Fake or Fact - My Nazi Marked Mosin M44

skirsons

skirsons

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Ok, here it is Gents. This is the controversial carbine.

The story behind it was that it was one of many M44s imported by Marstar 15 years or so ago directly from a warehouse in Yugoslavia. John St Amours went to the warehouse personally to inspect the crates. Some German marked M44s were found among the purchased rifles. NO premium was paid for the German marked examples so there was no financial motive at least to fake them.

My initial observations:

- This rifle is still mostly coated in its original storage grease
- The stock has whats left of its original WW2 shellac (about 0%)
- There are no refurb markings (no box with a line or dash through it)
- The stock is a wartime M44 stock as seen by the wartime eustacheons
- No parts match, except perhaps the stock but not the buttplate
- The rifle is marked with the German designation 457(r), the correct designation for a captured Mosin carbine
- The rifle has the correct eagle marking on the buttstock wrist
- The Waffenampt is WAa241 but is hard to make out

There are several experts on gunboards who argue this type of marking is fake, but they may need to revise their definitions of what correct markings are if this is a real capture.

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I find it hard to believe that the German Wa.Abn (Abnahmeabteilung des Heeres Waffenamts) was going to go to the trouble of stamping their little carrion birds all over a captured Russian rifle that late in the game...

Then again, stranger things have happened. I would think that if John did not pay any more for the Natzee marked ones than he did for the others, I would assume them to be genuine..... Maybe....

It might be one of those mysteries we will never solve! ;)

If it were mine, I would still love it to bits! :)
 
Bureaucracy works like a machine.. if you work in the weapons office it doesn't matter if things are going to the sh*tter you still do your job and stamp weapons, repair actions, etc.

Otherwise your CO might have you shot! I doubt the rifle was used by the Germans but I do believe it was captured. Perhaps issued to Volkssturm but who knows.

The other feature to look at is the shape of the cleaning rod head. I've never seen a cleaning rod like this on any mosin nagant.
 
I remember reading that the Germans didn't bother to go through the process of stamping captured Mosins in WW2. The WaA look legit but I seriously doubt they would go through the trouble of doing that in 1944-45 considering other influences.

Honestly, I'm not sure what to tell you.
 
Nabs said:
I remember reading that the Germans didn't bother to go through the process of stamping captured Mosins in WW2. The WaA look legit but I seriously doubt they would go through the trouble of doing that in 1944-45 considering other influences.

Honestly, I'm not sure what to tell you.
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I think that what a reasonable person would do and what a bureaucracy would do are often two different things! This is my army experience speaking though!
 
Nabs said:
I remember reading that the Germans didn't bother to go through the process of stamping captured Mosins in WW2. The WaA look legit but I seriously doubt they would go through the trouble of doing that in 1944-45 considering other influences.

Honestly, I'm not sure what to tell you.
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Serving in the military I know that logic mixes with the army like oil and water :p

So its probaly the real thing
 
International Firearms, formerly out of Montreal, sold thousands of those M44s as well as M38s, with German stamps. The rifles were captured, along with thousands of Russian soldiers. The Germans, then gave the Soviet soldiers a choice, fight with us, against Stalin and communism or starve to death in the labor camps. Not much of a choice. The Soviets, had a habit of shooting prisoners that had been captured by the Axis armies as well, so they basically got to choose their method of dieing.

That rifle is legitimate. If you don't want it, send me a pm and we can make a deal.

It wasn't at all unusual for the Germans to mark captured arms. They had stuff from every allied country, involved in the war. They may not have stamped them all but they did stamp a lot of them.
 
Nobody was there to confirm or deny, so its fair to assume the birds could be real. Who cares really. That is a nice rifle with a ton of history. If only the rifle could talk! Good buy! I trust John's assessment.
 
The funny thing is when the first group of these came in to the country in 1989/90 there were some that also had SS Runes on one side of the receiver as well...including one my buddy kept that was dated 1946....
Please be aware that all of these came from Yugoslavia at the time that big slew of Brens came over with the really nice Yugo AK's....I know that those boys had access to a whole whack of German Depot equipment including what I suspect was Armourer tools that would allow any competent guy with time on his hands, the ability to do just about anything...Just my humble opinion. Cheers Paul
 
I'm just wishing for an M-16 with chickens all over it, but I don't think I'm going to see one.

THIS rifle, though, is different.

When Moscow was surrounded, T-34s were going from the factory to the scrap-yard in half an hour. If this rifle were built on, say, January 8, it would have had 4 whole months to get to the Front, get lost, captured, sent to the rear, checked over by the armourer there, have little chickens stamped all over it. "Ve haff PROZEDURES, yes?" And so the job was done, exactly and strictly by the Regulations.

And, hey! An essential job inspecting and stamping captured weapons was rather to be preferred to being shoved into the Volkssturm or an Einheitsbattalion and sent East. Just do the job, Fritz, just do the job!

Folks balk at the idea because of the time frame. In March, for an example, how many Germans KNEW that the war would end on May 8? None. Admiral Donitz didn't even have a faint idea that he was going to become the Fuhrer in another month or so. Adolf was still in the Fuhrerbunker screaming for Vengeance Weapons that would change the course of the war and they were still lighting off V-2s whenever they could move a Meillerwagen into position. So Fritz just did the job.

When May 8 actually rolled around, they were still building jet fighters, even though they had had almost zero FUEL for months.

People just did their jobs.

I think that's what happened here.

Sure wish it was mine!
 
6167 said:
The funny thing is when the first group of these came in to the country in 1989/90 there were some that also had SS Runes on one side of the receiver as well...including one my buddy kept that was dated 1946....
Please be aware that all of these came from Yugoslavia at the time that big slew of Brens came over with the really nice Yugo AK's....I know that those boys had access to a whole whack of German Depot equipment including what I suspect was Armourer tools that would allow any competent guy with time on his hands, the ability to do just about anything...Just my humble opinion. Cheers Paul
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Paul, I think you bring up a good point on this one. Probably in the same boat as the 1946 SS marked, could of been someone at some point thought it would add to the value, or someone was just bored, it just doesn't make sense that it is legitimate, and if it was fake, and in these cases pretty obvious fake, why would they charge a premium? If anything, I think the rifle is LESS original then it was before someone took the post war stamp to it.

Also, how is it that their were crates of these, some marked, some not? How many did they capture? This rifle was introduced in late 1944 and their were a bunch "nazi" marked.

It just doesn't make sense, and the German military was so stretched by this point there was certainly more important matters to deal with than stamping dozens of captured M44's. Even if they did capture a bunch of these, say in a supply truck, and really had nothing better to do than stamp them...why are they not ALL marked? Or next will people argue these are all captured in seperate incidents?...and stamped at different times? and then at some point the Yugoslavians gathered a bunch of these up, some stamped, some not...sorry, I'm just not buying it.

Until somebody comes up with some solid facts and information I'm going to side with the non-believers. :)

The rifles were captured, along with thousands of Russian soldiers. The Germans, then gave the Soviet soldiers a choice, fight with us, against Stalin and communism or starve to death in the labor camps. Not much of a choice
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I'm not sure why you think it was common for Soviet soldiers to fight with the Nazi's after surrendering? The only incident I can think of was the Vlasov movement that tried to recruit an army to aid the Nazi's in putting down the Soviet government, but even that was deemed to risky by the captors.

Anyway, it's still a sweet rifle and I'm sure it was a great deal even with some very questionable eagle stamps :)

-Steve

Edit: Notice also how excessive the eagle stamps are? Further proof in my opinion.
 
To add further doubt, how in the hell did a mosin get so missmatched in 5 months? The m44 wasn't really issued in great numbers & the Germans were not capturing anybody after Feb 45. Its more interesting that izhvesk used a recycled receiver in 45. What is the date on the tang?
 
First off...

Having a 1945 Izhevsk M44 with a hex reciever in itself is a bit of a rarity so congrats :p The proper wartime stock is a nice touch aswell, overall a very nice rifle!!

In regards to the German stamps, to me they seem odd. Im strictly going on opinion here and I may be right out to lunch, but to me it seems "off". From what Ive read and seen it appears most 45 dated weapons would not have been front line action, as this rifle may or may not have been made post war. Your best bets are to post this at 7.62x54r.net under their forum section. They are known to have some of the worlds leading experts on these rifles over there and they will probably offer some valuable insight.


I only own one third reich milsurp so I cannot say on the whether or not the stamps are correct, perhaps Joe will elaborate?
 
Your bolt number also seems (to me anyway) to look like a re stamped bolt. Notice the different font type aswell as the almost flat looking body where the number lies.
 
ArtyMan said:
Your bolt number also seems (to me anyway) to look like a re stamped bolt. Notice the different font type aswell as the almost flat looking body where the number lies.
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Good observation! I missed that. I does look like it has been ground & renumbered. Mind you, they may have recycled more than just receivers in new production. Btw, I can say for a fact that Tula started using pressing in sheet metal sling reinforcement in 44. I don't know about izhvesk.
 
desporterizer said:
Good observation! I missed that. I does look like it has been ground & renumbered. Mind you, they may have recycled more than just receivers in new production.
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Absolutely! Every piece that could be used again was there is no doubt about that. The Soviet stamps look a little to nicely done and the blueing to even and nice to be wartime produced, again thats my opinion and could be completely wrong. It could be very, very late war, but then whats the chances a rifle made very late war would be captured, inspected, stamped and reissued? seems slim to me. If it is real...WOW is all I can say though!
 
Whoever may have faked this rifle also knew that the correct designation for the rifle in German issue was 457(r) as this is stamped on the receiver. So it wasn't merely a matter of stamping birds all over the place either.
 
Another thought: if it was reblued by the faker it would have been a rather extensive project as the grease would have had to been cleaned off, the rifle reblued, then grease put back on and aged for a few years at least. This is why I believe the rifle has its original metal finish although it is surprizingly new looking.
 
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