All of these guns were reblued by the Russia Arsenal 's
Not true, most of the latest releases definitely were. Many of the firearms they captured were never issued and stored reasonably well, so they didn't require refinishing.
I have no idea how many non refinished pieces are left but the specimens in the videos weren't refurbished for the most part.
I've spoken with a lot of people about the abandoned firearms/weaponry left in the streets and battlefields. There were mountains of them in some places. Many were left out in the elements or stored in poor locations just to gather them. By the time the Soviets, as well as other nations got around to gathering them all up, they were direly in need of complete cleaning an refinishing. Many of the arms in the field were fired with corrosive ammo before being abandoned and left without cleaning the bores for years. That's why so many RCs are seen with badly pitted bores, but otherwise OK or even EXC.
In 1972, I did a job for Robinson's in Victoria.
They had a grease soaked, dark green wooden crate that was close to twice the size of those in the videos. The lid was screwed on, there weren't any hinges.
They hadn't opened it yet when they called me and asked me if I wanted to tackle this shipment of P08s they had just received from Europe, which had originated from the Soviet Union.
I had seen such shipments before but nothing like this crate or what it contained.
The Soviets had taken the P08s, I assume from captured Axis prisoners. The pistols were unloaded and put back into their holsters, minus the belts.
They were all stacked neatly in such a manner that they could maximize the space in the crate. I can only imagine how many crates they must have had.
Now, here's the catch. They floated everything in that brown sticky grease they used instead of cosmoline. I don't know which is worse. Thankfully it was all still viscous.
Not one of those lovely P08s were refurbed. They all had matching numbers and were in the condition they were surrendered in. Some looked to be new from the factory, others looked like they had been to hell and back. Some had pitting on the grips and metal that was obviously from blood, which tends to pit deeply and cause wood to crumble. Some of them dated from WWI. All were in working order, once they were cleaned up and assembled.
A few had badly pitted bores, even though their exteriors were VG to EXC in appearance. Obviously they hadn't been cleaned after being fired.
Whatever that grease the Soviets floated them in was, it didn't stop the bores from pitting or the blood from doing some damage.
I kept thinking as I usually did, when opening such treasure chests, "I WISH THESE COULD TELL THEIR STORIES."
Now, NOT ONE OF THE HOLSTERS WAS SALVAGEABLE. They were all BLACK and ALL were just slippery, snotty messes that fell apart when touched. The grease was the only thing that held them together, along with their loading tool/spare magazine and in a few cases a brass cleaning rod. The pistols with the cleaning rods were WWI dated.
They were a hodge podge of manufacturers and condition. NONE WERE REFINISHED to my knowledge. About half of them were BYF coded and carried a matte phosphate type finish. Those were in the best condition and I ended up with one of those.
TURF THE LIBERALS IN 2019
Liberals really like POOR people, they're making more of them every day
If you can't vote CPC, stay at home in protest
