M44 and some ammo arrived today. Great condition. Needs a little cleaning up. But, that's to be expected with milsurp.
I haven't cleaned the cosmoline off yet. Excellent condition, bore is in great shape, and matching serial numbers:
That reminds me, I need to pick up some 7.62x54r. Good looking gun! Now you just need a semi-auto in that caliber. I know, its a sickness. ETA: Any repairs on that stock? The one I got from Wideners didn't look bad except for a few repaired places.
Nah, nothing is wrong with it. Just a little bit of a light scrape on the top right (from the shooter's POV) of the receiver. I got it from AIM, by the way. Ordered it last Friday and got it today. Not bad at all. I'll probably get around to cleaning 'er up this weekend.
The wood won't lighten up at all (unless you start sanding on it...please don't...). That is a laminated stock M44. Nice choice. I also got my lammy-stocked M44 from AIM. What year and arsenal did they send you? Mine is a 1945 Izhevsk. The one I got was w/o cosmo already. I just got two new 91/30's in today. One is a 1929 Izhevsk and the other is a 1943 Tula. Both are in very good condition...so now I am up to 11 Mosins.
1946 Izhevsk. The wood doesn't have hardly any cosmo and the I haven't taken it completely apart to check out the rest.
It's only $10 more at AIM for laminated vs. non-laminated. A few other places charge $10-20 more for that option and the condition isn't all that great to begin with (or so I've heard).
+1 on AIM's deal on M44's right now. If you're going to buy one or are thinking about buying one, spend the $10 extra for the lammy-stocked one. They are much nicer looking and are generally in much better condition. FWIW, the 1946-48 M44's are much more UNcommon than the rest of the years.