Just got back from a local gun show, picked up a type 53 that the seller claimed he bought from a vet who brought it back.  The guy is a very reputable and notable local seller, not a neckbeard just trying to sell something, but I never buy the story.  That is, not until I realized both the magazine body and the buttplate were handmade.just got home to take it apart and discovered that the rifle is built on a 1938 Soviet receiver. I don't know who would be making homemade replacement parts like that except for VC, and the rifle has no import markings.  Oddly enough, the bolt is blued and the bayonet lugf is ground off, but was done so very long ago.  The magazine floorplate, bolt, and barrel all match.  Photos incoming once I remember how to upload.

20180414_143116 by Nunya Bidness
20180414_143014 by Nunya Bidness
20180414_143142 by Nunya Bidness
20180414_143209 by Nunya Bidness
20180414_143337 by Nunya Bidness
20180414_143755 by Nunya Bidness
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20180414_144226 by Nunya Bidness
20180414_143836 by Nunya Bidness
20180414_143823 by Nunya Bidness

That's pretty cool.  Does not look like a professional stock repair.

They appear to be ordinary nails, the heads are even textured.  Anyone have a good source for bolt heads?  Pretty sure the headspace is shot and the extractor sheared off.

I don't.  Should be pretty cheap.  Tried SARCO?

Might pick up a stock while you're @ it.  If you want to preserve that stock & shoot it, the nails should probably be removed and the wood piece properly glued and pinned better.  It would be fascinating to send off one of those nails to someone who could identify their origin.

Buttplate looks like a rusty, beat up filed on standard stamped buttplate.

Mag housing is a standard production just crude. That is how they made them esp during WW2.

Deff looks like a well used Vietnam bring back.

Check Cope's, not always the best price but they normally have a pretty good selection of odds and ends mosin parts.

www.copesdistributing.com

I have owned a number of mosin nagant rifles, I have never before seen one that had a mag body made of stacked up sheet metal with a steel block ground down to fit front and back and then spot welded in place. Could you provide any other documentation of this happening?  The pictures dont do it justice, the buttplate is clearly a different material with a different finish applied to it, bent and ground to fit.  It lacks serial numbers entirely.

That is how they are made. They aren't milled out of one chunk of steel. Very common to see the spot welds, forge voids and seams on crudely finished WW2 ones.

I guess you learn something every day. I'll have to look more closely at the rest of my rifles.  I have just never seen one that is no clearly un-uniform, uneven, and ground down by hand. Why would they use differing metals the way this one is? What do you think the red layer of metal may be from?

I have a 1944 Russian M44 with a matching Chinese bolt.  It came in the same time as the Albanian/Balkan imports hit here.