The story...
Ok, don't anyone kill me over this, but this is what I was told by the second owner, who got it from the original...
The original owner was the son of a high ranking career soviet army higher up. His family defected during the cold war, and he had something to do with T-34s and the armor corps. in Russia. When the wall came down the man's son wrote to the Russian consulate in Washington D.C. and said how if there was ever an opportunity to obtain a Russian T-34 for himself and his father they would gladly jump at the chance. He went on to detail his father's career etc.
Approx. 8 months later the man receives a call from the Port of NJ that there was a tank on the dock for him. Surprised, he dug into it and found that the Russian govt. in an attempt to heal wounds of the Cold War, had shipped his family this tank in recognition of his father's service. Luckily it had diplomatic papers with it, and approvals were given to bring it into the country... something that probably would be impossible today without a LOT of red tape.
The gun is intact as is the breechblock... registered of course. Well that's the story... could be a load of crap, but that's what I was told.
Later!
Augdog