Other Spanish Features

 
Replacement Blade front sight:
          The first miscellaneous feature of note will be the blade front sight. Prior to adopting the M91/30 style globe and post front sight, Mosin Nagant rifles used a blade sight without a sight cover. Even the first years of M91/30 production featured this blade style sight. This only lasted until around 1935 at Tula and 1934 at Izhevsk, with all rifles afterwards featuring the globe and post sight.[1] However, on many Spanish Civil War Mosin Nagants it is possible to find this blade sight on rifles dated long after the 1932 cutoff date. This is most likely the result of the Spanish replacing broken parts with what they had from the huge assortment of Russian arms they were supplied with.[2]

[1] https://www.m9130.info/sights
[2] Note: It is also fairly common to find Finnish rifles that would not originally have had blade front sights with one installed on it. Therefore this feature alone will not prove SCW lineage.

Photo Section:

This rear sight was found on a 1937 dated M91/30 with a Spanish made stock and Made in USSR mark. This variant is not a standard Soviet or Russian type, It could likely be a Spanish made replacement. It has been found on numerous Spanish marked rifles. [Photo from author's collection]

Here is an example of a blade front sight on a 1937 dated Tula M91/30 rifle. [Photo provided by 'martin08' of the Gunboards.com forum]

This is an example of a blade front sight on a rifle which would not originally have had one. The rifle in question is a 1937 dated Izhevsk M91/30, which would have been manufactured with a globe and post front sight. [Photo provided by ‘Denny’ of the Gunboards forum]