Weapons · Soviet Union · 1932-1945

Mosin-Nagant M91/30 (PU)

sniper rifle

The Soviet army began adapting the M91/30 service rifle into a dedicated sniper weapon from 1932, fitting selected, more accurate receivers with a bent bolt handle to clear the scope and a side-mounted telescopic sight. Early production used the 3.87x PE and PEM scopes, copied from a Zeiss design, before the simpler 3.5x PU scope became standard from 1942 onward. Mounting the scope above the chamber meant snipers had to load single rounds by hand rather than with stripper clips. The rifle became closely associated with the Red Army's wartime sniper corps and its most celebrated marksmen, including Vasily Zaitsev and Lyudmila Pavlichenko, particularly in the close, ruined-city fighting at Stalingrad.

Wikipedia

Eastern Front