Mosin Nagant fail video

[Wannashootit]

They're no different than any other bolt gun. Depends on the many variables.
History says they worked just fine for their intended purpose.

The Finns took the Mosin-Nagant receivers to a different level. While some "captured" rifles were simply stamped and used, others were completely "new" with the exception of the receivers themselves, which they never produced.

The M39 is damn near legendary for it's accuracy.
And, lessee... what rifle/sniper accounts for the most confirmed kills in history? That would be Simo Hayha, with the M28/30.
Finn barrels, stocks/fitment, were head and shoulders above the Russians/Soviets.
Longest serving rifle in active duty- the Finns STILL use the TKIV 85 as a sniper and training rifle (though they are now intending to phase it out).
The TKIV 85 is highly modified (cool barrel bedding block system), and highly sought after $$ when they come on the market.

Nothing wrong with the receivers. Crude, but functional. I'll submit their floating bolthead-many decades above Savage- contributes to their accuracy "potential". That potential, won the Olympic Biathlon for the Russians in 1976 at Innsbruck, with a necked-down 6.5 x 54R.

I've built literally dozens of customs using the receivers (truing similar to any bolt gun receiver), all shooting better than 3/4 minute- and worked on hundreds of them. I've seen barrels horribly pitted, bore concentricity "out" by 15 thou and more- and I've seen refurbs put away after WWII that had pristine/new barrels and stocks. Some, will not hit the proverbial broad side of the barn. Others, will shoot better than some can drive them.

This one retained the original military barrel, which was in good condition:

This was a rebarrel:

 

[tomme boy]

I have a 1944 Isv. With jacketed 174 Sierras it will shoot a 1.2" group at 100yds. Using a 4x pistol scope mounted on the rear sight block. With my cast lead 215gr bullets at 1900fps it will shoot under an inch. Right at 0.90"-0.95"

The late wartime 9130's are usually in better condition as they were not being used in front line action. Thats what the M44 was doing. I have had this rifle for awhile. I got it back when these were $79 ea. I had my C&R and bought over a 100 of these and this is the only one I kept because it shot so well. It actually shot better than the real sniper I got from RGuns. I went and hand picked it. It shot well just not as well as this one did.

I also made a copy of the M39 Finish trigger for this. That made a HUGE difference on how the gun shot. It has about 2.5lb break.

 

[Davo308]

This thread has inspired me to pull my non scoped 43 izzy out and maybe try out the shim kit.

I haven't shot the gun in a decade so it might be fun.

Couple questions-what load was the ladder sight calibrated for?

Were the guns intended to be zeroed with bayonet on?

 

[Lange Carabine]

Sights on Russian guns were calibrated for the 7.62mm Ball Type L round adopted in 1908 that fired a 148gr lead core Spitzer concave base bullet at 2800 fps.
In 1953 the Type L was replaced by the 148gr steel core LPS round, which remained in production until 1991.
Were they zero'd with bayonets fixed? That's what I've always heard/read.
As far as the shims go....shoot it first and see what it does. If it's in original unmessed with condition it likely already has them if it needed them in the first place.
All the shims do is make up for wood compression so the action will "clamp" the stock tightly when the screws are tightened and those under the reciever tang raise the rear of the barreled action in order to achieve the proper amount of tension on the barrel at the stock tip.
If you remove the stock note the number/thickness/location of the shims, if any, and be sure they get put back where they came from.

 

[Guthwine]

Usually the 100m setting is around 300m, so expect it to shoot high. (Soldiers were taught to aim for the belt buckle to cover all distances up to 300m without messing with the sight)

According to the manual they were zeroed with the bayonet on but just try it out.

 

[Davo308]

Sights on Russian guns were calibrated for the 7.62mm Ball Type L round adopted in 1908 that fired a 148gr lead core Spitzer concave base bullet at 2800 fps.
In 1953 the Type L was replaced by the 148gr steel core LPS round, which remained in production until 1991.
Were they zero'd with bayonets fixed? That's what I've always heard/read.
As far as the shims go....shoot it first and see what it does. If it's in original unmessed with condition it likely already has them if it needed them in the first place.
All the shims do is make up for wood compression so the action will "clamp" the stock tightly when the screws are tightened and those under the reciever tang raise the rear of the barreled action in order to achieve the proper amount of tension on the barrel at the stock tip.
If you remove the stock note the number/thickness/location of the shims, if any, and be sure they get put back where they came from.

Thanks for the info, I have some Czeck silvertip and some wolf stuff around. I will give it a go but last I remember it was paper plate accuracy at 100 yards, Im sure some of that was me on open sights.

The stock is matching to the action, bolt, and bayo-no shims were placed. About 15 years back I did strip down the finish and applied boiled linseed oil. The finish has held up well.

It does still have a sticky bolt, especially after firing steel cased after a few rounds.

 

[Davo308]

Usually the 100m setting is around 300m, so expect it to shoot high. (Soldiers were taught to aim for the belt buckle to cover all distances up to 300m without messing with the sight)

According to the manual they were zeroed with the bayonet on but just try it out.

Yup that I do remember that it shot high. At the time I picked it up the "trick" to get around that was to use a coffee stirrer slipped over the front sight and trimmed down.

 

[Wannashootit]

It does still have a sticky bolt, especially after firing steel cased after a few rounds.

Cosmoline....
A little bit of heat, it melts out of the "nooks and crannies" and causes this.
Take the barreled action out of the stock, spray solvent into the end of the receiver/breech of the barrel (I use brake cleaner to cut it) and spin a 12 ga chamber brush in the area ahead of the locking lugs. Make sure to use a light gun oil (including down the bore) after to prevent flash rusting.

 

[Davo308]

Cosmoline....
A little bit of heat, it melts out of the "nooks and crannies" and causes this.
Take the barreled action out of the stock, spray solvent into the end of the receiver/breech of the barrel (I use brake cleaner to cut it) and spin a 12 ga chamber brush in the area ahead of the locking lugs. Make sure to use a light gun oil (including down the bore) after to prevent flash rusting.

I don't think thats it, at the time I was paranoid about corrosive ammo and would even take the action out of the stock to boil the receiver. I also used mineral spirits, a chamber brush, and even some flitz or other mild polish. No improvement.

Its got to be something else, but Im thinking maybe in the bolt. Maybe with fresh eyes I can figure it out.

 

[mgrs]

I guess a few hundred million rounds in the general direction of the enemy was good enough.

Yes, it was.

What rifle your infantry carries vis a vis your adversary really has not been a decisive factor in state-on-state conflict in more than 100 years.

 

[tomme boy]

The sticky bolts comes from two problems. Neither are having cosmo in the chamber. The first is the steel used in the cartridge is the wrong alloy for use in bolt guns. It swells up and does not contract to release from the chamber walls. The second thing is the primary extraction is messed up. The handles are were the angle is ground to facilitate primary extraction have been ground on too many times and there is NO primary extraction left to be used.

Czech silvertip can be good ammo, IF it does not lock up the action from what I described above. Hungarian and Yugo are the 2 most accurate of the surplus world years ago. But the Polish from what I hear that was imported in the last several years is as good or better.

 

[Big Bo]

I bought an M44. Went to the range with a buddy. The M44 had been shot by me at 100 yards, no more because of the iron sights. Buddy asked to shoot it. He says hey, this thing is accurate, I just shot the ram on the hill, (545yards away). I called BULLSHIT! He did it again. I got behind the rifle and hit the ram 3 times out of 3 tries. Yes, they do shoot VERY WELL.

 

[KAIFS]

My wife and I own a fair number of sniper and Target rifles... We are also ADVANCED swede collectors, so no strangers to extremely accurate 6.5x55 rigs...
On the topic of Mosin now, over the years we ended up keeping a pair of m/28-76 target rifles. Both are diopter sights. With our handloads, these ABSOLUTELY keep up with Swedish CG63, CG80, FSR-89 at 500m ...
7.62x54R is a nice round if you have an appropriately accurate rifle to shoot it out of. Our m91/30 PU original sniper performs quite adequate (granted, I accurized it by barrel and action shimming and putting a m28 trigger on it) all things considered. Can it outshot m/41b - NO, but it does shoot comparable to m/41 with m42 or m44 AGA scopes...
In closing, if I had to take either a German or Soviet bolt action sniper in WW2 - I honestly would be going for Mosin - build like a tank, both rifle and scope and much more forgiving to dirt and shock...
My 3c

 

[AManWearingAHat]

As many here have pointed out, the accuracy potential is there but as with most milsurp its the luck of the draw on the rifle you get.

My first 91/30 will hold about 4 MOA with the Spam Can copper washed stuff from the prone with a coat. Makes for a fun day at the range but not a spectacular target rifle. The 28/76's as one member mentioned are excellent rifles capable of very respectable accuracy.

 

[Flint62a1]

The bayonet trick works very nicely. My buddy Bill collects Mosins and this one he shoots ball ammo with his “harmonic balancer”. Without the bayonet it shoot high amd right at 100yards, with it- dead on. The photo is from last weeks Military Bolt Action Rifle match we run twice yearly. Any military bolt gun in as issued condition. I have written about it on this forum once or twice.

 

[3-0-hate]

If one wants a military bolt action, there are few valid answers for not bettering yourself with ownership of a 1903 Springfield.

Meh, the 1914/17 Enfield was considered then and still today to be the superior rifle to all others fielded in WW1. The sights alone were a million times better than the 1903.

 

[Skunk]

Still looks like an Enfield...

 

[LRRPF52]

Yes, the Soviets had a Sniper program up and running, but under a quite different definition of Sniper.

Their definition(s) had similarity to the modern DMR mission, as well as entire units composed solely of Snipers; who they dispatched as independent roving solo sharpshooters as well as sometimes large multi-person teams. Moreover, their equipment better suited those roles, with mass production being deeply factored in. Such approaches could possibly work better in Guerrilla Warfare context, and the Soviets did not fail to pick up on the concept.

The German Snipers adhered to being closer what we'd call a Sniper these days.

The same simple base rifle with mass marketed economically affordable upgrade features is a concept very much like the AR rifles I have been building for myself. They have identical ergonomics and operating controls, and mine are optimized for my gangly frame, longer distance accuracy, bag riding, and should be easy to replicate given a ready supply of those mass market optimization parts. Mine are range queens, and will stay there; but it wouldn't take much to reconfigure them slightly for more mundane purposes.

Soviet doctrine operated with new rifle shipments being delegated to all be accuracy tested by the unit's best marksman. Those which shot best were allocated for accuracy tasks; and sometimes, for upgraded capabilities. Soviet doctrine did not well support the precision equipment approach and usually had no or only rudimentary rifle field maintenance capability. Often that best marksman did a lot of the small unit rifle maintenance work by himself. Sometimes, nobody did. Soviet Infantry did exactly what they were told to do, and only that.

Stalin was wedded to the argument that the perfect was the enemy of the adequate. He wanted great masses of adequate men and materials, and treated manpower as just another consumable. For his purposes, the 91/30 was perfect. No other purposes counted.

In some ways, the Soviets thought like Marines (and others among the US Services), with severe emphasis on the teamwork; but they do not appear to have gotten the idea of individuals having value. They believed in the power of numbers following a grand centralized plan. Our forces shared the goals, issued plans, and then left execution and ad-hoc revision to the troops on the ground. We were trained to think our way out of the roadblocks; they were taught to wait for new orders. The Germans had the fancier gear, and maybe the better people; but the Soviets' numbers overran them anyway.

SMEAC.

Greg

I used to believe this as well based on things I was told, which relied almost entirely on a void of knowing anything really about how they trained, and no real research into the topic.

I spent quite some time interviewing former Soviet Snipers who went through their program in the 1980s, and there is a lot more information available now about how they built their initial Sniper program in the inter-war period, by sending their trainers to Germany to mimic the German sniper training program of the 1920s and 1930s.

From everything I’ve been able to research, the Russian SSR focused more on Sniper sections. There are some Warsaw Pact and satellite nations with really poor training who used PSLs during the Cold War with basic familiarity fire and not much else, but this was nothing like what the Russian SSR did in their Sniper training.

Theirs was a full-on sniper program where candidates were selected during “crucible”, the first 2 weeks of conscription. Conscripts were evaluated for their marksmanship abilities and intelligence, then handed over to Sniper Warrant Officers and Majors for the bulk of their initial entry training.

They implemented a lot of the German approaches to marksmanship, fieldcraft, stalking, camouflage, target detection, movement, and tactics that would be familiar to any current US/NATO sniper school student and cadre.

They put camouflaged targets out in fields for TGT detection and engagement exercises, and employed the semi-automatic SVT-38 and SVT-40 rifles with optics. In addition to multiple TGT engagement and varying UKDs, they also shot snap targets with a very good sniper marksmanship training syllabus. The initial focus was on the SVT-38 and SVT-40 as semi-automatic sniper systems more suited for combat, versus bolt-action rifles with limited magazine capacity.

The Russians started off with a higher-quality knock-off of a Zeiss scope that they made with Zeiss’s help called the PE and later PEM in the late 1930s. After World War II broke out and demand for sniper optics increased, they sacrificed quality for quantity in the optics production industry and started cranking out PUs.

Soviet PEM Sniper Scope:

Complete list of PU Sniper Scope Variants

From an equipment standpoint, they started with a better system and higher quality optics, then deteriorated based on demands of the war front. Their training was actually high quality.

 

[Wannashootit]

The "Cobra" also used his Mosin-Nagant to great effect.
That is, until Carlos Hathcock put his bullet straight down the P/U scope

 

[LRRPF52]

They're no different than any other bolt gun. Depends on the many variables.
History says they worked just fine for their intended purpose.

The Finns took the Mosin-Nagant receivers to a different level. While some "captured" rifles were simply stamped and used, others were completely "new" with the exception of the receivers themselves, which they never produced.

The M39 is damn near legendary for it's accuracy.
And, lessee... what rifle/sniper accounts for the most confirmed kills in history? That would be Simo Hayha, with the M28/30.
Finn barrels, stocks/fitment, were head and shoulders above the Russians/Soviets.
Longest serving rifle in active duty- the Finns STILL use the TKIV 85 as a sniper and training rifle (though they are now intending to phase it out).
The TKIV 85 is highly modified (cool barrel bedding block system), and highly sought after $$ when they come on the market.

Nothing wrong with the receivers. Crude, but functional. I'll submit their floating bolthead-many decades above Savage- contributes to their accuracy "potential". That potential, won the Olympic Biathlon for the Russians in 1976 at Innsbruck, with a necked-down 6.5 x 54R.

View attachment 7465541

I've built literally dozens of customs using the receivers (truing similar to any bolt gun receiver), all shooting better than 3/4 minute- and worked on hundreds of them. I've seen barrels horribly pitted, bore concentricity "out" by 15 thou and more- and I've seen refurbs put away after WWII that had pristine/new barrels and stocks. Some, will not hit the proverbial broad side of the barn. Others, will shoot better than some can drive them.

This one retained the original military barrel, which was in good condition:

This was a rebarrel:

Great post!

Finland was an autonomous part of the Russian empire from 1809 until Dec 6, 1917 when it declared independence from Russia. Finland had tens of thousands of Russian M1891 rifles, and started modifying them into the m/27, m/28 and m/28-30.

These rifles were used in the Finnish Civil War in 1918, where the White Nationalists defeated the Red commies/leftists/socialists. They went though a period where they used western 7.62mm/.308” bores, then went back to Russian .312” bores as well. The m/28 and m/28-30 were built for the Finnish White Civil Guard known as Suojeluskunta, while the m/27 was the active Army rifle. The Finnish Army requirements for rifle accuracy were 1.5 MOA, so they selected rifles that already held that standard, and re-barreled the ones that didn’t meet it.

They also started making their own receivers and rifles following the Mosin pattern. You can tell the older-era rifles from the newer ones by the dual-ranging feature of the tangent sight. One one side, there is range in meters, and on the other, you have range in paces from the old 1800s system of thinking. I have samples of both. During the Talvisota and Jatkosota, they of course captured a lot of SVT-38s, SVT-40s, and Mosin-Nagant variants.

Finnish Mosin-Nagant Receiver Markings Database

I saw a few TKIV 85 rifles being used in the mid-2000s, but in the Finnish Defence Forces and active reserves (modern-day Suojeluskunta), the TRG and more modern actions are the norm now. Some of the older active reserves have TKIV 85 and accurized Mosins in their collections, but they are mostly for nostalgia. This is just from what I’ve personally witnessed since 2005 while training and competing with the Finnish Sniping community every year from then until 2016. To me, it seemed that Rem 700, SAKO bolt actions, AR-15s, and AR-10s are more popular now than the Mosins and have been for quite some time.

Nostalgia shoot off an 80ft Artillery Observation Tower in Finland at the Häyhä 2008 Sniper Competition:

 

[Wannashootit]

This is just from what I’ve personally witnessed since 2005 while training and competing with the Finnish Sniping community every year from then until 2016.

Cool shit, there- what capacity if you don't mind me asking?
Looks like they've secured Sako to work on a new line of sniper, and DM rifles earlier this year:

Uuden kiväärijärjestelmän kehitystyö alkaa - Ruotuväki

ruotuvaki.fi

I've always been curious about the barrel block/bedding system they use in the TKIV-85, I've never seen anything like it on any other rifle system.

 

[Davo308]

Interesting video on a mosin sniper variant...

 

[juha_teuvonnen]

They have made more than a few "Mosin Sniper Replicas" recently, some of which were exported to the US. In general, those were garden variety Mosin-Nagant battle rifles with a reproduction scope mount and either a refurbished old stock scope or reproduction scope. Some true sniper rifles were marked ("СН" or "СП"), others were not. The easiest way to tell a reproduction is the trigger. If it's a standard crappy trigger it's a reproduction. Apparently, tuning Mosin-Nagant triggers became somewhat of a lost art in Russia. The true sniper rifles were hand-selected from the batch for consistency, then sent to gunsmiths that scoped and tuned them. They have great triggers and the action is smoother than the usual russian Mosin-Nagant. When you close the bolt the true sniper feels closer to a Finnish rifle than to a typical Russian. A lot of the true Mosin-Nagant sniper rifles were worn out during and after WWII, so there aren't many true WWII era Mosin-Nagant sniper rifles that can shoot well today. There are plenty of reproductions, they look the part, but don't shoot well at all. Conceivably one could buy a reproduction and rebuild it to the same standard that the actual snipers were. One would most likely need to re-barrel the rifle to make it shoot tight groups.

 

[Guthwine]

Also interesting:


Shooting starts at around 14:30

 

[Muriner]

While many people (even here) still refer to M-Ns as $100 guns, those days are long gone and ain't coming back. Run of the mill, nothing special round receiver 91/30's sell for 300-350+ like hot cakes, and sniper variants go for ridiculous money nowadays (many of those snipers are fake as was pointed out already). Finns with their superior barrels and triggers are a pleasure to shoot and command higher premium.

 

[Davo308]

Also interesting:


Shooting starts at around 14:30

The subsonic shooting was very interesting.

 

[juha_teuvonnen]

Subsonic bullets don't lose speed as quickly as supersonic bullets. While the bullet does not have as much energy at the muzzle as a supersonic one, it is not losing energy as fast as a supersonic bullet. And you don't have a transonic area transition to worry about if you are subsonic to begin with. Most infantry engagements in WWII were around 300 yards and bulletproof vests were not yet fielded. A 148 grain subsonic bullet is still plenty lethal in these conditions. The Russians have not forgotten about this. They have a number of subsonic suppressed sniper rifles in their arsenal. The most well known is VSS (Vintorez) which shoots 9x39. It's a highly effective urban combat weapon. They just use special bullets designed to defeat armor for these now.

 

[Davo308]

Subsonic bullets don't lose speed as quickly as supersonic bullets. While the bullet does not have as much energy at the muzzle as a supersonic one, it is not losing energy as fast as a supersonic bullet. And you don't have a transonic area transition to worry about if you are subsonic to begin with. Most infantry engagements in WWII were around 300 yards and bulletproof vests were not yet fielded. A 148 grain subsonic bullet is still plenty lethal in these conditions. The Russians have not forgotten about this. They have a number of subsonic suppressed sniper rifles in their arsenal. The most well known is VSS (Vintorez) which shoots 9x39. It's a highly effective urban combat weapon. They just use special bullets designed to defeat armor for these now.

This was known 75 plus years ago, suppresor or not.

Its not commonly portrayed in US media, let alone on youtube.

 

[TurboTrout]

Not saying that’s a laser gun, but I’d wager that odd scope setup the youtuber has going on isn’t helping in the accuracy department

 

[ArmedGinger]

"Period Correct" with a huge rubber butt pad...

 

[ArmedGinger]

Not saying that’s a laser gun, but I’d wager that odd scope setup the youtuber has going on isn’t helping in the accuracy department

Well that part is period correct

 

[TurboTrout]

Well that part is period correct

View attachment 7499693

Indeed

 

[juha_teuvonnen]

This was known 75 plus years ago, suppresor or not.

Its not commonly portrayed in US media, let alone on youtube.

I don't think that the physics of supersonic flight were all that well understood 75 years ago, at least not universally. If we were to depict all the aerodynamic resistance forces that act on a bullet as one vector, the starting point of that vector would be the "center of pressure". When we go from supersonic flight to subsonic flight the center of pressure moves from being in front of the center of gravity to being behind. Which can destabilize bullet and wreak all kinds of havoc on its flight path. The opposite shift of the center of pressure happens when an aircraft goes from subsonic to supersonic. Many Me-262 pilots, including some of Germany's best test pilots died because this shift and its effect on flight dynamics was not well understood. If you get a Me-262 going fast enough it will get pulled into a descent and the usual measures that a pilot would take to stop that, like pulling back on the stick, will be entirely ineffective. Once the physics of this was understood the jet aircraft went from straight wings to swept wings. If this phenomenon was understood early enough, the first generation of straight-wing fighter jets would have never had straight wings. Kurt Tank probably understood this earlier than most, because he had drawn swept-wing aircraft before the end of WWII.

 

[Davo308]

I don't think that the physics of supersonic flight were all that well understood 75 years ago, at least not universally. If we were to depict all the aerodynamic resistance forces that act on a bullet as one vector, the starting point of that vector would be the "center of pressure". When we go from supersonic flight to subsonic flight the center of pressure moves from being in front of the center of gravity to being behind. Which can destabilize bullet and wreak all kinds of havoc on its flight path. The opposite shift of the center of pressure happens when an aircraft goes from subsonic to supersonic. Many Me-262 pilots, including some of Germany's best test pilots died because this shift and its effect on flight dynamics was not well understood. If you get a Me-262 going fast enough it will get pulled into a descent and the usual measures that a pilot would take to stop that, like pulling back on the stick, will be entirely ineffective. Once the physics of this was understood the jet aircraft went from straight wings to swept wings. If this phenomenon was understood early enough, the first generation of straight-wing fighter jets would have never had straight wings. Kurt Tank probably understood this earlier than most, because he had drawn swept-wing aircraft before the end of WWII.

This reminds me of the differences between the V1 and supersonic V2 rocket.

 

[Flint62a1]

The subsonic shooting was very interesting.

Is it even possible to do that? He pulled the heads and simply cut the powder charge? Isn't there a point where the podwer charge in its reduced form becomes dangerous?

 

[Davo308]

Is it even possible to do that? He pulled the heads and simply cut the powder charge? Isn't there a point where the podwer charge in its reduced form becomes dangerous?

He said the field expedient way to do this was to use 1/3 of the powder charge.

As for safety the powder should be packed against the primer. Back then everything was dangerous.

 

[juha_teuvonnen]

Is it even possible to do that? He pulled the heads and simply cut the powder charge? Isn't there a point where the podwer charge in its reduced form becomes dangerous?

Being a Soviet solider in WWII was inherently dangerous. If you look at a random hundred enlisted men that were in the Red Army when the war started, on average only three were alive when the war ended.

Our ROTC teacher was a WWII vet who fought as an enlisted man at Stalingrad. One of our students saw too many soviet propaganda war movies and made the mistake of asking our teacher about war. So, our teacher marched us into the hallway, ordered us to stand in a formation. He divided the formation into two uneven groups and made the larger group move over to the side. Than he said to the larger group: "You, guys, are all dead. None of you came back and for a lot of you the family doesn't even have a grave to visit". Then he moved on to the smaller group and started calling students one by one, moving them to the larger group saying things like: "you lost both legs, you are in a wheelchair", "you are blind and lost your right arm", etc. Eventually there were only two students left from the smaller group. He said to them: "You, guys, are very very lucky. You came back alive and still have all your limbs attached". Next he said: "I graduated high school early in the war and all of us volunteered for the service. After the war ended the surviving students met again. BOTH of us."

 

[Guthwine]

For those who haven't yet seen it: