The front sling slot plates are rusty and bent/loose.   And though the pictures aren't the greatest, the bolt is also covered with that same black patina.  The bayonet was missing (I had an old one laying around that I slapped on it for safe keeping).  Honestly, this rifle by condition wouldn't be worth $50.  But you can tell from the patina that it has been there and done that.  You just can't fake patina like that in this price range.  I have no doubts whatsoever that it was a bringback.  A lot of people would say I overpaid for a worn-out wallhanger, but I LOVE the way this thing looks.  It just reeks of history.   

I have it's twin brother:





I don't have any papers, so it is just a story, but it has no import marks.  I found it in a pawn shop.  The shop owner told me that a lady brought it in.  She told him her husband brought it back from Vietnam.  He died and she didn't want/need any guns, so it had to go.  I picked it up for $100 out the door.   

I would have preferred to leave it alone, but it needed more than just a scrub.  The finish was dried and even had some light mold-like spots on it.  I tried to just clean it but it didn't help and seemed like it hurt the finish more than helped.  So, I decided to hit it with the mild turp-n-tar and that cleaned the crap off and appears to have preserved the underlying original finish.  That's all it's gonna get. 

As for the others, it was not my intention to start a Mosin collection.  Originally, I only wanted a wartime 91/30, an original PU and a carbine.  But this past year, it seems like every time I turn around, there is another nice variant for cheap, and I just HAVE to buy it.  I found the 28/30, the Westinghouse and the 1904 Tula in pawn shops for next to nothing - the N.E.W. and the Tula were in the same shop.  I also found a numbers matching 1960 T53 Vietnam bringback for under $100.  It is damn near worn slap out, but it should be, given its history.  There is a ton of stuff out there waiting to be found and collected.
 

The good, the bad and the ugly?

Luckily, I was able to pick this up cheap.  It is not a stepped barrel, but it is in excellent external condition and the handguard is present and in good shape.  That is the good. 

It is missing the cleaning rod and it is the DIRTIEST milsurp I have ever bought.  The previous owner did not clean out all the cosmoline before shooting it, so the bolt is still full of cosmo and crap.  Plus, the guy heated his house with a kerosene heater, so there is a light coating of kerosene oil/gum on the rifle - and that film has congealed all the dust and dirt and insulation and whatever else happened to float by and land on this rifle over the years.  I think I am going to wipe it down with turpentine tomorrow to try to clean the filth off the stock.  It really looks like it was coated in hairspray and stored in a dog's bed.  That is the bad.

And the ugly?  The previous owner did like a lot of rednecks around here do - he bought the rifle, shot some corrosive ammo through it, and then put it up in a closet for the next 20 years without cleaning it.  The bore looked like a sewer pipe.  I brought it home to start the cleaning process.  Usually, you clean a gun until you get a clean patch to come out the other end.  This one, I didn't worry about whether the patches were clean or not - I just cleaned until I could get a whole patch to come out the other end.  It was so dirty/ragged in there at first, it was shredding the patches on the way through.  Luckily, the rifling is still there and it has cleaned up to fair/shootable condition.  I think I will be able to get it even better with a few more cleaning sessions.  However, it sucks that the bore could have been so much better if the guy would have just cleaned the damn thing.  SMDH...     

Double SA marked:



Chatellerault trigger:



Bolt connector marking:

Yeah, I just picked up a Finn matching 1944 Tikka 91/30 last weekend for $125.  It has a mirror bore and was still full of cosmoline.  The funny thing is, the guy posted it for like $150 and was getting a ton of sh*t from the idiots on that local group saying he was asking way too much money for it.  Seriously.

I have a few M91's.  Above, that's a N.E.W. and a 1904 Tula.  Both were cheap pawn shop finds.  I also have a 1940 Tikka barreled Finn M-91.  However, I got the Tikka from Bubba, who had self-sporterized the rifle by throwing away the handguard and cutting off the forestock with a hacksaw while the rifle was still in it.  Thus, it has no 'real' stock (it is currently sitting in a 91/30 donor stock with no barrel bands or handguard that will fit) and it has score marks on either side of the barrel where Bubba nicked the metal with the hacksaw when he clumsily hacked off the stock.