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Well there's some good news......."The Duchess", as the old girl has come to be known, has passed the barbarity that is the proof test!.Just had a message to say it is being dropped off at my RFD today as the Birmingham Proofhouse want all completed work out the door as they are closing the gates on Thursday!.

It's a shame my RFD doesn't sell bread and milk as I could have popped in for a loaf, a pint and a 1915 Mosin!

Enjoy :)

Ovenpaa wrote:Enjoy :)

Thank you, I will as soon as the range is open again and I can get up there

Not a bad turnaround on proofhouse's part, less than a week!, that said they may have been quiet what with the ongoing situation at the moment.I did sort of resign myself to the fact that it could have potentially been there for many weeks!.

Very Very nice.

Cornish-Viking wrote:Very Very nice.

Thank you .....to be honest the photo doesn't do her justice.

DL. wrote:https://relicsfromthefront.co.uk/produc ... of-the-war

I wonder why the barrel was removed.......

I have a pair of relic Russian F-1 grenade bodies sat on a shelf that came out of a back garden in St Petersburg/Leningrad that are particularly rough cast, chances are they were cast during The Siege Of Leningrad

A further update......

I was able to get to pick the old girl up yesterday as Minsterley Ranges reopened and I was able to finally put some rounds down the pipe.

With the rear sight set as low as it would go she shot around 8" high and slightly to the left but once I'd got my eye in and adjusted my point of aim according she didn't shoot too bad at all with most rounds in a 4" target, my having to correct my point of aim probably didn't help and I think that once she's had some more rounds through her and the action has settled she'll do nicely for a 105 year old rifle.

I could probably source a taller front sight blade that would bring the point of impact down but I'll leave it as it is, in the context of an infantry rifle with a "belt buckle aim" all shots would have been centre mass so she's still capable of doing what she was designed to do.

Will post up some decent pics when I get chance but back to work later today for the time since the 20th of March.

That's a nice looking bang stick!

Would the bolt have been blued originally? or always in the white? (asking as I have seen something similar elsewhere)

-daman

daman wrote:That's a nice looking bang stick!

Would the bolt have been blued originally? or always in the white? (asking as I have seen something similar elsewhere)

-daman

Thank you

The bolt is in "the white" as it would have left the factory.All Mosin bolts would have been un-blued originally but blued bolts turn up on Finn-marked Mosins and some Chinese Type-53's but the is some disagreement among collectors as to whether it was the Finns themselves that blued the bolts or whether it was done by the Germans who captured plenty of Mosins and subsequently shipped the to Finland.

There are also examples of Spanish Civil War Mosins with blued bolts but again there is some disagreement about who actually blued the bolts.

As a rule if a rifle stayed in Russia/USSR the bolt will be unblued, the majority of Finnish-captured/acquired Mosins will have an unblued bolt and other ComBloc Mosins (Hungarian, Polish and Romanian) will have inblued bolts