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Maybe this page tells something: http://www.museum-arms.ru/collections/detail.php?ELEMENT_ID=5661

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What is the purpose of that blob of wood on the forestock?

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Maybe something similar like this tibetan rifle:

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Could be. Looks like a hole is there for a pivot pin of some sort.

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Such two – pronged "bipods" were apparently a common rifle attachments in central Asia, Siberia, Mongolia , Tibet. I have quite often seen such appendices in old pictures of central Asian expeditions. Here is the only photo I found just now: An east-Tibetan "bandit chief" in 1936.