In the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878, the Berdan rifle was found to be obsolete. The Tsar’s armed forces wanted to replace the Berdan with a more modern weapon, and in 1889, Leon Nagant of Belgium and Sergei Mosin of Russia submitted their own rifle models for evaluation. Test sets of 300 rifles were ordered for trials. Further development resulted in the M1891 rifle. Emperor Alexander III confirmed the introduction of the weapon under the name “Russian 3-line rifle model 1891.” The M1891 was manufactured in three large weapons factories located in Tula, Izhevsk and Sestroretsk. By 1897, the Tula plant had manufactured one million rifles, and Izhevsk reached the half-million mark in the same year. In addition, Russia procured these rifles from France, where more than 500,000 rifles were manufactured. By the start of World War I, the Russian military had more than 4.2 million M1891 rifles. After the war broke out, it was soon realised in Russia that domestic production was insufficient, so more than a million M1891s, along with Winchester rifles, were ordered from Westinghouse and Remington in the USA, most of which arrived in Russia before the armistice in 1917.

Tens of thousands of M1891 rifles remained in the hands of the Whites and Reds in Finland. In spring 1918, the Whites acquired additional M1891 rifles from Germany (seized from the enemy), increasing their number by more than 80,000. In 1919, one year after the Civil War, there were a total of 210,615 of M1891 rifles in the Defence Forces depots. The M1891 became the standard rifle in the Finnish Defence Forces at the time. Several factories for the refurbishment of old rifles and production of new ones were soon established in Finland, such as the Tikkakoski Iron and Wood Industry Company, the State Rifle Factory (VKT), the Finnish Ammunition Factory (SAT), in addition to the numerous weapons depots of the Defence Forces. Between the 1920s and 1940s, tens of thousands of M1891 rifles were also purchased from abroad. For example, Italy and Yugoslavia sold a total of more than 90,000 rifles to Finland. During the Continuation War, a further 62,000 brand new M1891 rifles were manufactured in the depots and factories.

At the end of World War II, there were nearly 200,000 M1891 rifles stockpiled in Finland. The weapon was used in the training of conscripts in the Reserve Officer School, as well as in some garrisons until 1977. The last Mosin-Nagant rifles M1891 were removed from the Defence Forces’ inventory in the early 1990s, when the rifle had reached the respectable age of 100 years.

References: Palokangas, Markku, Sotilaskäsiaseet Suomessa 1918–1988, Suomen Asehistoriallinen Seura (1991)