American/Russian/Finnish New England Westinghouse M91

[hudson29]

Back on March 22, 1994 I was browsing the used gun rack at the old Turner's store in Stanton, CA. They often had interesting historic long guns and this day had a very beat up New England Westinghouse M91. The thing looked awful, had a dark bore and to make things worse, they wanted the then princely sum of $99.99 for it. I could have bought three Enfield No 4s for that price. Just the same, something about this old Mosin Nagant spoke to me. I didn't know much about them, there was little published and Al Gore had yet to invent the internet so there were no forums like this one to study up. I'm not sure why, but I got out the plastic millionaire card and paid $107.74 to take it home with me that day.

I got it home and read such literature as I could find about this old rifle, ran an oily patch over it and stored it away in a padded rifle case. I never even shot it.

In 2012 I chanced to be in a Turner's again and saw that the refurbed 91/30s were for sale. I popped for a smart looking 42 and while waiting the now mandated 10 day "instant" check got to thinking about the old 91 stashed away someplace. I couldn't really remember much about it beyond a vague thought that it had been American made. Now there are books available and I ordered the Collector's Guide and dug this old treasure out of deep storage.

Looking at this New England Westinghouse with the book in hand was a rewarding trip through history. This rifle had traveled to Russia to serve the Czar and been involved in who knows what. Possibly, the Great war, the Russian revolution and then somehow came to the Finns. There are a number of trademark Finnish features including the SA stamping, the finger mortice join between the original American black walnut stock and a replacement arctic birch forestock, the front and rear sights and the sling swivels. I could not find any capture marks by the Germans or Austrians, but possibly they were worn off or went when the forestock was replaced. Possibly the Finns bought or captured this M91 directly.

This NEW has lots of replacement parts on it, both Russian and Finnish. Only the bolt was force matched.

Here are some pictures of a very beat up rifle that looks like it saw a lot of service.

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Here are the importer's marks - CAI
























The year on the barrel is very indistinct. Some days I think I can read the 1915, other days I think I'm imagining it . . .




Here is the Finnish ARMY SA stamp


















Somebody used some sort of filler to repair the stock.































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