question about Mosin-Nagants

I was looking at a MN 91/30 at a pawn shop today and noticed that it had a "P" prefix to the serial number. It had the star crest on the barrel, which I believe is the Tula marking.

But, I was just wondering if there's any significance to a "P" prefix. They had it priced pretty high for an otherwise run-of-the-mill 91/30 -- a little over $200.

Anyone?

PhillipM wrote:I'm not up on these but here's a nifty site to id what it is. Just looking through it there are several different tula stamps.

http://7.62x54r.net/MosinID/MosinID.htm

I did a cursory glance over there earlier today and just went back for a more extensive look. They mention a "P" prefix but don't mention any significance to it.

The dealer must think it's something special with the price he's got on it.

The P series rifle is Finish but it is not a serial number prefix it is a model, P-25 P-26 P-27 and is the 1891 model rifle not the 91/30 rifle.
It can be found on 7.62x54r.net

The P seris Finn rifle had the barrel shank ground off. Most of the time the ground off shank would be left in the white( no maker marks on the barrel shank). The P would be before the date P-25 through P-27. The style of reliner was copied from the style of the relined rifles done at Roma Arsenal in Italy, on their M1891 Carcano rifles. The Italian relined rifles are marked TUBATA. If our friend Brutus could have got a photo at the gunshop that would have eliminated the confusion. The Tula 91/30 serial number ranges have many prefix letters sometimes dual letters.

A true P rifle will be a Model 91 rifle and quite rare. The number of rifles made has little to do with the number still serviceable after WW2. I estimate the number of "P" rifle left in storage after WW2 would be less than 8000. We bought a large number of M91 rifles from Century Arms in 1996, a good number of them (more than 40) were Finn "P" rifles. We paid $11.97 each with shipping. Sold them for over $300 each. That is obscene.

One of the great pleasures of collecting and studying military firearms are the great number of variations out there. There can be two rifles of the same model and one will be worth $150 and the other $900.

I looked at 2 M91 rifles at a pawn shop recently. One was a Izhevsk made in 1905 and the other a Chatellerault made in 1893. Chatellerault was the first production of M91 rifles and made in France. It had all the early features. Sling swivel on the upper band, lower swivel on the front of the magazine box (no sling slots in the stock), small pistol grip made of steel fastened to the rear guard screw, no handguard (the bands not notched for the added handguard) and it had Farshi numerals on he rear sight base). This indicated the rifle was captured by the Turks from the Russians during WW1 and somehow it wound up here without import marks, hence the $900 price tag. The Pawn shop sold it to me for $150 and it is nested in a collector's room somewhere in Virginia, as we speak.

Doug

Hmmm.....

I guess I'll go back and study it a bit more.

It was definitely a 91/30 (shorter barrel than a 91 w/ hooded front sight). It definitely had the Tula star on the shank. It definitely had a "P" before a 4 digit serial number on the barrel and the bolt. The floorplate was force-matched.

Maybe it's one of those hidden gems that comes along every so often.

are you referencing one of the Cyrillic letters that come before the serial number on the receiver???

sometimes the serials have letters in front.

In Cyrillic..... P is equal to the sound "er" (phonetically rolled the r) which stands for the amount of "100"

maybe this will help.

let us know what you're thinking. you got me curious now as to what you're referring to