About my M38...question

[busdriver72]

I have an Izzy 1941 M38, which I presume to be an early war.
It also has the early war-type sling-slots.


But, my stock has the flat place on the right side that I presume makes this an M44 stock(?).

Question: How can this be an 'early war' stock (the sling slots) and have the flat spot on the stock which indicates an M44 stock?
Am I misinterpreting something?
(By the way, how do you like my early war "expedient" sling?)

Information

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[Skippy]

Maybe it's a refurb?
Where's Claven when you need him?

[sdh1911]

Considering the date is 1941 and it has an M44 stock on it my vote would be a re-furb. I have on here with a laminated M44 stock, I've been looking for an early M38 stock for over a year now. The ones I see going on E-Bay are either M44's or real expensive. Sooner or later I'll get one, HTH-SDH

[sdh1911]

Something I missed on fist glance, on your gun you have a box with a slash through it indicating the gun has indeed been re-furbed. Somewhere on the wood you may find another box with a slash through it, very common. The absence of a rear sling liner and the type of front liner leads me to believe the stock you have is indeed a late war. I would leave it be, it is an original re-furbed M38-SDH

[Claven2]

1941 is pretty early for an M38. 1939 was the first year of manufacture and 1941 was the last year for the early type rear sight ramp - which your has. GREAT feature to have on an M38 from a collector's standpoint.

The stock is a replacement from refurb. It's a 1943 or 1944 era M44 stock. Not unusual as most (all?) refurbs got mixed and matched wood when they were re-assembled.

[busdriver72]

I knew it was a refurb....I was just confused about 'early war" sling slots on a M44 stock.....but that is what it is.
The bottom of the mag has been force matched.

[sdh1911]

I would be concerned about the M44 stock, I have a 41 dated M38 also in an M44 stock w/o refurb marks and also have a 44 dated M38 in an early M38 stock also w/o re-furb marks. I love em both. When these guns came over there was little attention paid to dating parts during refurb or storage prep-SDH

[Claven2]

FWIW, those slots aren't early war. They are mid war. Early war slots up into mid-1941 are the screwed in escutcheon plates. Mid-war they made stocks like yours. Sometime in 1944 or so, they mostly switched to the pressed escutcheons we most often see on the refurbs.

[Stevo]

Where do the plain, no metal sling slots fit in the scheme of things?

[busdriver72]

http://7.62x54r.net/MosinID/MosinM38.htm
I was just going by the above link on 7.62x54.net. But I also noticed the only have pre-war, early war, and late/post war mentioned. They have mine in the early war (the middle one), but they didn't take into account "mid" war, I guess. I take it that this is probably a M38 that was refurbed in '44 with a M44 stock?