Can You Help Me With This Front Sight? What Is It???

[Josh Smith]

Hello,

I was written with a question regarding a non-standard front sight, and I simply cannot answer it. I took some guesses but what it boils down to is that I simply have no clue as to why it's so much larger than standard. Here is the sight, and my response:



Please note that the sights are merely colored and are not permanently altered. He is only an older gent who has trouble seeing the sights.

Hello,

I was looking at that sight a few days ago and have been researching it since.

I simply cannot figure it out. I think it may be Romanian, but more probably, given the cracks and relatively poor machining, it's a regular, out-of-spec pre-war front sight. The reason I say this is that it appears to have stretched prior to cooling, or perhaps may have been prevented from shrinking while cooling. The cracks appear to show this.

One distant possibility is that the enlarged hood is for a taller sight pin and it may have been originally installed on a rifle or carbine not intended to have a bayonet affixed. This would prevent the pin from being too close to the top of the hood.

These are all just guesses, and probably poor ones.

I'm taking the pictures over to a board where reside some very fastidious collectors. I don't hang out there much as I'm sure some of what I do offend them, but when it comes to pure research, they cannot be beat. If anyone knows for sure, it will be these gents.

I'll get back to you.

Regards,

Josh

Does anyone know what's going on here? Is it like I said, uneven cooling, or just for a better sight picture with a taller post? Or is this foreign to Russia?

Any idea?

Thanks everyone.

Regards,

Josh

[desdem12]

Did this come off a mosin? I am gonna throw some thing out there. This could be a repair on a spanish civil war mosin. They had to make a few parts here and there and this might be one.

[mogunner]

I know that the early hooded front sights were made in two pieces, the hood was formed and then welded to the sight. Could just be a product of a new guy on his first day.

[Junk Yard Dog]

There are a great deal of small variations in the wartime produced parts. It's possible that the front sight was produced at another facility then sent to the arsenal, a sub contractor, maybe they were made by several sub contractors. Could even be part of an experimental run of larger sights made to see if they were an improvement . With millions produced variation is to be expected.

[Junk Yard Dog]

[zeebill]

Uhuh!

[martin08]

One-piece milled sights appeared on early M91/30's. Late war-time production came out with two-piece globes. These globes were shaped and tack welded to the dovetail base.



As for the size, it is not usual. And also, knowing that this globe in question was found on an M44 (not M91/30), it was not original to the rifle. The host country for this specimen was likely the party which installed the odd-sized globe. Just another part that was fashioned for a particular gun with a need for a replacement front sight, and not regular production part.

[50ydPHIL]

Hello all.
Thanks Josh for posting this question here. Not sure what to think about the "Old gent" thing though. I hate to admit it, but guess its true.

I felt a need to post a bit about the rifle that this sight was found on.
It is a 1946 Russian Izhevsk M44 with the early narrow front sight base, so the style is correct for the year.
Unmolested numbers match, except for the bolt, but its Izhevsk also.
Raised metal around all numbers tells me that the barrel/receiver metal has not been sanded. However the underside of the barrel shank has been(?). Maybe at manufacture ? Bluing is slightly worn, likely original(?). Bore is excellent with only slight wear 1/4" down the muzzle.

Mag housing has light pitting blued over. Internal parts have been sanded, obviously some refurbed parts, but all Izhevsk.
My feeling is that the rifle was refurbed, but numbered parts were kept together. The barreled receiver, floorplate, and weren't re-blued. Stock was excellent but sanded, with a great fit of the original(?) buttplate. Not re-issued ? Very light colored, soft grease was everywhere, bore too.

When I found it, the sight hood was mangled and broken loose on one side, nobody wanted it so it was cheap.
Replaced it with a spare, sensing that it was something special.
Thinking it may be pieces of two sights spliced together, but why. If done during refurb, there would be plenty of spare parts lying around.
Maybe an attempt at better visibility through the sight hood. But it wasn't fielded to test it out....or maybe it was.

Was hoping someone had seen another like it.
Thanks

Phil

[Junk Yard Dog]

I know that light colored grease, sounds like the ex Romanian army 91/30's I was buying some years back, issued rifles all, repairs yes, but no refurbs in that lot . Romania was the last stop for much of the obsolete surplus rifles in the East block, one of the poorer countries they were unable to maintain steady production of their own M44's. They received Russian, Hungarian, and Polish rifles. I had a 1923 Izhevsk ex dragoon that had been refurbished in the USSR after WW2, then at some point ended up with the Romanians who used it heavily so it no longer looked like a typical Soviet refurb. They lost or broke the front sight and stuck a wide M44 sight onto the rifle. This sort of thing seemed to be typical of the repair work they did, no budget for spare parts or arsenal repairs, every repair on these rifles looks like it was done in the field under primitive conditions.
an example of the sort of repair work I found on just about all of the dozzen or so 91/30's I bought from that lot

The 1923 with the M44 sight on it

The grease

[WeldonHunter]

Below is a refurbed 1933 Tula M91/30 with a two piece front sight. That is not including the sight post. It's a hood that appears to have been made seperately and attached to the the base. It's roughly the same size as the others I have that are machined. It's about 18mm across the face of the globe at the widest point.

[50ydPHIL]

Hunter - I am familiar with the standard war-time sight. Spot-welded on the sides, very different from the larger one I pictured. Thank you though.
Your rifle must have been refurbished, or had a damaged sight to have that later style on it.

Dog - That's the grease !
I have several Romanian M44s, a couple have stock repairs like your picture, although they're slathered with shellac, one is very dark.
One Russian made 91/30 ex-sniper of mine also has that style of repair, in the same place, and the same 'dry' finish.

Hadn't considered that Romania had Russian or Polish rifles. Lots of Hungarian parts in my Romanian refurbs though. Was thinking that the 02 parts were installed when the carbines were originally built. Is there a stamped mark that a rifle repaired in Romania would have ?

Phil

[Junk Yard Dog]

The Romanians didn't seem to be big on stamping anything but their own M44's, I have a Hungarian M44 in a Polish stock with several small Romanian parts that is typical of their "refurb " work. They didn't even grind off the old serial numbers on the magazine, bolt or buttplate, didn't even line them out, just engraved the new number next to the old. Reminds me of the way the French put together rifles out of salvaged parts during the worst years of the Great War. Whatever worked was used, nobody cared if it matched so long as it worked. Thanks to Ceausescu's excesses running the Romanian economy into the ground they had to rely on hand me downs from the other West Pact countries, shame that as their own M44 is a very nicely built rifle, the equal in quality of the Polish and better than the Soviet rifles as far as fit and finish go, they just lacked the money to make enough of them.

[WeldonHunter]

Hunter - I am familiar with the standard war-time sight. Spot-welded on the sides, very different from the larger one I pictured. Thank you though.
Your rifle must have been refurbished, or had a damaged sight to have that later style on it.

Dog - That's the grease !
I have several Romanian M44s, a couple have stock repairs like your picture, although they're slathered with shellac, one is very dark.
One Russian made 91/30 ex-sniper of mine also has that style of repair, in the same place, and the same 'dry' finish.

Hadn't considered that Romania had Russian or Polish rifles. Lots of Hungarian parts in my Romanian refurbs though. Was thinking that the 02 parts were installed when the carbines were originally built. Is there a stamped mark that a rifle repaired in Romania would have ?

Phil

Yeah I realized it's different but wasn't sure if you guys had seen one attached on both sides instead of one like that one appears to be. I only have 17 Mosin Nagants, not a huge pool to draw from, and all have the fully machined sights. Well one is a Polish M44 so that's a different sight but all of the others including the other 2 Russian M44s and the PU are the same except for the one above. Man there's so much going on with these rifles it's unbelievable at times.

[Junk Yard Dog]

That's what keeps it interesting

[50ydPHIL]

+1
There's so much stuff to learn, beyond the rifle's moving parts.
Sounds like I need to ask more about my Romanian Mosins, if I can figure out how to post pictures here.
How can I insert images from my computer or camera, and not from a web link?

Phil

[desdem12]

They just need to be resized. I use paint to do that. Then use the button at the bottom left of the post page.

[Sgt. Rob]

This has been a very informative post on the front sights, I'll have to check the 91/30's here and see what I have now!

Semper Fi, Rob