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Allan's Armory B-Barrels
The story of the Finn Mosin Nagant
"B" marked barrels is an interesting one. Since Finland was
allied with Germany during WWII, they were able to profit from
their alliance when Germany occupied Belgium. In May 1940 the
Finns received 5,000 barrel blanks from Belgium. Later in
1944, they reportedly took delivery of over 8,000 more. Of the
initial 5,000, Lapin writes that 2000 were used on the M91 and
the rest on M39's. This is where it gets confusing for me
because Palokangas stated that the Finns produced 8,500 "B"
barreled M91's and yet there is also evidence that a large
number of M39 "B" marked rifles were produced during the post
war years. Vic Thomas, in an article published on
Mosin Nagant dot Net, refers to M91's "B" barrels being
recycled into M39's which may account for some of the reported
differences in numbers. What makes the "B" barrel rifles so
desirable is both their limited production numbers and the
metal content of the Belgium steel. Because they sometimes
used a high Nickel content, the steel when treated, would
often give off a plum colored hue. The "B" marked rifles are
also purported to be excellent shooters with above average
accuracy.
Since my Finn collection had a
gaping hole in it when it came to "B" marked Mosin's, I was
excited to learn that Allan from
Allan's Armory managed
to get a hold of a bunch of them. I have dealt with Allan
since he began his business and have learned to respect his
high standards in selecting milsurp firearms. When I ordered
these two rifles from him, I had every confidence that they
would arrive as advertised. As a matter of fact, when they
arrived, they turned out to be better than he described them.
That shouldn't surprise anyone who had done business with
Allan! The M39 appears to be a post war build with an
immaculate post war stock. As you can see from the pictures
above, the bluing is very good to excellent on the M39 and the
M91 was even better! Both are dated 1942 as most all "B"
marked rifles were. The M91 came in a Westinghouse stocked
with the "English Contract" cartouche on the butt stock. The
wood on the M91 was in very good condition considering that it
came from a rifle made around 1915. There was no gouges or
deep scratches and I found a couple of interesting cartouches
in addition to the one on the butt.
Both rifles had matching bolts
and barrels. The M39 still has the Czarist eagle on the top of
the receiver and the M91 has a curious stamped number 1 on the
receiver.
The rear site on the M91 was
only numbered on one side. I am used to seeing them with the
numbers lined through on the left side and new numbers being
stamped on the right.
English Contract
Marking and Others
These rifles are definitely
interesting and should be a part of every Mosin collection. I
have to say that once again Allan has managed to come up with
some real gems. For a more in-depth look at the "B" marked
Mosins check out Vic Thomas's article on
Mosin Nagant dot Net.
Allan's Armory website
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