I'm certainly dusting off my C&R 03 FFL license these past few days with a follow-up purchase of my recent K31 acquisition. Because of the K31 purchase, I have had a nostalgia-driven desire of watching you tube videos of various collector worthy rifles. Ironically, my local gun shop had received a pair the same rifles I was watching videos of into their inventory the day after I purchased the K31.

I had watched the shop owner tag both guns that were mark "Unissued" increasing my interest, but due to just coming off the K31 purchase I felt it too soon to consider another rifle at that moment. But all it took was another sit down with my iPad, headphones and a nice hot cup of tea while re-watching another video in it's entirety picking up details I missed the first time around.

Well, that's all it took and I had to have that Rifle down at the local gun shop with it's all numbers matching, right down to the bayonet. (A close look at the bore and rifling while backlit and I could see even further evidence that the rifle was indeed unissued/unused as marked.). It was the most purposeful drive I have taken in a while!

So what I have taken home is by appearance a very moderately handled M44 Mosin Nagant Carbine. The shortened barrel, 20.25", is what makes these a bit more unique when compared to their longer barreled 29" M91 counterparts. These M44 Carbines were produced from 1943 to 1948. The one I purchased was produced at the Russian Izhmekh factory in 1944.

While these aren't exactly rarities, they certainly are fewer than M91's as noted on the more popular Mosin-Nagant dedicated websites and noted of being worthy of going up against most modern rifles of similar spec. It's certainly a privilege to get a true all-numbers matching example....

A few pics after getting it home this afternoon:

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Some of the ammo the 7.62 x 54R ammo that will go to the range.

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I like it!

I have two Mosin Nagant carbines, a Russian dated 1946 and a Chinese dated 1956. I enjoy shooting both rifles, they are fairly accurate for rifles with such a short sight radius. My Chinese rifle will shoot into 3" at 100 yards. They do have a pretty stout muzzle blast, you definitely want to be wearing good ear protection while shooting.

Sportsman Guide has Russian 7.62 X 54R ammo for .20 cents per round, 880 round case or 440 round spam cans. The Russian ammo may dry up in the future given the current political climate, but cheap 7.62 Russian ammo will probably always be available with all the former Eastern Bloc countries having their own production and stockpiles, Hungarian, Yugoslavian, Ukrainian, etc...

Excellent purchase. I tell people that my MN was the second best $100 I've ever spent.

I've also got a M38 carbine I put in a cut down stock to "sporterize" it. The carbine seems to like the silver tip 147 grn ammo the best. Make sure you clean well after shooting the surplus ammo. The primers are very corrosive.

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Isaiah 41:10

Congrats on the new piece. They are fun to shoot and produce quite a muzzle flash after dusk.

One C&R piece I like is my 1906 Swedish Mauser in 6.5x55. It is accurate, trash can lid accurate at 500M with it's stock open sights. Of course you do have to deal with that l-o-n-g 29" barrel so it's not the most handy rifle to heft around. Just can not talk myself in to doing a sporterizing job on it.

Nice! Yes, I am in the habit of thoroughly cleaning any firearm I am shoot right after returning from the range. Just the same, I just purchased a bunch of the more expensive non-corrosive ammo versus the cheap corrosive bagged ammo that costs about half the price. As. Meter of fact, I need some more ammo storage cans which I am going to pick up today along with another 250 rounds of the non-corrosive 7.62 x 54R ammo so I know I have enough on hand should supplied vary in the future.