M44 from Big 5......what about head space concerns?

First of all, never trust matching serial numbers. You have to be an expert on Russian firearms to be able to tell the difference in Russian stampings and the stampings that were done by importers on rebuilt parts guns. Some importers just electropencil the numbers to match, some line-out the old and stamp new matching numbers on it, then there are those that are carefully ground on virtually every part of the gun and a new serial number is stamped that will match the receiver. Nothing is wrong with any of those practices, the Russians used all 3 methods themselves when they refurb'd these guns. Checking firing pin protrusion is only good when you have no known headspace issue. If you have a headspace issue then setting the firing pin protrusion will not help anything at all. You should never have a problem on 99% of the MN's on the market now. They are all headspaced checked before they are sold to dealers by the importers. I have had and still have more than 100 of these guns and have never had one that failed a no-go gauge test yet.

I recommend that until someone has their own headspace gauges that they take it to a 'smith and have it evaluated. It is a slight risk with these guns, but a risk nontheless, to shoot them without having them tested. If you compare these guns with Enfields, Arisakas and Mausers, you will see that the 3 I mentioned all have bleed holes for the gas to escape away from the shooters face, the Mosin family of rifles does not have these types of holes and therefore if headspace is severly off then blowback will be straight through the bolt and into your face. The Mausers bleed system is not as easily seen as most are in the bolt itself designed to blow down through the magazine. The Arisaka has either 1 hole(Type 99) or 2 holes(Type 38) on top pf the receiver for their system and the Enfield has one hole on the left side of the receiver. As I stated before, you will probably never encounter a Mosin with faulty headspace but it is your face and your life you risk, so your choice. I must have shot around 20-30 of them before I bought my gauges though, lucky, maybe. Now a Type 38 Arisaka that I once owned got tied to a big oak tree and 50ft. of twine tied to the trigger for it's first shot, but all was good in the end. BTW, ZeroDaze, you still got that one?