Photo courtesy of The Russian Mosin Nagant Page
Last weekend our local gun club held it's annual gun show at the fairgrounds. Rotten weather diminished both the number of vendors and customers, but for our area, it was still worth going. Although the prevalent arm at these shows is the 12 gauge sporting shotgun, there's usually a small but consistent number of milsurp dealers. This time I was I was torn between an ancient Italian infantry rifle that had been arsenal(Terni) converted from it's original blackpowder chambering to 6.5mm and an impressively refurbished Soviet M-44. The Italian, which had seen a lot of wear, was missing the front sight blade, and used the Mannlicher clip system of loading. However, it was an unusual find for this area, and had an almost baroque appearance that I love in the old blackpowder cartridge arms. The price tag was $200. The M-44 was fairly common, and of standard Mosin appearance (which, in my view, is somewhat inelegant). In it's favor: Excellent arsenal refinishing, matching numbers, came off the production line in 1944, The Wife thought the wood was "pretty", I have and can easily get more ammunition for it, and $95 out the door. The M-44 won, and feels like a pretty good deal compared to the same or worse condition M-44s a couple blocks away at the local Fleet Farm for a hair under $200.
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