Since 1891, the Mosin Nagant did not have any type of recoil lug in the stock. It was not strictly necessary since the original 7.62x54r cartridge which fired a bottle nosed projectile was relatively low pressure. In 1908, a new higher pressure cartridge with a spitzer projectile was adopted. Within a year, it was found that the higher pressure cartridge was causing stocks to start cracking.

In 1909, the Russian factories at Tula, Sestoretsk, and Izhevsk began inserting a wooden recoil lug in the stock. By 1910, they switched to a metal recoil lug, and this same pattern was used in all future models by all countries up until the 1960's