Guys i just bought a mosin nagant at a local gun shop. Looks new old stock and covered in thick smelly grease. Rifle is in excellent condition except for the stock with has the normal scuffs and nicks.

How do i figure out which model it is?

Some numbers off the top of the barrel:

02
1953
CA7550

The barrel looks to be 22-24" maybe, i dont have a measuring tape on me right now.

I need to figure out what model it is so i can order a synthetic stock for it as i dont want to abuse the original while hunting.

Go to http://7.62x54r.net/MosinID/MosinID.htm to look up stamps and figure out what you have. Normal 91/30s have 28 3/4" bbls (m44 carbines are about 20-21" I think), and those are probably the most common mosins. The grease is a hefty dose of cosmolene as far as I know. It may take you a long time to clean your bore and chamber, but just take everything apart including sights, bolt, etc... When you reassemble your bolt, use the firing pin measuring tool so you have installed it to the proper depth (for mine, I tighten all the way, then back out until the marks on the back of the bolt line up). The rifles are made to be shot with the bayonets on, so you will hafta drift your front sight and probably extend the front sight post to make it shoot properly without it. Slug your bore with a piece of 00 buck or something similar to determine proper bullet diameter. It should be in the .308-.312 range, but .311 bullets should fit most of them the best. I tend to shoot .310 123gr bullets through mine with a light dose of varget---it would be plenty for open-sight deer hunting. There aren't many choices for the MN for stocks. Probably an ATI cheapy synthetic is the most common, and with cheap stocks it doesn't hurt to give a little reinforcement (bed). All-in-all, mosins are cheap fun, and the '43 91/30 I bought for a hundred bucks shoots very well, even if they aren't the nicest handling guns

For the trigger, I placed a shim between the receiver and the trigger spring around the trigger screw; it helps quite a bit, even though you can't really perfect the MN trigger without replacement or permanent mods.

I've experimented a few colors on mine and prefer it with no color at all

awesome link!! Mine is the Hungarian M44

well i tried the shim, got the trigger down to about 4lbs, restocked the rifle and it was back to around 9lbs!

Found that i have a high center spot and when i snug down the screws on the stock, its hitting the spring and applying a great deal of pretty and causing the trigger to turn stiff again.

No biggy for now but very good thing to find and something to deal with later on.