I almost passed on this rifle, I had just bought another Sestroryetsk Kivaari only a few days before, and two in the space of a week seemed excessive, but I was once again unable to resist an M91. I put in a bid I was sure would be passed by one of the other bidders involved in the auction, but to my surprise no one outbid me, and I now have two Sestroryetsk M91’s (one still on the way). This Kivaari was produced in 1894, and it has seen a lot of use since then. It has a double SA stamp on the barrel shank, one SA on the side near the wood line, another on top, the Imperial markings on the barrel are still intact, the one on the receiver is missing, or maybe was never there in the first place. The receiver tang is dated to 1894 with the Sestroryetsk arrow, the trigger, mag well, and interrupter/ ejector also have the Sestroryetsk arrow. The stock has a German Deutsches Reich property mark on the right side of the buttstock , I see no other German markings on the metal . I have found that someone has stamped a number 2 on the stock nose cap, magazine well, and the side of the receiver, as well as the underside of the barrel, I have not encountered this before on an M91. Perhaps these were added by the Germans much like the GEW98 has a couple of digits of the serial number stamped on just about every part of the rifle, the number 2 is both the first, and last number in the M91’s serial number. The bluing is almost entirely gone, I do not think it has seen a bluing job since 1894, the stock has an oil finish, and the handguard matches. The bolt, and barrel serials match, the mag does not, and there is none on the buttplate. The barrel has a 1” counterbore, gray grooves, and some slight areas of pitting with the lands showing only slight wear. The bolt is a mix of Tula, and Izhevsk parts, one barrel band is Tula, the other Izhevsk, no idea who made the buttplate. The stock still has sling slots rather than hangers, and someone was keeping a count of something with two carefully carved score marks just in front of the magazine. No way to tell if they were Imperial Russian, German WW1, or WW2 Finn additions, but my money would be on their being Finn, they look old, but not WW1 old.
Now the fun part, after I scrubbed out 60 years of crud from under the wood, and in the bore I took the Kivaari down to the range. The very first group I shot ran 1 ½”, five shots from 100 yards with Hungarian light ball, three of the holes were touching. The first group shot almost 2” high because I forgot to set the rear sight, and it was up a bit, but it was shooting very near POA windage wise. Adjusting the sight corrected the elevation, and the rest of the groups shot POA, with groups varying from 1 ½” to 2”, but I saved the target with the first group. 113 years old, and used in at least 2 wars, maybe three, counterbored with a less than perfect bore, and it shoots as well as my best US 1903’s, and almost as good as the Kivaari M24. Definitely glad I did not pass on this one, I have never been disappointed by Finn Kivaari yet, but this one really surprised me with it’s performance. It’s performance goes a long way toward explaining the two score marks on the stock. This rifle is a pre-68 GCA import, no import marks, seems as if whoever had it did not shoot it, what came out of the bore was a large amount of dust, but no rust.
Is 29 too old to be adopted? You have a lot of nice rifles JYD.
