New Mosin-Nagant today

[Coltrane]

I found a Finnish Mosin-Nagant M39 today. It needs some work on the bore. But...

It is a Sako stamped stock and made in 1941. The receiver is stamped "vkt" and has a small crown seal. It has what appears to be a hexagonal front receiver. Is this significant to mean anything?

It is an import from CAI in St. Albans VT

Rescued today from a pawn shop for $98. I will have to really work on the bore as it is kind of dark and chunky. I did get some scrubbing done today, enough to see more of the rifling. Nothing to indicate any rust yet, just a lot of powder fouling.

Coltrane

[1911crazy]

Congrats on the buy.   Becareful when you take the stock apart there maybe shims on the trigger housing don't lose or misplace them make sure they go back where they came from.  On the hex reciever there will be a different date underneath/inside near the rear securing screw this is the orginal date of the russian hex receiver before it was captured and reworked by the finn's into M39's.  The Finn's reworked these rifles to achieve the best possible accuracy out of them.              BigBill

[RB Rooson]

Coltrane,

Welcome to the "MN Club"......you are going to have alot of fun with your M39!!!

Guaranteed that you will find out things about it that will lead you on a fascinating journey!

Congratulations.

[Coltrane]

Here's an update. No shooting has been done yet, but I did a more detailed cleaning on the bore. It was filthy. I used Birchwood Casey Bore Scrubber on the bore, running through the cleaning process three times.
I used a 32cal pistol brush and wrapped a couple of layers of 0000 steel wool around it every time it was time to scrub.

I ended up using about 40 patches cleaning it. The first 20 were powder fouling, the last were different degrees of copper fouling. The bore is still dark but it is looking much better.

I am picking up a case of 780 rnds of Czech 7.62x54 ammo tomorrow. Anyone use this stuff? Looks pretty good to me, except the shellac on the cases.  Can someone tell me if this is corrosive?

Thanks
Coltrane

[RB Rooson]

Coltrane,

Again, Congratulations on your "rescueing" a Finnish MN39!  The 'vkt' mark stands for   Valtion Kivaaritedhas: The Finnish State Rifle Factory at Jyvaskyla, Finland.

Virtually all Finnish Mosin-Nagants will have a captial "D" stamped on their chambers (generally the buttstock as well) to indicate that they have been chambered for the Finnish D166 cartridge, which was developed to take advantage of the huge amount of captured Soviet "D" ammunition. (Terence W. Lapin)

The Czech ammo is usually very good and later manufactured rounds have not proven to be corrosive, BUT I RELIGIOUSLY CLEAN THE 91/30 AND MN44 AFTER EVERY SHOOTING.  NO REASON TO TAKE A CHANCE AFTER ALL OF THE HARD WORK TO GET IT BACK TO BEING A SHOOTER.  

If you have other proofmarks and stamps, possibly I can help you in deciphering them.  Be sure to indicate whether the mark is on the receiver or barrel OR on the stock.

If you have a hexagon receiver on your MN39 - that alone instantly increased the value of your rifle.  The Finns did not manufacture a Mosin-Nagant receiver as they had huge stockpiles of Russian receivers on hand.  To all intents and purposes only "Type 1 Hexagonal" receivers were used on Finnish rifles, as these were the only ones in stock up to the Winter War of 1939-40.  Even after Russia attacked Finland on November 30th, 1939 - there remained sufficient quantities of the hexagonal receivers in the Finnish inventory to preclude the need to manufacture any.  (T.W. Lapin)

Having both SAKO and VKT on your rifle (they are two different Finnish rifle factories) might indicate that the rifle was assembled from parts of other rifles.  This could prove to be a very interesting little mystery on your purchase......

Take care and looking to hear more about your MN39.