Thought I'd share some pictures of my latest purchase. Spotted this rifle for sale on Gunbroker listed just as a Finn captured Mosin. Pictures weren't great but I could see that the bolt was blued and rear sight ladder was polished, both of which are traits of a Mosin captured and reworked by the Germans during WW2. Decided to take a chance and bid on it, I was the only bidder and I got it for about the middle of the range of what Finnish Captured 91/30's sell for currently. Rifle arrived yesterday and I was more than pleased to find two German  KRU1 proofs from the Wehrmacht's repair depot in Krakow Poland stamped on the underside of the stock behind the trigger guard. Rifle is factory original matching except for the blued bolt which was renumbered to match the rifles serial number by the Germans. Mosins like these were issued out to second line German units and rear area support troops when Mausers were unavailable. In 1944 57,000 Mosins were sold to the Finn's by the Germans and this appears to be one since it is SA marked and has a Finnish M91/30 cleaning rod. Most of the Mosins in this shipment were in poor condition and most were parted out by the Finn's so its unusual to find one this complete. With the exception of the cleaning rod and the SA stamp I believe this rifle is in the same condition it was when it left German control.
Attached File
Attached File

Attached File
Attached File

Attached File

Here's a few more.
Attached File
Attached File

Attached File
Attached File

Attached File

Thanks for posting that.  I recently discovered an SA stamp on my sporterized 91/30.

Damned cool, thanks for sharing, I would love to find a German marked 91/30!

I have another SUPER rare gun I picked up not long ago, I should post it here...it is an unscrubbed Romanian contract VZ-24, that was somehow picked up by the Germans, then German modded (filled in wrist swivel, German proofed and numbered....

I love oddball German stuff...

I strongly question the Nazi stamps.  I am sure that thing has been humped.

I can understand your skepticism, any non German firearm with Nazi proofs should be treated as a fake until proven otherwise and since a obviously fake KRU1 marked Mosin Dragoon sold on Gunbroker last month it appears the stamps are available.  If you google "KRU1 Mosin" you will find numerous posted examples of this variant that are consistent with this rifle. In my opinion the strongest case this rifle has for being legit is the price, which was no more than a regular Finn'd M91/30's would sell for and the fact that the KRU1 proofs were not pictured or mentioned in the auction in any way. Humpers hump rifles to increase value and the seller certainly would have mentioned them if he was aware of it. Everyone selling milsurps knows that Nazi proofs equals increased value after all and if this rifle is legit it sold for about 1/3 the price that other KRU1 marked Mosin's have sold for in the past. So what exactly leads you to be so sure that this rifle is a forgery?

Blued bolts are out there from the Russians as well. . I was searching a crate of 91/30's at a local gunstore and found 1 with a blued bolt. It looks like it came straight from refurbishment that way. I did not study it for German makings and just assumed it was just a refurb with a blued bolt. It came home with me.

I've seen a few like that as well, they aren't common. I would think that any German captured Mosin's that were later recaptured by the Russians were refurbished with all the others post war and lost any German rework traits and markings they may have had, especially on the stocks. I do have a Soviet  refurb 91/30 with a Luftwaffe depot stamp on the barrel though so some markings did survive the refurb process. As far as the blued bolts on Soviet refurbs go they could be bolts taken off of rifles recaptured from the Germans and reused or they could be just bolts that the Soviets blued for unknown reasons. The lack of accurate documentation is one of the more frustrating parts of collecting Mosin's.

You would be wrong in this case, they are legit, it went through the German arms depot krakau (Kru)....

Thanks for the history lesson. I had no idea the Germans did this the Mosin's.  I should have considering they put every other opponents weapons in their inventory

The Germans quickly came up with a whole procedure of collection, cataloging, rework/inspection, distribution and reissuing captured arms.   Even manuals and assigned model numbers.   For everything they could use; vehicles, cannons, small arms etc.

A general started it for his corps in Germany and it was soon an official practice to allocate where the army needed it.  One reason why German soldiers didn’t keep them as suveniers as much as our troops.   They could actually be disciplined for it.

That's a nice piece of history there!

I'm a sucker for Mosin-Nagants that are well-traveled.

I have a Finn M91 that has the Austrian "Walking Bear" stamped on the receiver. I often wonder what that rifle has seen.

I started a thread here that is archived with my World War 1 German marked 91 that is also Finn marked.

I've got a picture of a German soldier guarding a railway with a M91 Mosin-Nagant.

I also read the testimony of a concentration camp guard.  He said they used VZ-24s and Nagant pistols.