M28-30 Transition Finn

[MadisonAV]

In the last week I've pulled all my Finn Mosen Nagants from their gun safes and reinventoried them. My goal in starting this collection was to fill as many slots in Finn Mosin Nagant history as I could and try to avoid duplicates. Of my 27 Finns, 26 fell nicely into the scarcity classes. This 27th Finn, I've struggled with a bit. At first I thought I had a guard member upgrade. But as you'll see, the serial number is too high. Let me walk you through with a series of photos.



Nice looking Finn. But what is it?



That looks like a M27 front sight but a M28/30 front barrel band.



That's a M28/30 rear sight. And the square fingers indicate the stock is a post-war stock.



The barrel serial number is 35429. According to Vic Thomas, the last M28 had a serial number of 33016. The serial numbers on the M28/30 picked up from there. That would put this M28/30 2,413 rifles into the M28/30 production run.



That position in the run is reinforced by the Sako serial number (2632) on the rear sight. Sako rear sight serial numbers started with 1 at the beginning of the M28/30 production.



The Sako and SK.Y barrel markings on top of the barrel is the first version of barrel markings for M28/30 barrels. Why is all this relevant? Because Vic Thomas in his M28/30 article indicates that the first 2700 M28/30s were produced with the old front sights and then upgraded to the M28/30 front sights before they were released to the guard units. Hmmmm!!!

So did this rifle miss that upgrade? Or was the front sight damaged and when it was refitted with the post war stock the damaged front sight was replaced with a M27 sight. I'd love to hear some theories on this. But I think you will have to admit this is an interesting M28/30.

[Fledge]

Do you have a top shot of the front sight available? Definitely no windage adjustment on that front sight. This would be one of those guns I would want Mangrove on gunboards to look up in the civil guard records in Finland. You might get some answers. Really interesting....

[MadisonAV]

Fledge,

Here you go. A front - front sight shot.



A top - front sight shot.



And two close up shots at the guard number, the first from the barrel.



And the second, Finn force matched on the bolt.



Note that what appears to be rust in the barrel in the first photo a photographic artifact, probably resulting from my playing around with the color settings in the photo to bring out sight detail. The bore is not in great shape but not as bad as the photo implies.

[Fledge]

The front sight is a M28 sight. The set screw is in the front. The set screw is on the opposite side on a M 27. It sure looks like an updated M28, but Iam not sure about the discrepancy in serial numbers. The Sako logo was used on some M28's with early SIG barrels I believe.http://www.mosinnagant.net/finland/M28-Rifle.asp here is some info.

[Fledge]

Scratching my head on this one..... Cool though. I didn't notice the SkY marking. I think it is an early M28/30 that has the old M28 sight, but still has the reinforcement in the forestock????

[MadisonAV]

Fledge,

Thank you for clarifying that it is a M28 sight. The barrel serial number, the Sako rear sight serial number, and the barrel stamping all point to a rifle produced as a M28/30. It is in the first 2700 M28/30s produced, which according to Vic Thomas were originally produced with M28 front sights. His article says they were upgraded to the M28/30 front sight before they were released. But this rifle wasn't upgraded. Possibly it was sent out to a guard district for field testing and never made it back.

Quote from the Thomas article, "At first, just the rear sight was changed on the m/28 rifles that were designated for improvement. This total numbered only 2700 rifles altered in 1933 after the subtle changes were made to the first style Mansner designed sights. The new sight proved to be a success and it was decided that production at SAKO would continue with the new rear sight and would also incorporate the improved adjustable front sight assembly. The rifle would be redesignated the model 28-30 to reflect the improved nature of the sighting system. The “28” referring the model of the rifle and “30” designating the improvements initial proposal date. These first 2700 rifles were refit with the front sight assemblies in the spring of 1933 (April) and the first rifle to incorporate these improvements was delivered on May 10th 1933 to the Jyväskylä district."

The stock is a post-war stock, so is not original to this Mosin. I assume original stock was damaged in the wars and was replaced when it was re-arsenaled. I suspect I have a very unusual M28/30.

[Fledge]

Very cool, forgot it had the postwar stock, that would explain the reinforcing bolt. Thanks for sharing.

[Longcolt44]

Nice looking rifle BUT, you need to get after the rust in the bore. That is just plain neglect.

[joe7170]

Nice looking rifle BUT, you need to get after the rust in the bore. That is just plain neglect.

Yeah that looks real bad!

[Knuckledragger]

You have a first year M28/30. Not transitional.
Commonly referred to as a , "no date".

[MadisonAV]

[bunkysdad]

I like it, whatever it is. I have taken pictures before and had what appeared to be rust looking surfaces like in the above pics, but when going back to check couldn't see rust. I wonder how the camera does that. I suspect that the layer of rust is very thin, and can be picked up very well, better than the naked eye, thanks to these new high tech digital cameras.

[Homer2]

First year 28/30. The number on the rear sight base indicates the production number and under the barrel should be the year/month of production, which should be 1932 if I'm not mistaken. Great uncommon rifle.

Sent from my SM-T530NU using Tapatalk

[MadisonAV]

There was a very light amount of surface rust at the muzzle end of the barrel. I didn't notice it when I inspected it visually. But then, I'm 70. My eyes aren't all that wonderful any more. My digital SLR did pick it up, especially when I played with the color settings to increase the definition of the sight details and blew up the image. I've never shot this rifle. It was in a gun case on the top shelf of my bedroom closet, rather than the gun safes where I keep my Mosins so it missed my normal oiling rotation. I cleaned it last night. The last image is the barrel after I cleaned it. I'll be doing it more thoroughly this weekend.

The first 2700 M28/30s were produced before the design was finalized (Thomas article). Yes, my M28/30 was produced in the batch with the first generation M28/30s. When the design was finalized after field testing, the class was given the designation M28/30 by the Fins. Those 2700 rifles were supposed to be upgraded with the new front sight. Most were. I heard from a board member last night via private message who owns a M28/30 with a barrel serial number and Sako rear sight number over 2000 less than mine. His was one of the first M28/30s produced. His has the M28/30 front sight. Mine, some 2000 rifles later in the production, doesn't.

In the days leading up to the finalization of the M28/30 design, there was a fair amount of field testing by Guard groups. They were testing the modifications to the M28 design, particularly the rear sight. The testing had to have been done using rifles from the batch of 2700 as they were the only rifles with the new rear sight. I suspect my M28/30 may have been a field test rifle that was never returned to Sako, and missed the front sight upgrade. Of course that's speculation. We'll never really know. But it certainly a plausible explanation of why this rifle still has a M28 front sight.

I referred to my M28/30 as a transition M28/30 because it is stuck in the middle between the M28 specs and the first generation M28/30 specs. Transition is not a formal designation we use in describing M28/30s. That was the point of this post. This rifle doesn't fall nicely into the formal designations we use, which is why I was having trouble classifying it. I originally thought it was a Guard M28 that had been upgraded to a M28/30 as part of the Sako upgrade program. But the barrel stampings, barrel serial number, and Sako rear sight serial numbers all say otherwise. It is a first generation M28/30, but with an interesting variance from the class. I believe it is a snapshot of what these rifles looked like before the final set of upgrades that included the new M28/30 front sight.

[Darryl]

Not all rifles got their upgrades when they were supposed to, and some never did. You see that a lot on the M27's. Also, parts are changed either on the battle field or later when arsenal'd after the war. So parts are not always kept together on the same rifle. Finn did not care. What was important is they had a good quality rifle that shot and ready to go....a working rifle.

[MadisonAV]

Dolk, I agree with everything you said. I have Finns that are crazy mismatches of parts. You do too. I've seen your posts describing some of them. But in this case, If it started out with a M-28 front sight (which it did) and ended up with a M-28 front sight (which it also did), odds are, the front sight was never upgraded in between.