The Mosin Nagant 91/30 PU sniper rifle,One of the most popular Sniper rifles of World War II, the 91

The Mosin Nagant 91/30 PU sniper rifle,One of the most popular Sniper rifles of World War II, the 91/30 PU originally was originally never intended in coming in to being.  In the 1930’s, the Soviet created their first sniper rifles by mounting copies of the German Zeiss scope on 91/30 rifles.  However it was planned in the 1940’s for the Soviet Union to phase out the Mosin Nagant, replacing it with the semi automatic SVT-40.  Likewise, the standard Soviet sniper rifle was intended to be a scope mounted SVT, which was issued in the early years of World War II.  However when the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, it was determined that rapidly retooling Soviet industry from mass production of the Mosin Nagant to the SVT would be too difficult.  As a result, it was decided that the 91/30 would form the basis of the Soviet sniper rifle.The 91/30 PU sniper rifle was so named because it was mounted with a PU 3.5X scope.  The scope itself was side mounted to the rifle using an attachment which latched onto the left side of the receiver.  The most notable outward feature of the PU sniper rifle was its long bent bolt handle.  It did not use the straight bolt handle of the standard 91/30 infantry rifle because the PU scope would be in the way of the bolt handle.  Internally the PU sniper rifle was also different than the standard 91/30 rifle.  The action was constructed with much tighter tolerances than the regular Mosin.  Quality was also significantly better, with a much closer eye to fine detail.  All of these modifications were intended to maximize the accuracy of the rifle.  Finally the PU sniper rifle was outfitted with a lighter trigger, whereas regular infantry rifles were equipped with a standard military trigger (a military trigger has extra give in it to prevent accidental discharge when soldiers do things like diving or hitting the ground).  This too was meant to improve the accuracy of the rifle.Production of the PU Sniper rifle began in 1942 and continued up to 1958.  Around a quarter of a million were produced, the bulk of them between the years 1942 and 1944.  Small numbers were also produced by Soviet satellite states during the 1950’s, especially Hungary and East Germany.  Today they are highly prized as collectors items.  However buyer beware, they are easy to fake using regular 91/30 rifles.  Other are intentionally sold as replicas. -- source link
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