not sure what i am looking at

[hoopharted]

its a 1924 , 3 digit serial no prefix , with the octagon receiver , old school Izhevsk marking , 91/30 , no serial on stock , i cant remember for the life of me if the serialed the stocks or not , , bolt , receiver , buttplate and trigger guard match , no x'd numbers

i only own one Mosin , a Romanian first year production , before that its been 20 years since i was into them , so brain is old and tired , any help in what i am looking at and is this something that would be obscure enough to acquire

i purged the collection years ago and tend to be a bit more picky with the gun safe space

thank you in advance

[millman]

I'd say it's an ex-dragoon. Refurbed. It looks like a nice one.

[hoopharted]

thanks for the reply , i understand or at least i think i do from what i remember is that they were all over the place with serials , but does 3 digit with no pre have any significance here , this is what struck me as odd

ex dragoon is what i thought but i was going off of memory when researching and could not nail down anything concrete about it when i was at the Mosin identification page

[hoopharted]

[hoopharted]

from what ive been able to nail down is post war stock as it has finger groove at the rear band ,and pressed sling scussions , not sure if its true but read that pre 1930 is usually indicator ex dragoon , CAI import billboard left side of receiver

questions i asked , said mirror bore , no visible cracks or repairs , bolt lug is tight , bolt function smooth , said chamber was clean ,if it was shot it was not much or someone had good weapon hygiene , no accessories

so i have a great local gun shop that has grown over the years that now has 8 locations and they will bring anything from one of the other locations to my local shop , so i had them pull this for me , i decided to get it , im going to put it on layaway sine i have something else im paying on

[millman]

I would say that the original serial was unreadable and during refurb they made up one and made all the parts match during refubishment. That is a late/post WW2 stock. I also don't know the reason that they would have changed the last digit of the date. Is there a date under the rear tang of the receiver? If there is and it is a 24, then I'd guess they just made the barrel date match. Using earlier barrels with newer receivers is not uncommon.

[hoopharted]

i didnt even notice the strike over , and the serial is the same depth , is there something hinky going on?

[hoopharted]

tink im going to call them back and change my mind ,

[hoopharted]

i cancelled it , if i get one i dont want that nonsense going on with the numbers , cant thank you enough for catching that

[willyj73]

i didnt even notice the strike over , and the serial is the same depth , is there something hinky going on?

I don't think there is anything "hinky" going on with this rifle. It's not uncommon to see a date overstruck. It's not a typical rifle. Looks like it went through some type of repair/refurbishment. Barrel looks to have vice marks down the middle. Rifle would have been made in U.S.S.R.'s infancy. Perhaps they just didn't have the funds to discard perfectly good parts and repaired a rifle that had damage.

[hoopharted]

I bowed away from it it was on the high end , with the do overs on the numbers not for me. They wanted $450

[Junk Yard Dog]

Typical Soviet refurb that happens to be built using an older dragoon rifle barreled action. This is very common to see as the Soviets upgraded the older dragoon rifles to 91/30 spec during the post WW2 refurbishments. The older markings are cool but not to the point that I ever paid more than what I did for any other refurb back in the day. I had a lot of these come my way back 15-18 years ago, and still have them. For a real, or non upgraded dragoon rifle you would likely find its Finn, or Spanish Civil War, something sold by a country other than the USSR . Countries who acquired them before or during WW2. The refurbs were done at multiple facilities over a long period of years so there are variations in everything from stock finish colors to how the new serial numbers were attached. Low numbers like this are not rare, and mean very little other than the cool factor of three or two digits rather than the more common four or five. Even we didn't always start at serial number one, and they might add a prefix and start over again part way through the year. Start at 100, or 10,000, or 5, never pay too much more because of a lower serial number unless it's something like 666 or something you know would probably have resale value appeal to some nuts out there. Of course as none of us would knowingly sell a gun to a known nut job you can discount any resale on oddball serials like that right from the start.

[SA1911a1]

Typical Soviet refurb that happens to be built using an older dragoon rifle barreled action. This is very common to see as the Soviets upgraded the older dragoon rifles to 91/30 spec during the post WW2 refurbishments. The older markings are cool but not to the point that I ever paid more than what I did for any other refurb back in the day. I had a lot of these come my way back 15-18 years ago, and still have them. For a real, or non upgraded dragoon rifle you would likely find its Finn, or Spanish Civil War, something sold by a country other than the USSR . Countries who acquired them before or during WW2. The refurbs were done at multiple facilities over a long period of years so there are variations in everything from stock finish colors to how the new serial numbers were attached. Low numbers like this are not rare, and mean very little other than the cool factor of three or two digits rather than the more common four or five. Even we didn't always start at serial number one, and they might add a prefix and start over again part way through the year. Start at 100, or 10,000, or 5, never pay too much more because of a lower serial number unless it's something like 666 or something you know would probably have resale value appeal to some nuts out there. Of course as none of us would knowingly sell a gun to a known nut job you can discount any resale on oddball serials like that right from the start.

Back in the day when the rifles were cheap and so plentiful I bought one because the serial was my birth day, date and year. I couldn't help myself.

[racerguy00]

The last number struck over on the date is common on mosins made early in the year. Started in one year, Finished in the next so they changed the date by stamping over. Before they went to letter prefixes in '38 the serial numbers were sequential on Izhevsk dragoons from the beginning to end of year. So the 3 number serial indicates it was made in the first day or two in '24 which explains the date restamp.

The serial numbers on the bolt etc are restamped to match the barrel serial number, they arent the same font as the barrel number. So it's matching but not original matching.

Looks like a really nice refurbed exdragoon, nothing odd or hinky about it. 450 is a normal price for one these days

[millman]

Racerguy, I posted a whole hearted agreement with your comment , but then I thought , why would the restamped serial look just like the restamped year? If it were a new year roll over, it would have the old font, faint like the rest.

450 is not out of line for this rifle, regardless.

[millman]

Btw, I don't know what is what, I just look at what I see.

[racerguy00]

I don't think it's a restamped serial. I have a 24 date dragoon and an ex dragoon with the serials in the same font as that. I think they just restamped the date when they stamped the original serial. I just think the original markings were lightly struck or the machining wasn't great in that area or whatever. QC for cosmetic issues in the early 20s didn't seem to be a priority.

[millman]

I don't think it's a restamped serial. I have a 24 date dragoon and an ex dragoon with the serials in the same font as that. I think they just restamped the date when they stamped the original serial. I just think the original markings were lightly struck or the machining wasn't great in that area or whatever. QC for cosmetic issues in the early 20s didn't seem to be a priority.