Re: Introduction with Mosin Sniper Porn
Thanks again for the comments, guys.
For starters, check out
www.mosinnagant.net This sight is a great resource, especially for snipers (when you start clicking through the various sections/articles, you'll find them). Another site is:
www.7.62x54r.net which has excellent informational sections with a plethora of good photos on many, many aspects of Mosin rifles. Personally, I'm not a fan of their forums, so I stay away from there. My favorite forum for all things Mosin, is at Gunboards. The collector's forum and the sniper rifle forum there are great, with very knowledgeable people and a very high level of traffic. If you have questions, that's a great place to start. My only words of warning; Don't call an Izhevsk arsenal rifle an "Izzy", or a Mosin rifle a "Nagant" and any talk about sporterizing, or any other Bubba activity is very frowned upon. Don't let that scare you, though. There's a lot of great folks there.
As for my personal recommendation, I would revert back to my first paragraph, to read and learn as much as you can. There are many different nuances to Mosins, especially the snipers and it really takes a while to get comfortable with all of the variations and particulars. If I were looking to get a "representative" Mosin sniper, it would be a PU rifle from RGuns. These are, in most cases, all matching/original guns that may have been refurbished to some degree. Don't let the "refurb" talk scare you, however. These were done in a much different fashion than the hundreds of thousands of standard M91/30 rifles that have flooded the market. A lot more care was taken to keep original parts with their original guns and most, if not all serial numbers are original to the gun, not ground/restamped, electro-penciled, etc. Be aware, however that it was common for some guns to have their scope numbers and rifle serial number EP'd onto the scope mount. This is typically found on Izhevsk arsenal PUs and is considered to be "correct". I could go on for pages about this, but if you read the links above, you'll start to see what I'm getting at. The point is that the PU rifle is the most recognized Mosin sniper and also the most available and at a reasonable price. Just beware of the repros that are also flooding the market, usually for much cheaper.
Now, when you get into the earlier snipers ("earlier" is usually considered to be from 1932-1942), it's a much different ball game. Original rifles from this time period are extremely rare. Most of mine are restored "ex-snipers" and this is the most likely avenue of finding/owning such a piece. Even so, a project like this can cost a good amount of money (especially to someone used to paying $79 for a standard 91/30). The interesting part, is that the rifles, while they don't exactly grow on trees and this really varies by year, etc., are not the hardest part to find. It's the optics and mounts. There are repros out there, but even some of these can become expensive and hard to find.
I could probably go on for pages and not really do the subject justice. However, I'm willing to answer specific questions, any time. Feel free to post them or PM me.
Thanks again,
John
