Mosin PU

[vincentvangerven]

The stock is always of less conern to me with regards to authenticating a PU. These are the two very important components:

1) Serial number on the left of the barrel shank
2) Serial number on the scope

Mounts where typically not serialized. They need to be roughly machined to be taken seriously. Marcus is 100% right, there is no metric of a "clean cut" into the stock that separates fakes from originals. Some originals had sloppy sloppy cuts.

The reality is that all PU's where refurbed many times. What you want to avoid is non-factory put together snipers that where assembled in the Ukraine or in the US. Line outs and scrubs are OK as long as they match and have details in the remarked numbers.

If you post pics of the scope marks I can tell you where and when the scope was manufactured, plus pics of the serial numbers to get the ball rolling. Consider that all of the RGuns, Classic, etc. legit snipers that came in a few years ago have Molot paperwork, my 3 examples do.

" Mounts where typically not serialized. "

tula did often serialize the mount via stamped numbers.

[45acpguy]

The stock is always of less conern to me with regards to authenticating a PU. These are the two very important components:

1) Serial number on the left of the barrel shank
2) Serial number on the scope

Mounts where typically not serialized. They need to be roughly machined to be taken seriously. Marcus is 100% right, there is no metric of a "clean cut" into the stock that separates fakes from originals. Some originals had sloppy sloppy cuts.

The reality is that all PU's where refurbed many times. What you want to avoid is non-factory put together snipers that where assembled in the Ukraine or in the US. Line outs and scrubs are OK as long as they match and have details in the remarked numbers.

If you post pics of the scope marks I can tell you where and when the scope was manufactured, plus pics of the serial numbers to get the ball rolling. Consider that all of the RGuns, Classic, etc. legit snipers that came in a few years ago have Molot paperwork, my 3 examples do.

that would be great if you could tell me the origins and date of manufacture. Hers's a pic...

[emcon5]

Progress, 1943 or 44 (they stopped marking the date partway through 1943, and started again partway through 44).

[Marcus von W.]

It's an undated B-Series "Progress" 91/30 PU scope, made around mid 1943 at "Progress", which was rogSoviet optics plant set up by the German Carl Zeiss firm baack in the late 1920s-early 1930s era when the Soviet Union and Germany were sharing military technology and assistance.

The Soviets made a lot of scopes in 1943, so these were still being used as original factory scopes on rifles made in 1944.

The /25\ "triangle 25" marking is a post-war Soviet inspection marking from an unknown facility or inspector that dates to at least 1949 and was very common in the mid 1950s. It usually has a Cyrillic letter below it, in this case an M which is the same in both Cyrillic and Latin alphabets, the significance of which is also unknown

[SVT-40]

I would buy both....

[Discogodfather]

In order for me to even consider a PU sniper anywhere near authentic the scope serial and the number stamped on the left hand side of the barrel shank (not the receiver) needs to match. Line outs and scrubs are fine as long as the numbers match and there is some basic anesthetic properties in the script of the numbers (basically not a guy in a garage in Philly beating on it with some Enco stamp punches).

Non matching does not mean they where not originally snipers, it just means the glass migrated from the rifle and no Russian factory recombined them at some point.

Stocks are so hard to tell, but all my snipers have mismatched Izzy and tula parts here and there, and a few line outs. A gun with no lineouts, all matching, with a stock original to the factory it came from with no mismatched parts is worth $1500+++. A molot refurb gun is probably $750 if matching and a little documentation (some mismatches or line-outs and scrubs). Non matching is less than $500.

Some of the PU's where refurbed 6 times in their life, and the refurbing was done into the 70's, some even say later.

[mj1]

We are not shooting yet ? ?

[Saigon1965]

I love you Gents - Like a man OK -

Get both

^^^ This is the correct answer.

I would buy both....

[81turbota]

Hey guys, sorry in didn't respond earlier.
Thank you very much to Flying Brian and Marcus Von W for clearing up that sling escutcheon question. Initially I had trouble reading "by 1945 they were all like that" when I'm looking at original 1945 rifles without them. It just raised questions. Marcus, you cleared that one up quickly. I hate FUD as much as the next guy, my apologies for spreading it!

Happy shooting!

[19K]

if it makes any difference, my aim pu is a 1943 izhvesk hardwood stock with soviet stock markings. the sling slots have the bottom half stamped steel inserts

Hr 4XXX serial with a progress No b-05353 marked scope

funny electropencil marking on the mount. has "Hr-4XXX" and the 2nd number is crossed out and fixed to the proper number. seems like someone made a mistake when they matched the mount to the rifle haha.

for example Hr- 1134
the 2nd "1" was crossed off and made into a "2" so it reads "Hr-1234" correctly matching the rifle

also on the left part of the barrel, the original number "4314912" was crossed off and the rifle serial number was restamped to the right of it.

[Marcus von W.]

It is not uncommon or incorrect to see electropencil markings on the mount with the scope or rifle serial number off by one number or letter - perhaps Ivan hit the vodka bottle a little hard the night before or that day at lunch break, or Boris was in too much of a hurry to finish refurbishing as many rifles as possible (that didn't need refurbishing) so he could exceed quota, win the "Hero of Socialist Labor" award document, a cheap little gold and red pin with an ugly representation of Lenin to impress Natasha, and the gaudy red banner with ugly representation of Lenin to hang over his work station for the coming week.

You sometimes also see mistakes like this on re-numbered to match parts like bolt, floorplate, or buttplate.