Decided to pick this one up since it looked rather promising after seeing no import marks and talking with the seller. After some additional pictures from him, I knew this would be something worth buying.

http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.aspx?Item=490938880

The seller didn't know much about it. It came from his grandfather estate. Supposedly in the family for +60 years with 40 documented to be collecting dust in a closet.  Based state of things in the bore, I do not doubt it.  You could see light thru....but nothing else. The rust was so heavy it just came out dark brown gritty goo.  But after half hour of brushing, it it shiny with some frosting.  No counter bore.

Stock is not sanded.  Nothing matches.  Bolt is almost certainly a German depot rebuild bolt due to the telltale 4 digit serial font and it being blued.  Everything matches patina and finish wise.  The cuts to the wood are VERY old, which wouldn't suggest state-side bubba.  Everything is on the gun is otherwise Tula marked.

1939 date rules out SCW, and there are no Finn traits to be found on top of lacking import marks.

I'm thinking it could have been something GI brought back that was used by the partisans or volksstrum at the end of the war? It's weird!

First few patches through the bore:

That's pretty.  2nd WW or Korea bring-back?

Based on the blued bolt, it could have gone through German hands. The bolt renumbering looks Finnish to me. Maybe captured by the Germans, then sold/given to Finland? Neat rifle, too bad the stock got chopped/broken.

Is that a K98 barrel band on there? Sure looks like one.

Yes it is.

I don't believe a Finnish connection is likely with this one. No import marks ( there should be two separate ones), no Finn traits even on the inner wood and the timeline provided by the seller would also pre-date the arrival of the imported Finnish m91/30s

Almost looks like an old attempt at adding a little bit of sporter to it.

What about a Vietnam connection?

M91/30s were not really used in Vietnam save for PU snipers.  I would imagine anything from Korea or Vietnam would already have evidence of refurb like most M91/30 do from Korea.  The blued bolt with German style font points pretty strongly towards WWII.

Not accurate ,. I owned a M-44 Vietnam bring back . It was rough and non matching , it had been used hard,  and had a bore like a sewer . It keyholed. If it had been refurbed it showed no signs of it . Why would the Germans mark the bolt ?

You are talking about M44s, not M91/30 thought. Yes M44s were used in Vietnam both Russian origin and Chinese Type 53.

Germans captured a whole lot of mosins in 1941-1942. Lot of them were reissued as is to their secondary and foreign lines of troops and bunch were also German depot reworked before being reissued.  These were also sold by Germany to Finland in 1944. Kru1 or Kru ( Krakow, Poland) deport is one known German depot that rebuild Captured mosin. There is another yet unidentified deport that use sun-burst marks to mark their rebuild mosins. In both cases the standard procedure was to blue the whole bolt and renumber it in 4 digit font using k98k style font die sets.

My very limited knowledge of German catapulted Mosins . In articles I find most say they Germans did not mark the rifles.  I found 1 mention of marked buttplates and an article about Germans adding a bayonet lug to the gun