Russian firearm appreciation thread

[Mintie]

I've always had a bit of a thing for Russian rifles, the design can be a little agricultural at times but they are always well thought out and sturdily built - engineered to be abused and still show up to work the next day ready for duty.

Thought it might be fun to have a thread here to talk about stories of old Rusky firearms battling on far longer than they should have and share photos etc.

First story comes from the Maimai about 10 years ago. A group of guys I used to do some duck hunting with had a back up shotgun that would always come along on opening weekend, it was a beat up old Baikal U/O that was there to be used as the shameful backup gun in case anyone's nice semi auto had a breakdown. How old it was is anyone's guess but that shotgun had done some serious work in its life, most of the blue was down to bare metal, the stock had historic cracks repaired in the same fashion you can imagine a Russian farmer would do half a bottle of vodka deep, the recoil pad was a big squishy thing that didn't fit properly and was held on with half a roll of red electrical tape and it felt like you were shouldering a T-34. It booted hard but it always worked and killed a lot of ducks that would otherwise have escaped due to a modern shotgun breaking down. I haven't been out with that crew for a long time but I like to imagine that old Baikal is still running.

Pic here of my 4 ruskies taken the morning, one of them is a new addition so they all got taken out of the safe for a bit of fresh air. There have been a few other Russian firearms in the collection over the years but they were nothing too interesting, these 4 on the other hand are all keepers.

1 - Edgun Matador R3 .22 cal PCP, this has the much smoother steel breech and is the "long" tube version but in a standard length stock and standard barrel length. Sytong NV scope for night ops.

2 - Edgun Leshiy PCP currently setup in .22 but I have .177 and .25 barrels for it as well. This is the full alloy version and I think probably the biggest design innovation in airguns we have seen in a long time. By far my favorite pest control tool with the Pard lrf thermal scope on top.

3 - Izhmash Biathlon 22lr. Incredibly accurate and has one of the best triggers I have ever used. Has 4 mags held in the stock and uses a very slick biathlon straight pull action. The Russian military uses a slightly different version of this with a suppressor as a sneaky sniper rifle for special ops.

4 - Mosin M44 7.62x54r carbine. New to me and haven't had a chance to roast any marshmallows with it yet. This one saw service late in ww2 and then spent decades covered in cosmoline.