My 91/59- the "Dirty Blonde"

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rumely28	My 91/59- the "Dirty Blonde"	Lead	[-]
Posts: 3 (02/22/09 03:42 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts Report Post	Tags : None Hi everybody, This is the M91/59 I bought on sale last week. It was originally a 1941 "Izzy" and imported through Century. The barrel was full of crud as if someone test fired it and never cleaned it up. A dozen passes with large bore snakes have cleaned it up quite well. I gently cleaned up the stock but left the dings and stains. My philosophy is that this is a historical gun and all the flaws and imperfections in the wood help to tell its story. After rubbing it down with denatured alcohol I applied a couple light coats of shellac. I really like the results, and the wood still has all its character marks. They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty or safety. --Benjamin Franklin
m1 talker		#1	[-]
Posts: 6549 (02/22/09 11:05 AM) Veteran member Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts Report Post	Nice looking carbine. Let us all know how it shoots and how you like the feel of the trigger. Both are outstanding features on the 91/59 carbines in most people's opinions. Curt
stantheman1986	91/59	#2	[-]
Posts: 5339 (02/22/09 05:37 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts Report Post	I love my 91/59, although it hasn't seen a live round in a long time. A rack of my carbines (M38, 91/59, M95 etc.) fell over in my basement while I was overseas and I arrived home to see a pile of 5 rifles laying on the concrete......of course they had to miss every inch of carpet and the blanket I laid down and find the 2 square feet of bare concrete to fall on. I darn near had a seizure when I saw this, and the 91/59 took some "character" to the handguard when it fell on the sight of an M38, as well as scraping the side of the muzzle and sight globe on the floor........so now it wears a little more "history" than when I got it! I had to just laugh (later) thinking that someone 100 years down the road will look at the two semi-circle dings in the handguard and probably call them "kill marks", not thinking " wow this rifle probably fell over in someone's basement back in 2008". I also laugh at all the "battle damaged" and character laden rifles we have, when I see how weapons get treated in the army. My M4 took it's share of dings and scrapes from climbing walls, being thrown around in the backs of MRAP's etc., but I'm sure it took a lot more from careless handling in the arms room and just from being knocked over when it's leaned up against a wall. It's amazing, we handle our personal weapons with kid gloves and take insane care of them, but I have seen how much abuse service weapons take and still function. So, I learned to sweat a little less when one of my rifles takes a ding at the range or the other ineveitable scrape from use here and there, because it just happens. Plus, I also learn to leave my "gems" at home and just bring the shooters to the range, because Murphy's law will have your flawless wood stock finding the only sharp corner on the shooting bench, or some goober will ask to see it and drop it back down on the table, one piece of hot spent brass WILL find it's way ( sharp neck first of course) right onto the best looking stock of any rifle you own. I wonder how much of the "character" our rifles have is actually from service use, and how much is actually from careless handling by importers, gun shops, prior owners etc. I know a lot of my rifles have dings that look too fresh to be from anything else other than shop wear, people taking it out of the rack at the gun shop and playing with it, being thrown in a pile or crate by an importer employee, etc.
eb in oregon		#3	[-]
Posts: 708 (02/22/09 08:38 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts Report Post	I wonder how much of the "character" our rifles have is actually from service use, and how much is actually from careless handling by importers, gun shops, prior owners etc. I know a lot of my rifles have dings that look too fresh to be from anything else other than shop wear, people taking it out of the rack at the gun shop and playing with it, being thrown in a pile or crate by an importer employee, etc Exactly one of the "points" I have been harping on for years. I'm thinking that most of the rifles we carefully "coddle" are a result of the years afterward than as a result of any war. So, if we return them to "original condition" we're ruining them for history? Eric "We must all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately." Benjamin Franklin, July 4 1776
Jacks308		#4	[-]
Posts: 819 (02/22/09 10:45 PM) Veteran member Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts Report Post	That's a very nice job , I like what you did with it . Jack
stantheman1986		#5	[-]
Posts: 5341 (02/23/09 12:01 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts Report Post	I have always wrestled with the idea of what is "damage" and what is "character".......If I ding my stock forearm against an ammo box at the range, to me it's "damage". If the rifle loses some bluing in the bolt channel, etc. from careful, honest use, than I feel it's part of it's history. But rifles falling over in my basement is definitely damage to me. Maybe in 10 or 20 years I can look back on it as "flavor" to the rifle, like "oh yeah, these dings were from when these rifles fell over and I noticed them on the floor the first time I set foot at home after I got back from a deployment!" I also try to characterize "maintenence" vs. restoring.......rubbing on a light coat of BLO into the stock of a CMP 03 Springfield or Garand is maintenance to me, nothing is being taken away and it is just keeping the stock in good shape. I also feel blending in the shellac is also maintenance, to replace what has worn away from shooting, etc. Most of the refurb rifles I shoot tend to flake from the heat of shooting and the cosmo bubbling up and destroying the weak watered down finish. A couple dings here and there don't bother me as much as it used to, it jst seems that every time I turn around a rifle is falling, knocking into another rifle, and I have so many that rest in my racks, and the gravity of Murphy's law combined with the rifle gnomes will make one just come loose and fall into another rifle out of nowhere......... and I can't keep track of what was there and what damage is new. I just learned to deal with it, I guess. These rifles have seen a lot worse and maybe 1% of my rifles are what I can call a "gem", which is maybe one of them, so I really don't have a rifle that came to me 100% mint with no dings or gouges in the stocks.
high speed cruise		#6	[-]
Posts: 2819 (02/25/09 02:58 PM) Veteran member Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts Report Post	When I first moved into my house, my mom was VERY EAGER to rid my old bedroom closet of the rifles stacked in there. She also demanded I take the old "Last Supper" print and hang it. So....I had the picture up against the basement wall and here comes a trunk-load of rifles. Had she warned me I'd have come and gotten them but my parents are sometimes seemingly anti-gun. Anyway, I leaned several carbines up against the wall, over the picture....guess what happens! I bump into one of the rifles in the night, a domino-effect starts...and the one rifle I can't grab scratches the heck out of the painting! Naturally it'd be that really sharp front sight of the M95 straight pull that catches....I actually cried! At least Lord Jesus wasn't hit.... $50.00 worth of repair and my parents haven't noticed the damage yet. Another reason I went ahead and built the rifle racks. hsc Talking about "Murphy's Law"....you should have seen Smokepole when he dropped that MINTY 9mm camp rifle he was shooting back in January....OMG that was just an insane happening.
stantheman1986	Murphy's Law!	#7	[-]
Posts: 5342 (02/26/09 07:58 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts Report Post	Oh wow, that sounds familiar! Murphy's law of gun collecting- That one time you just straight up drop a rifle on the cement at the range, it will be one of the nicest ones you own and it will land so as to cause the most possible damage. That one piece of stray brass that flies out extra far when you eject a spent case will find the one rifle that is uncased on the shooting bench, and land neck down so as to cause the deepest ding a piece of brass possibly can. The one time you get a case failure from a bad lot of ammo, it will be in a nice rifle you just bought (in my case an Enfield 2A1 that had a ruptured Wolf case) and blow sooty carbon all over the breech, through the bolt and the stock around the receiver. If you try a brand of "no name" reload ammo it will be in your dad's minty up-to-then unfired 1980's vintage S&W .357, with the cheapo ammo making it so dirty is will be nearly impossible to get it clean by the time he sees it. The one time you fix a bayonet to any of your rifles,whip yourself into a frenzy of over-motivation and start to get overzealous with the thrust and parry, you will either break a light bulb or knock over a lamp.
eb in oregon		#8	[-]
Posts: 730 (02/27/09 01:33 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts Report Post	oh wow, I've done that man! "We must all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately." Benjamin Franklin, July 4 1776
high speed cruise		#9	[-]
Posts: 2827 (02/27/09 02:46 AM) Veteran member Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts Report Post	What if you get ticked off at how STUPID and close-minded Scully is over aliens/monsters/supernatural beings and forget you just loaded your NNA .22 magnum mini-revolver when you point it at the TV and pull the trigger? hsc That's purely hypothetical of course.
stantheman1986		#10	[-]
Posts: 5344 (03/01/09 05:27 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts Report Post	Just like how the one time you pick up a pistol in your basement and the ONE time you don't clear it before pulling the trigger, it will be the pistol you left loaded for your "glove box gun" and forgot about, sending a 9mm round skipping off the cement floor! No one was home, it landed safely in the cinder block wall and the hole since patched up.........I "know a close friend" that this happened to with a CZ-85 The same close friend who dropped the pin on a seemingly empty Krag before casing it at the range and the unseen round hidden by the receiver caused the end of the case to blow out! As always, the rifle was pointed down range and with all the other shooting going on no one noticed it, "my friend" was being safe and didn't handle weapons unless the range was hot. Kind of like "If you have an ND and no one is around to hear it, did it actually happen?"