El Fako Nagant Snipers??

Yep, it's no sin to put a newer repro scope on an original or ex-sniper because some of them changed scopes during the war when they failed. It's not like there was a shortage of sniper rifles in Russia.
The interesting part is that repro or not, it's still made in a Russian or Ukraine arsenal refurb. I wonder how many collectors would jump for the chance to own a refurbed K98 or Swede Mauser today refurbed in Germany or Sweden.
 
Yep, it's no sin to put a newer repro scope on an original or ex-sniper because some of them changed scopes during the war when they failed.

The only issues that I could see are that it would require altering the stock and receiver of an ex-sniper, to re-introduce the scope. There's also an issue with the bolt if the ex-sniper now has a straight bolt. Also, in the case of a Izhevsk barrel, the scope #s wouldn't match. Beyond that, there's the issue of people trying to misrepresent their reproduction sniper rifle as original. I haven't been here long enough to know if that's a valid concern within the collecting community here, but I know that misrepresenting repros as originals is a big issue with other sorts of collecting communities.
 
I'm quite certain some scopes were changed on original sniper rifles during wartime and never restamped on barrel to match. Of course the rifle would still have the older WWII era scope.

An ex-sniper is just that though. To try and re-sniper it and pass it off as an original is not truly honest of course, but adding a repro scope to it in my mind is more collectable than a standard 91/30 never intended for sniper role all dressed up.

I'd love to find an ex-sniper with a mint bore and re-sniper, but I want to see the bore in person. Not interested any more with Russian Roulette internet sales.
 
I'm quite certain some scopes were changed on original sniper rifles during wartime and never restamped on barrel to match. Of course the rifle would still have the older WWII era scope.

An excellent point.


An ex-sniper is just that though. To try and re-sniper it and pass it off as an original is not truly honest of course, but adding a repro scope to it in my mind is more collectable than a standard 91/30 never intended for sniper role all dressed up.

I'd love to find an ex-sniper with a mint bore and re-sniper, but I want to see the bore in person. Not interested any more with Russian Roulette internet sales.

At West Rifle they seem to put emphasis on good hardware, over just looking the best. When we asked them about our bore before purchasing, and their response was that they hand pick the rifles themselves, and all of their ex-sniper bores were good with no counterboring.

I often see the argument here that an ex-sniper rifle isn't a sniper. But really, what makes a 91/30 sniper rifle? It certainly isn't the scope. Hypothetically, if collectors had a chance to buy his rifle, would they stick up their noses at it as 'not original', or try to re-scope it? In my eyes, on a Soviet 91/30 what makes a sniper rifle are two things, a superior barrel, and the use it was put to. That's about it.

I'm not knocking anyone for buying a repro sniper, but personally, I'd rather pay more and buy an original condition sniper, keeping it that way, or just put an ex-sniper back into service with a modern scope.
 
Back
Top Bottom