The Russian Mosin Nagant Forum

Ok so on a local gun trading group someone offered to sell this to me for $175. with the Following description

"Jaime if you look real close you will see how rare my rifle is my friend. No barrel straps, this is the tank drivers carbine they had no room so it had to be small as possible. Check em out again let me know bro."


NOW I'm no expert but I haven't been able to find ANY documentation on a Mosin Nagant "tank edition". From what I have learned from your guys.... this thing has all the classic signs of a "bubba" special... but the guy is really cool and friendly and has helped me out a few times so I figured I'd give him the benefit of the doubt and check with you guys. Again i don't claim to be an expert so please help me out.... WTF is this?


1st thing I noticed was the hole for the Dog collar sling, and then the other style sling connection. I've never seen one with Both


2nd as described it has no front section to the stock. like a sporterized stock. but the edges look rounded like its supposed to be like that... not flat like it was cut off.


3rd Something about the front sight placement/design doesn't look right to me. It could be the photo but it almost looks like it has a Fin Front sight and the tip cut off?

4th stock looks "refinished" I don't know it could be original but it just looks wrong to me... don't know. I've seen blondies, and i've seen the dark ones, I've never seen one sort of in between.


Help me out please.

Its a typical commercial type sporterization of either a most likely Spanish Civil War or Finn capture 91/30 done back in the 50s and 60s. They couldn't move their inventory of mosins because I hey simply weren't in demand in military configuration back they so they chopped the barrels and stocks, added a fake 1903 Springfield type front sight and bent the bolt handles. I used to buy these for parts or trade bait until recently. They usually were $50 or so. When people recently started asking $100+ I quit giving them even a glance.

"Jaime if you look real close you will see how rare my rifle is my friend. No barrel straps, this is the tank drivers carbine they had no room so it had to be small as possible. Check em out again let me know bro."

I'm sorry but this is comical Jaime. He might really be a nice guy and simply doesn't know but that's a whole lotta BS right there. Like Dave said it's either an older commercial sporter or one done recently by some "creative" fellow but it never left any Russian (or any other) arsenal looking like that. If they needed a carbine in a tank they could just use an M38 or even a PPSH-41.

He might believe what he is telling you is true, but he is wrong. He hasn't taken his own advice to"check em out again".

A New Years special bullshitting offer... I wonder if the guy himself was bullshitted or is he making all that crap by himself....

And just to add a bit of info, Soviet tank crews never had any carbines anyways. They had pistols (m/95 or TT33). Later crews were issued also with couple of SMGs, PPD-40s, PPSh-41s, captured MP-40s. Later exlusively PPS-42s and PPS-43s because those were very compact.

Soviet tanks were very cramped inside so not much room for "side arms".

Bannerman 'sporter'. I have one similar. They usually have the M9103 Sprg, front sight, and a a slightly bent bolt.