The Russian Mosin Nagant Forum

I have a few m44's and a m38... But...

I have never seen the best fit and finish on any mosin carbine... and the trigger is amazing 2.5 pounds??? There is no slack or take up or creep... nothing... its so light its amazing...

It says 1943 but also stamped 1891/59...comes with a blue navy sling... bluing is immaculate... for a 1943 all i ever saw was rough looking bluing... What did they do with this?

paid $150 for it...

First off in today's market you got a good buy. That is what I paid for them 10 years ago when I first saw one of these. They all have excellent triggers and generally good fit and finish too. They are very habit forming and at one time many years ago I had a dozen or so and loved them. When they started going up in price I took my profit sand sold many off. I still have 3 or 4 left and one in an ABS stock is my hunting rifle. It shoots dead on with lead tipped hunting bullets the first shot at 100 yards and then (I think because of the dang ABS stock) it starts training down and to the left.

I have heard a million different stories about who or what country made thee things and frankly I don't know which one to believe at this point. We will see what people chime in with here and then you can take your choice. My guess is because many of the traits I see on the rifles remind me of early Polish rifles I have had over the years they may have come from the same builders? I base this on nothing frankly other than my observations. I do know one thing they have the best triggers of any Russian or com-bloc countries I have ever shot. Congrats! A good buy at the price as they are on sale at shows for $325+ usually and people are buying them at that price too. Bill

Excellent price. I think I paid about 250 for mine, and it is probably not in as good a condition as yours.

You stole it at that price. What did they do to it? They took an M91/30 and cut it down to carbine size. What people like the most about these rifles is that whoever did the work knew what they were all about, no slipshod crap as we sometimes see with the regular Soviet rifles. They even made an effort to clean up the wartime rough finish receivers, and they knew how to set a trigger properly. This is a shooters carbine, the 91/30 barrel is thicker than the ones used on the M38's so it's also a heavy barrel carbine, they tend to be excellent shooters. All of mine are.

These are among the finest and most accurate of the Russian Mosins. And, in this day and time, you got this for less than half of the going price, even for the more common 1943 models. The Mosin carbines are my favorite of all the misurps. No one really knows where these were made but my thoughts are that two programs were begun by the Russians to rework and put back into service unserviceable M-91's and M91/30's that basically had bad bores at the muzzle end. The 91/59 program was one of these programs responsible for building this carbine from M91/30's that could not be brought up to specification with a mere counterbore. Arguments always begin when people speculate as to where they were made. My personal thoughts are that the 91/59 was build in Russia, likely in the Ukraine, but under much stricter quality control than the primary M91/30 refurbishment program. With such high quality, there is a possibility that they were being built to be sold on the international arms market or were being built for ceremonial troops. These never hit the international markets, at least in large numbers, since Century gobbled up the bulk of them. These carbines have the M91/30 sights but from 1000 to 2000 meters was milled off the sights. Another interesting aspect of these carbines is the escutcheons. They usually have a war time front escutcheon regardless of what is on the back. They can have prewar, post war and empty war time escutcheons on the back. The stocks seemed to be very nice M91/30 stocks that were cut down, fitted, sanded and refinished with a very light finish. That would explain why you can find any escutcheons on the butt. I have also even seen them in M-44 stocks. These stocks seem to have Czech stamping on the top of the butt stock. But, I have several so stamped with 1st GRAU Ukrainian refurbishment stampings. This may be because they ran out of stocks and reworked refurbished stocks. It is clear that this occurred in the M91/38 program as well. Internal quality is very high too. Triggers are tight and seem to release between 4-6 lbs. Internals can come from anywhere much like the other refurbishments. In most cases, they are arsenal matched. Great carbines. Welcome to the 91/59 club

Very nice. Great buy. I just missed one a few weeks ago for 150. You don't happen to be in Phoenix....do you?
I have a couple now and still have yet to shoot them. I do a lot of staring at them though! Something about the 91/59's.

One of my 59's has a "purpose built" M38 style stock on it. It does not have the bayonet groove, but is like a M38. It looks exactly like a Polish stock, but Polish stocks were only made in M44 style (with the groove). This one was built as a M91/59 purpose built stock. This is not the only one of these around. There are a few of these around. I too think they look Polish, but they were being stored in Russia, which is puzzling.


M91/59:





I also have a restored Izhevsk M44. Restored in Poland. It has all the features of a M91/59. In fact, when I went to buy it, at first I thought it was....or a Polish M44

M44: (Polish rebuild)





You have a very nice looking M91/59...and I won't even say how much of a bargain you got.

Dolk

150.00? That is a great buy as you already have discovered. I was thinking the same thing Zeebill said. These were 150.00 ten years ago. I was seeing them for 159.00 about 8 years ago in limited quantities but available. I procrastinated about buying one because I thought I had plenty of time. Then they died up, making the price go up when they did show up. I finally found one locally and bought it for 175.00, thanks to a generous heads-up from BuckeyeSgt. This is my favorite carbine too. I hope you plan to keep it and keep it all original. You got a good investment that you can also shoot and enjoy.

M91/59 rank right up there with the Finn mosins.

I have a couple of them, a 1943 like yours and a 1932. I want to get a Tula.

Another owner of a 1943 91/59. It was the first C&R I purchased years ago and it will be the last I sell...

I have a 91/59 that started life as a 1943. I just looked and never took any pictures of it. Got to fix that, it has some wonderful repairs on it.

I have been trying to get a local guy to sell his '44 Tula hex 91/59 for years now. Still no luck. Great looking carbines.

Racer, that would be a good one!

I have three so far. Bunkysdad needed one bad or I might have bought that one too. Luckily most people don't know the value so I've snagged all of them pretty cheap. You got a heck of a deal too.

Anybody from the old board remember Ter and his collection of 91/59's? I was lucky to grab a few of his extras when he thinned the collection, I think Ron got some also. Very nice ones, if they were his cull's I can only imagine what the ones he kept were like.

racerguy00 wrote:I have been trying to get a local guy to sell his '44 Tula hex 91/59 for years now. Still no luck. Great looking carbines.

That would be a nice one to have. Most of the 91/59's had their original matched barrels or receivers. I never thought that the 91/59 program altered the receivers or barrels. Maybe this was one that was altered prior to the 91/59 build.

Yeah, I gotta get mine back from Ron sometime. IIRC, it was one of Ter's, and shoots almost as good as FrankenTula™.

Awesome, Now there is something else to find, thanks for posting the photos..

Bought my "59" by accident several years ago. Visiting a pawn shop I had found several deals in times past and I saw what I thought was a 38. Was vertically in a rack bottom facing out. Did not need another but wanted to look anyway. The clerk knew me but I had not had my wife with me before with my other buys. Handing me the rifle he says, " I'll hold it for you if you want to come back without your wife". She has long since accepted my addiction. I told him she won't care, I'll take it, just to prove it.
Did not really need another M38, was not till I got home that I saw it was a 91/59. For $120 no less.
Now that I think about it I've only taken it out one time shooting. When Oregon's fire season goes away it's going out for a second time.