Mexican Arisakas and Mosin Nagants

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Needed a few more dollars to get free shipping, found a booklet (45 pages all together) on Mexican Arisakas and Mosin Nagants.

Quite interesting. Many of the Arisakas ended up going to the Russian Far East in WWI, wrestled out of the hands of the Mexicans who were in Japan, while some were delivered to Mexico and later sent to the Spanish Republicans.

The Mosins were Remingtons and Westinghouse it seems from the undelievered Imperial Russian Contracts, many of these rifles were sent to Nicaragua and the Spanish Republicans. The Mexican Army was stripped of Arms to send to Spain (sound familiar?).

Jack O'Connor mentions that a Mexican he knew had a 7.62 Russian Army rifle of mysterious origins and that he would take him ammo for it as the fellow was chronically short, the same fellow beat a Jaguar to death with a club when his Dogs cornered it.

Testing the photo attachment feature.
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Wow, I never knew that Mexico fielded Mosins. I know about how they were involved in the Spanish civil war. I would have thought that all of the American made M91s would have been bought by the Finns, sold off by the CMP, or be sporterized into Bannermans. I wonder how they would get ammo for them in that time period. Would they have bought surplus from the US?
 
The book says low cartridge inventory made the rifles unservicable and after getting equipment in 1924 the National Cartridge Factory #2 produced 3,245,200 7.62x54R cartridges.

The numbers in the books are a bit hard to follow. First it states that 5,000 Mosins were purchased, then 15,000 Mosins that were stored in Manila were shipped to El Paso, Texas (and on to Mexico). Then report that 20,000 Mosins were in Mexican stores and the Governor of Jalisco purchased 2,000 Mosins. Another table shows just over 10,000 in stock in various states with an average of 200 round per rifle. So I don't know if the 2k and 10k are from the 20k or in addition.

Rifles were given to Nicaraguan Rebels, there's a list of serial numbers of (Mexican) Mosins captured by the Nicaraguan Govt. And 2,000 going to Spain.

It's got photos of Mexicans, both Army and Revolutionaries, carrying Mosins.

The book also says Mexico purchased 15,100 US Model 1917 rifles.
 
Lots of history there. I recall reading somewhere that shortly after WW1, a good many M91's that had been manufactured on the US went over to Russia with US troops, sent to support Russia in the possible war with Japan. A lot of those rifles didn't come back with the troops.
 
The Arisakas are in 7x57 and have the Mexican Crest on them.

The Mosins are Remington and Westinghouse, so I'd think a SCW example of one of those could be a Mexican.

All of the SN's for Remington Mosins in the book are in the 500,000 range, no other.

I find it interesting that they came out of Manila (the Phillipines being a US Possession), wonder if there were/are more there or if some went to places like Guam and Puerto Rico.
 
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Does anybody here own or know someone in Canada who owns Mexican Arisaka? Just curious about availability, because I normally ignore Arisakas but these could be interesting...
 
Allen Lever used to have a crate of them, all matching and sequential numbers.

If memory serves, most of them ended up rusting away in rotting crates, on an Irish dock, when the shipment was put on hold. The Arisakas, along with a few thousand Mausers sat there for years before being released and sent to the smelters.
 
Just like the Brit’s issuing Type 38 Arisaka in WW1. So far the only true information I’ve found was that they were returned to Japan post WW1. I would really like to get one for my collection
 
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