.

And now I'm glad that I finally took pics of the old bird. A Serbian crown appeared on the barrel. Cool.

[Darryl]

]

After reading all the posts and having our name thrown out as a Bubba outfit, counterfeiters or some how scam artists and to be put in the same class as Mitchells Mausers, I had to register and post. That is if it don't get deleated.

I read the entire thread again and I don't see where anyone called you a
Bubba Outfit
counterfeiters
scam artist

I see where JYD mention Mitchell's Mausers as an example of people that possibly do the above (and you must be one of them if it bothers you that much). But I have seen a lot of "opinions" and attempted to get more information by asking questions and yes, I've seen your name mentioned as I did. But I don't think I read anywhere where they called you any of those names. They may have found it "interesting" that your company also Parks which is exactly what we are talking about here.

In fact, I did a forum wide search for the words counterfeiters and counterfeit, and until you brought it up, it has never been on these forums. Funny thing is, Scam never comes up till your post either. Well, bubba you have me on, because it is such a "common word" used around here it would not return a search result.

I do see a reference to bubba with connection to these rifles, but it does not say who "bubba'd" them, and certainly not your company by name. But, maybe I overlooked something or missed something in all the text?

Maybe you could show me where that is?

I'm not talking about "opinions", that is people right to voice their opinions here. That you see is how we learn. Open and free discussion.

Dolk


.

[Darryl]

Well, this didn't exactly help, and it doesn't take a genius to put 2 and 2 together to see the implication/accusation that it was FF&F that did this:

Because you decided to make this personal and on the "open forum":

The questions I asked were not asked of you, nor is this any of your business. No one asked you to respond to my questions to FF&F. FF&F has come on here to defend their company and that is fine, and we have given them that opportunity. We didn't "delete" their post as they said we might, we answered it. They can and are allowed to carry on a civil conversation here if they want to respond.

As far as what we discuss (and that includes Molot, and RGUNS, and AIM, and who ever) is none of your business. You don't own these forums. We listen to our regular forum members and set the rules with that in mind. We are constantly asking "why" and trying to get answers. Not sitting on our ass' and just believing everything someone spoon feeds us.

You are not going to come on this forum (from another forum) and try and dictate to us what we can or can not discuss here. If you have a problem with that, go back to the "forums" where you came from.

Dolk
Co-Owner

[Junk Yard Dog]

I saw my first RC Mauser in 1996, or early 1997, they were blued, shit blue, but blued, that was my introduction to the Soviet refurb. Now 16, nearly 17 years later after an unbroken stream of blued Soviet refurbs in all shapes and sizes, carbines, pistols, rifles, bayonets, in the thousands that I have had eyes on I am supposed to believe they suddenly started parkerizing them. I have been on this board since 2005, in that time I have seen photos of countless thousands of Soviet refurbs, not a single one was parkerized. Now one gun seller I don't know, who I have never heard of, who is spoken for by people I do not know, suddenly produced a box of parkerized Soviet refurbs with no documentation ( provenance) and I am supposed to accept them as Gospel? Not likely. You get Karl-Heinz Wrobel to sign off on these then I will give them some credibility because him I know, his knowledge of the Mosin is probably more extensive that anyone I can think of, his name is well known to Mosin collectors.

I don't know this "Surplusrifleforum" I have heard a thing or two in passing about it, but they have nothing to do with this board, it's content, it's rules, I don't care who they vouch for, I do not know these people. Is Karl-Heinz Wrobel there? Is he over there saying these things are the real deal? Funny, because I haven't heard that if it's true, and I suspect it's not. PPSH's are all over the former communist world, and even beyond that I am sure, they can be humped same as any other milsurp, but I don't collect them as the real full auto versions are not permitted here, whatever the hell semi auto version is offered here is a parts rifle, not a real milsurp anymore, can't be just to get them into the US.

As for people getting their feelings hurt, tough shit, it's a tough world when you sell to collectors, when something is being presented to us for sale with no provenance then we will pick it apart. I don't want any new collector coming on this board and thinking a parkerized Mosin is absolutely correct when we have no such proof. Get a researcher with the credentials of Karl-Heinz Wrobel to sign off on it then it's correct, shit 90% or more of what we know about the Soviet refurb Mosin is thanks to him, and his years of research back when nobody gave a damn. I am likely to say a whole bunch of shit about Molot Mosins that some people will not want to hear also, tough shit on that too. Nobody owns me, owns my mouth, and being in this purely for collecting I will question everything until I am satisfied I have found the truth. I am not in this for the money, this board pays me nothing, zero, I accept no personal funding, or other favors from any gun seller so my mouth is my own and I will say shit some people will not want to hear, I am in this for the history, nothing else, I don't even give a shit if my collection appreciates in value or not.

[Rongo]

What a thread.

[racerguy00]

This thread has become a bit testy. I hesitated to even post this because of the lack of photographic evidence.

Two years ago or so the friendly counter guy at Dunhams asked me about an 'oddball' that was on layaway for 79.99. It had typical refurb stamps, but the barrel and receiver looked exactly like the posted rifles. It was an R guns import, the import stamp wasn't covered up, and there was grease on everything. I had never had seen another mosin like it until Zeebill's 07 carbine, and the rifles posted here. A rough, dull greenish gray finish. Wish I had a photo.

[Junk Yard Dog]

This thread has become a bit testy. I hesitated to even post this because of the lack of photographic evidence.

Two years ago or so the friendly counter guy at Dunhams asked me about an 'oddball' that was on layaway for 79.99. It had typical refurb stamps, but the barrel and receiver looked exactly like the posted rifles. It was an R guns import, the import stamp wasn't covered up, and there was grease on everything. I had never had seen another mosin like it until Zeebill's 07 carbine, and the rifles posted here. A rough, dull greenish gray finish. Wish I had a photo.

That's the problem, there is no documented evidence of these from any accredited source, there are many reasons a finish can look like park and not be, the communists didn't exactly take great care in their bluing jobs. rifles that had been tampered with sometimes entered the Soviet refurb system from Finland, Hungary, East Germany for example. One here and there with an oddball finish I would expect, a perfect crate of 20 with new looking finishes I would not. For me to accept that it would have to come with crystal clear provenance because we have seen any number of things done to these rifles in an effort to make them more palatable to the American gun buyer. Remember that collectors are only a small corner of the gun culture, to make real money a seller has to be able to convince regular shooters and hunters to buy these rifles also, guys who care about shooting not about historical integrity. To that end we see the refinishing, and other alteration done to these rifles the same way Bannerman did it 90 years ago to sell their less popular firearms.

On another point, just because you see a rifle slathered in grease do not automatically assume that it is that way from the importer. Back before spray cosmoline became easy to buy, or find I used grease to preserve the parts rifles, and hack jobs I would end up with when buying out collections. I would slather all the metal parts in whatever cheap axle grease I had around, and stick the rifle in the shed wrapped in plastic. Messy, but as I was not touching them until I needed a part I didn't care, I also would receive rifles stored the same way from other collectors. I am sure there are probably people storing extra rifles the same way today, some of them could be Bubba rifles of any sort. They end up on a gunshop shelf and people will assume they came in that way from Russia because they look as greasy as some rifles fresh from the import crate, never assume, you know what they say about assuming right?