Winchester Model 1895 7.62mm Russian Contract Rifle

[bruce]

The 1895 was a tremendous sporting rifle. For military use, it probably was less so, especially given the conditions in the trenches of WWI. Your rifle is a wonderful piece of that bygone era when the futures of nations turned on the bolts of the rifles used by those men. Sincerely. bruce.

[Liam]

The "XN3" you reference, and show, are pronounced as "Kh" for the X…."i" for the N (which is Russian for "and" which is why it is lower case)…and "Z" for the 3. I suspect they are first initials of inspectors "Kh and Z." Now, who's got access to the list of inspectors?!
Kh_i_Z.jpg
Kh_i_Z_2.jpg

[varifleman]

Thanks for all the replies; I emailed several Russian Armed Forces/Firearms museums asking for info about the rifle and the XN3 marking; it'll be interesting to see if I get any answers.

[Tuna]

As to head space with these rifles. Any of them need to be checked if they were chambered for anything near as strong as a 7.62x54 or 30-06. In fact the two I had over the years in 30-40 Krag both had head space issues.

[varifleman]

Per Cody Firearms Records WINCHESTER MODEL 1895 - SERIAL NUMBER 283932 applied on May 20, 1916.

[varifleman]

Finally found a nice bayonet for this rifle:

[PhillipM]

The 1895 was a tremendous sporting rifle. For military use, it probably was less so, especially given the conditions in the trenches of WWI. Your rifle is a wonderful piece of that bygone era when the futures of nations turned on the bolts of the rifles used by those men. Sincerely. bruce.

The Eastern front was not the stagnant trench warfare of the West.

[JimF]

Though I don't own one . . . nor ever handled one of the Russian contract rifles . . . . I always wondered . . . .
Do these rifles ever experience "rim-lock" when loading from the stripper clip?

[Johnny P]

That sure is neat! Wonder how and why it ended up here? The cartridge is very versatile and has had amazing longevity. I have had a few fired my way LoL.

In the 1950's outfits like Ye Old Hunter/Hunter's Lodge, and others imported them when they were gathering surplus military arms from around the world. Whether they came direct from Russia or a satellite country I do not know. Most were the worst for wear, with a good one occasionally found. Something close to 300,000 were shipped to Russia in the 1915/1916 time period.

The warning about headspace should be heeded. The receivers were prone to stretching with some of the newer smokeless powder loads.