M/28 with "Ski Trooper" stock

[Phosphorus32]

A rare local pawn shop find came up a couple of weeks ago. This M/28 Finnish Mosin in a Ski Trooper stock was a “shut up and take my money” purchase at $500. This is one of the later batches of M/28s, as it’s a Tikka, and the first 20K were all made with SIG barrels. There were a maximum of about 31K of these M/28s made and about 11K were produced by Tikka.

“Ski Trooper” (double rear sling slot) stock: For a long time the accepted wisdom was that only the first 6000 M/28s were “Ski Trooper” configuration, i.e., had the double rear sling slots. That was apparently based on someone misreading Markku Palokangas’ three volume set on Finnish weapons, “Sotilaskäsiaseet Suomessa 1918-1988” (Military Small Arms of Finland). All that he says in the M/28 section (pp. 48-54) is that the double sling slot stocks were abandoned for cost reasons after the “first series”. The first series or order was 10,050 guns with SIG barrels. However, Palokangas then adds that these special stocks may have been made for some of the rifles in the later orders. So overall, it’s a bit ambiguous. Regardless, the ski trooper stocks are rare relative to total M/28 numbers, so they bring a premium. The SIG barreled M/28 Ski Troopers in the first 6000 serial numbers probably fetch a larger premium due to the still common lore that they are the originals.

This one, very likely did not have a ski trooper stock originally, and certainly not this stock. I can’t make out the stock number, but I’m quite certain that it isn’t 28078 (the lined out original serial number on the left side of the barrel). It’s built on an American Remington M91 receiver and has a Remington marked trigger too, by chance. It has the mouse-trap spring style of Finnish triggers found on the M/28s which gives this example a heavy but smoothly progressive trigger pull. This one has a “Finn-matched” bolt that was probably a replacement after the Finnish Army (Suomen Armeija, SA) took possession of the gun and refurbished it, at which point they lined out the original serial number and used the Finnish Civil Guard (Suojeluskuntain Yliesikunta, SY) district serial number S128022 as the source of the last three numbers on the bolt body. These Finnish rifles really do tell a story, if you can read their language 

I added the Finnish Army M/27 bayonet (already in my collection) for the photos. It is correct for use on any Finnish rifle with the bayonet lug to accept it, but this M/28 rifle would have originally been issued with a Civil Guard M/28 bayonet (not many differences from the M/27 bayonet: smoother flush mounted rivets for the scales, green painted scabbard).

It came with the “dog collar” sling hangers, and I added one of my spare Finnish slings. This sling was repaired by shaving the leather and stitching it together. It has a “German silver”, aka nickel silver, aka nickel brass (60% Cu, 20% Ni, 20% Zn) alloy buckle, as evidenced by the silver color and the characteristic verdigris formed by oxidation of the copper to cupric carbonate.

[Greasemonkey]

Oh.. now thats real nice..   and it's got the best trigger setup I have 3 Finns with that setup, they all should have had it.


the stock comment about x number thru x number having them, sounds like the M39 straight stock, I have a M39 with the straight stock, but it's no where near the numbers that were made with them. yet, I don't remember ever seeing just bare Finnish stocks imported and sold in the US. Most likely you are correct, it was done there, it could have been something as simple as the rifle that originally had it became disabled, and the rifle you have needed the stock, the Finnish recycled everything.

[Phosphorus32]

Thanks! My other Tikka M/28 and my M/24 (below) has the same trigger. They definitely have a consistent feel and good crisp break




Agreed on the stock. Most likely mine was a replacement during refurbishment. I wouldn't have been interested at the $1000-1200 that most of these Ski Trooper M/28s sell for these days. I really like the pistol grip stock on the M/39s but I know the straight stocks are rare and desirable from a collecting standpoint. I certainly wouldn't mind adding one to my M/39 collection 

[Bacarnal]

Nice one!!  The Remington receiver even looks like it was machined and not carved (though there was a certain amount of bit chatter in some places)   ANY possibility of seeing the Remington stamp?

[Phosphorus32]

Nice one!!  The Remington receiver even looks like it was machined and not carved (though there was a certain amount of bit chatter in some places)   ANY possibility of seeing the Remington stamp?

Thanks!   

I took pictures of all of the Remington markings I could find (shown in the OP); just the "circle R" symbols on the receiver. The barrel is an M/28 SIG barrel, so no Remington markings on that.

[Bacarnal]

Thanks for the education. 

[Phosphorus32]

Thanks for the education. 

Certainly Manufacturers’ markings on Mosin receivers are rather subtle.