I've been meaning to post about these ever since the discussion about 98KGuy's awesome German reworked Romanian VZ-24. I love rifles that changed hands and these two both did twice at least.

First rifle is a mostly typical refurbed 1937 Izhevsk M91/30. What makes it non typical is the Finnish SA property stamp and the Finnish D stamp that indicates the rifles chamber was reamed out to accept the Finnish D-166 round. This rifle was carried north into Finland by some luckless Soviet soldier who lost it and likely his life as well at the hands of the Finnish defenders. The rifle was then collected up and reissued to a Finnish soldier who in turn lost it himself as the war turned against Finland in mid 1944. It was then recovered by the Soviets and refurbished post war like almost all other Mosin's in Soviet arsenals. Rifle shows light pitting under the Soviet reblue consistant with having laid around outside for a period of time on its left side. Some fake Finn capture Russian recaptures have turned up in the last couple years, luckily I bought this one from a well known Gunboards collector who had pictures of it posted from whon he found it in a crate in 2003 so I know it isn't a fake.

I found this second rifle leaning forgotten in the corner of a LGS, Price was below average but I wasn't going to buy it till I spotted a interesting stamp on the left side of the barrel. It's again a fairly typical post war refurbished M91/30 made in 1940 at Izhevsk. The stamp in question reads L.P.JII.  M91/30's with  stamps similar to this one were originally identified as rifles issued by the Germans to local  Feuerlöschpolizei(Fire Police) units in  Latvia, Lithuania  and other German occupied regions in the east but there is no evidence such units actually existed and Feuerlöschpolizei units located in other German controlled areas were never armed anyways. Luckily  I was aware that a Gunboards member had just recently  identified these stamps as being identical to those used by a series of Luftwaffe repair depots(LuftPark) located both on the Eastern Front and in Germany proper, L.P.JII. belongs to the LuftPark located in Illeshiem Germany so I snapped it up. Ironically enough, Luftpark Illeshiem is now the U.S. Army's Storck Barracks and I spent some time there in the late 90's during my tour in Germany.  Back to the rifle, like the first rifle this one was likely one of the tens of thousands captured by the Germans during the opening months of Operation Barbarossa. It was then taken into service by the Germans and reworked by the Luftwaffe, probably for issue to a airfield security unit or a Luftwaffe Field Division both of which are known to have issued large numbers of Mosins due to a shortage of Mausers in the 1942-43 period. At some point afterwards it was recaptured by the Soviets and like the first rifle it was refurbished post war and placed in storage like so many other weapons were by the Soviets "just in case"

Hope you've all enjoyed the history lesson, enjoy the pictures and feel free to comment.
The Finn capture, Russian recapture.
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The German captured Russian recapture.
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Nice, finds.

Those are damned cool Sarge...awesome finds...the only disappointment are those damned billboard CAI markings....god, I hate when they started using those things...you might find that touching up a little with cold blue will help minimize the appearance...

I really love the German re-work, anything German re-work is A. misunderstood, and really not known by most buyers, and B. Mainly missed since not many know what to look for.

I have a couple of depot repair 98k's, and of course the Romanian VZ, also have another 1924 dated VZ-24 that was German modded, but it was sporterized sadly (original stock and handguard )...I have it in a replacement stock, waiting on handguard, rod, and front sight protector....but it exhibits all the German renumbering...I'll post pics when its completed...

Re-works are a under appreciated and little known collecting focus...and you have some nice ones!

Those are awesome!

You know they've both definitely seen things!

I'll have to keep my eye out for those German markings, I'd love to have something like that.

Amazing finds, and fascinating history. I really enjoyed reading through that!