Excellent primer on the Mosin-Nagant 91/30

[awp101]

http://www.gunsnet.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=44403

Enjoy! :D

[LarryR]

Interesting, but I see a few historical inaccuracies in the text. Just for starters, I'm pretty damn sure that Winchester never made Mosin-Nagants, and the Chatellerault arsenal made rifles well before WWI. Still, it's a good read and I'm happy to see the growing interest in these historical rifles.

[awp101]

Half right LarryR, but I'll pass the rest on to the author. Thanks!

originally posted by EMDII

YES-

The Russian government contracted w/ Remington to supply 1.5 MILLION M1891 rifles and 100,000,000 rounds of ammunition. They contracted another 1.8 MILLION from New England Westinghouse.

Many were converted post-War to .30-06 by Bannerman's.

The Russians placed an order w/ Chattellerault in 1892 for 503,000 rifles. The 503,539th rifle was delivered in 1895. These are identified by 'Chattellerault' in Cyrillic stamped on the receiver ring. See page 189 of Lapin's book. French parts are stamped with a C-in-circle.

[ February 02, 2002: Message edited by: awp101 ]

[EMDII]

Remington, not Winchester, and Westinghouse. Through 1918. The Soviets defaulted about US$ 300,000 on the Remington contract.

Chattellerault wer made 1892-1895.

[awp101]

DUH! I've been spending so long with furrin rifles, I done gots my domestic manufacturers mixed up!!! :rolleyes:

As one of my instructors would tell me: Son you are con-fuss-ed ain't ya?

[xtremerange]

IIRC, The US government was forced to buy the weapons that the Russians defaulted on. A few hundred thousand or so. Our government then sold them through the then equivalent of the DCM.

Just weird thinking that the US government sold Russian weapons.

[Munster30]

For a more in depth historical side-track, take a look at thei site. Has some great photos too.Rifles (http://www.russian-mosin-nagant.com/finn.htm)

[LarryR]

To be fair, there are other sources which have reported Winchester production, and I suspect that the author of this web page relied on that erroneous information. Barnes' "Cartridges of the World," and one of my reloading manuals (Hornady, I think) also say that. The confusion probably comes from the fact that Winchester did make rifles for the Russian army, firing the same 7.62x54R cartridge, but they were Model 1895's, not Mosin-Nagants. OTOH, if you actually FIND a Winchester, let me know! ;)