*** September 2011 Purchases ***

[rayg]

The US firms of Remington and Westinghouse both manufactured Mosin Nagant rifles under contract by the Russians beginning in 1915. Then in 1917 the Russians canceled these contracts leaving thousands of these rifles un-delivered and the companies in debt.
The US government purchased these ready made rifles to help the companies become solvent again and used them in place of the standard issue 1903 Springfield rifles for training troops so the 03 rifles could be transfered to combat troops. Those purchased rifles have Russian inspectors stamps and were stamped in the stock with a US stamp and an Ord bomb in the wood in front of the trigger guard to signify US ownership now.
The US then contracted with Westinghouse to continue manufacturing the rifles for the US government as the government was in the process of having Westinghouse manufacture the Browning Machine guns but the contract wasn't finalized yet and they didn't want to lose the experienced workforce at Westinghouse. During this contract an additional 200 thousand rifles were contracted by the US to be manufactured. These final rifles were completely inspected by US inspectors and have US inspection stamps and Ord bombs on the barrel, bolt and receiver. They are considered a legitment US Arm and not just a foreign arm transfered into US service as the previous Russian contracted rifles were, I believe it's designated as US Model 1916.

This one is in excellent condition, having matching numbers and the stock is in excl. condtion with a great cartouche on the left butt. The US acceptance eagles and Ord bombs are on the receiver, bolt and barrel. It's missing the cleaning rod.


The rifle is also a scarce example as it has the extra stock reinforcement stock bolt that was added by Ordnance for firing the US adoption of the French VB rifle grenade launcher which Westinghouse was also manufacturing. Ray



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