First, it was his rifle and he was free to do what he pleases with it. We'll have to respect that.

BUT, he is also posing as a wannabe gun expert showing off his knowledge and taste in his blog. I find that "knowledge" severly lacking. He clearly doesn't know what he has, thinks US import marks destroys collecting value, counter threaded screws are too complicated for him to figure out etc etc... He is setting himself up for derision from all but his fellow uneducated noobs.

We are not easily affronted purists here, this whole thread that Lancaster started many years ago is about building rifles based on the ubiquitous Mosin-Nagant action. Like szihn wrote, close to a hundred million where made. But supposing that all Mosins are alike in features and therefore value is either uninformed, or bluntly put, stupid. In this case taking a pre 1988 Remington Custom Gun Shop built 700 and tacticooling it with a hack saw, cheap bolt ons and auto spray paint would be a better comparison.

From the pics in the builders blog we can see that he has a rifle with very early Konovalov rear sight (I'm on my mobile so I can't see 100% if there are markings on the right side, and if there are strike thrus), he has an early 1900 configuration stock with the early russian front bands (threaded the wrong way) and finnish swivels. Last time I helped an US collector find a stock like this it cost 150 € plus freight to the US. The blogger happily destroys this because he could not figure out the barrel band screws! There are only 2 ways the screws can turn, for chrissake!

I can't make out the markings on the barrel shank so that part of this rifles history is unreadable to me otherwise than that it was made pre WWI and come into Finnish hands pre 1928. I would not be surprised if he could have got at least a used Rem 700 by selling this Finnish Mosin to an US collector.

So no, we are not worshipping a defiled M-N rifle, we are (rightfully in my mind) merrily heckling an idiot that poses as an expert.