A guy came by the pawn shop while I was there with a 1944r M44 refurb. He asked the shop guy for $100.00 for it and the shop guy asked me about it. I told him it was well worth the $100.00.

He asked me if I wanted it and I said I'll wait till you do your deal and we will talk. He said why don't you just give him $120.00 for it and I did. Odd deal but the guy was a friend of the pawn shop guy. I guess pawn guys have a heart too.

LOL....I made sure to ask him if the was a prohibited person first.

The odd thing about the rifle is the dark shellac finish. I asked if he did it and he said that was the way it came out of the box when he bought it. Nothing special about it. CAI marking on barrel.

When I pulled it apart to check the receiver date I noticed that the dark shellac inside was still covered in cosmo so I guess it was done during the refurb. I sorta like it.

There is one mark just above the date on the barrel shank that has been lined-out. Can't say what it is. To be honest there's a whole lot going on with that barrel shank. Very "busy".

Definitely busy on the barrel. I have a M44 and don't know why but it is my favorite MN to shoot. Terrible bore, heavy, sight drifted way left to shoot with bayo folded, not real accurate, ect. But cheap surplus, big fire ball and massive muzzle blast puts a big grin on my face. As I get older I seem to like the character of firearms more. How is the bore on that one?

Very strong and shiny. Passes the "bullet test" with flying colors.

It looks like it was re-crowned during the refurb (as most were) but not counter-bored.

I'm really jealous of the OP.  He finds all the good stuff.

I assume the VS is just another unknown Mosin marking.  Very cool.

El linko

VS is just the english translation of the Crylic serial prefix and was added by Century Arms. This is a older early/mid 1990's Century Import.

BC8480 is obviously the serial as it was stamped on all the other parts. Bolt body, butt-plate, and mag housing.

Of course the "monkeys with hammers" at Century used VS8490 for the receiver serial. You would have thought they would have looked at the other parts.

The VS on the barrel shank is of a different font and larger than the stamp CAI used.

Could have been worse I guess, it could have had that dot import mark crap splashed across the receiver.  

Ridiculous to blame Century for the transliteration of the first two letters of the SN BC into their latin equal.  It was the only practical way of coming up with the required SN.  Blame the ATF.  The Russian alphabet has many characters that do not  look latin.  For consistency, they were all changed.

If you are going to commplain, at least get your facts straight.  If it weren't for CAI, we would have had many, many fewer C&Rs in this country in the past.  

Don't know dude it sure looks like a B and a C to me. I suspect it does to millions of others too.

CAI only had to look at the bolt, mag housing, and butt-plate to see what the serial was.

BS on "CAI and fewer mil-surps" too. If they would not have imported them someone else would have. They were not the only game in town, just the biggest player, lots of importers at the start of the Mosin heyday.

Oh yeah and while we are on the subject there is absolutely no reason by ATF regs that CAI has to use the ugly-assed dot billboard import marking on the receiver. They are simply trying to save a few pennies by putting everything in one place and messing-up the looks of mil-surps in the bargain. The only requirement is the serial to be on the receiver, the rest could be under or on the side of the barrel.

Don't forget in Cyrillic B = V and C = S...

MOSKVA (Moscow) in Cyrillic is MOCKBA....so they are using the English equivalents, my guess is because there are Cyrillic letters that don't have English equivalents...

You work there or something?

The serial number is probably on the receiver also, the added letter stamps on the barrel shank is completely unnecesary, pointless and retarded. Century has defaced surplus firearms by the hundreds of thousands. Not too mention their bubba creations and their in house builds

If there were no CAI, we would still have all those C&Rs imported by someone else. We owe them nothing.

Having run a manufacturing plant, I can promise you that you want to give your production line employees as few subjective decisions to make as possible.  They want clear guidelines to follow.

CAI's guideline was almost assuredly this:  Transliterate the first two letters in the original SN to their Latin equivalent.  Period. End of Story.

Not "do what you think will possibly work."  It takes an employee much less time to simply follow guidelines than to evaluate each and every SN and decide what to do.

We in fact don't know that ATF didn't direct them to do that.  Cyrillic letter is useless to the Feds.  

It's simply as that, boys.  CIA did the only logical and economical thing.

No, I don't, never have, and have never known anyone who worked for CAI.  Yes, CAI has been a good company that has benefited C&R collectors and shooters more than any other company.

Y'all need to stop thinking that someone at CAI has the time to look at each and every one of the tens of thousands of Mosins they have imported so they can decide that they won't set their efficient system aside so that a rifle they will sell for $40 will be worth $50 to someone else.

Really, y'all CAI bashers need to get a grip on reality.

I also have a 1944 very much like this one that I got straight from CAI, back in the very late 1990s.  While it may not seem possible, it sports even more inspection marks than the one in the OP's picture does.  Back on the old CF-FFL mailing list then, we used to say that those were made on Learn-To-Stamp-Day.  What wasn't known was if those were all from the original manufacturing or if more were added during refurb.  

Mine was a gunsmith special, possibly missing parts, for $12.95 plus $15 shipping.  The missing part was the buttstock dog collar ferrule.  But the whole carbine was covered in a black, gooey substance which in turn covered cosmolene.  Then it seemed as if the whole assembly had been roasted on a spit over a couple of burning tires.   Once I got it cleaned up, I found a nice medium brown solid wood stock underneath with no cracks at all and a mirror bore, and a glass-smooth trigger.  It's a tack driver and fun to shoot, especially with the watermelon size flash.  One of my favorites, also.  

At $120, you got a deal.  

I'll concede the VS thing and have no issue with it on the receiver as part of the required serial marking.

That said as another poster mentioned there is no reason in the world why they had to stamp VS on the barrel shank in a even bigger font. They deserve a good bashing for that.