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1905
Izhevsk
Finnish M91
February 25, 2023
Title
Finnish M91
Description
This M91 is currently the oldest rifle I own, at least in terms of actually knowing when it was made (darn you Turkey for changing the barrel on my Gewehr 88/05/35 in 1941 without letting me see the original date first). It was made at Izhevsk in 1905, meaning that it possibly got to see the tail end of the Russo-Japanese War as well as the 1905 Revolution, though it’s nearly impossible that it saw any direct service in the former. One way or another it then made its way to Finland; given the lack of evidence of being captured by another nation it was probably one of the ones already in Finland when it became an independent nation before immediately joining the “Fought a Civil War Right After WW1” Club. The rifle received a Finnish made (or more specifically, whoever used a Z in a circle with crossed cannons as their mark) two-piece stock with a toe splice sometime before or during the Second World War. Eventually, a large chunk of the stock was taken out under the handguard; we will likely never know if this was due to an incident involving Soviet artillery or too much sahti. What is known is that some of the scuff marks and the white streak on the stock were the result a rough meeting with concrete and the improper use of window cleaner respectively; this is known because these things were my fault. I am considering touching up these parts of the stock with the correct Finnish finish to atone for my younger self’s negligence as a 120th birthday present to this rifle. Other than the stock, a scrubbed floor plate, and the SA mark added after late 1942, the rifle still retains a lot of its Tsarist features. Interestingly, the arshin markings on the rear sight were not crossed out when they were converted to meters. The bore is clean, but predictably counterbored. The cocking piece was made at Sestroryetsk, and the barrel bands are of the retaining pin type but are held in by retaining screws.
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