Three Letters Re: A Second Look at the Mosin-Nagant Rifle

Mr. Rawles,
I am writing in reference to Frog’s post about the Mosin-Nagant rifle. I have owned several Mosin-Nagant rifles myself. They were designed to kill enemies of the Soviet Union. They were not designed to necessarily be the safest rifle around. If you’re not very careful while using a Mosin-Nagant rifle, it can blow up and injure you. I learned that lesson the hard way in 1998. I also learned about the importance of eye and ear protection while shooting as well. No one should ever fire a Mosin (or any firearm) without eye and ear protection. When my Mosin blew up, I suffered severe burns and shrapnel penetrations of my face. Fortunately, a skilled eye surgeon was able to remove the larger pieces from my eye (there were over 200 pieces in all) and my sight was undamaged. I had an eye hemorrhage and a partially detached retina. I lost 25% of the hearing in my left ear and have lived with tinnitus since. I would only recommend this rifle to someone who had no other options. – Joseph E.

James,
Regarding the article A Second Look at the Mosin-Nagant Rifle, a few months ago we put the Mosin-Nagant Low Profile Side Combo rail for $39.97 on a 91/30. This was an earlier model of the mount currently for sale, and although they said a straight bolt would still work, that would probably only be with a skinny military scope. It would be better to say that it’s for bent bolt and make it a half inch lower, but it’s still pretty good.

The mount has a groove that hugs the side of the receiver, so getting it on straight was not an issue. We used the the first and third of the three screw holes, and drilled all the way through the receiver. This made tapping a bit easier, The stock was inlet a half inch with hand tools.

We sawed off the bolt and the knob and drilled a 1/4″ hole straight down the nub of the bolt handle, all the way through the bolt body. The new bolt handle was a 1/4″ stainless steel rod bent in a vise. We filed off the bottom edge of the bolt handle nub to accommodate the inside radius of the new bent bolt handle. The ball was also drilled and re-used. It was all soldered together with silver solder and a small acetylene torch with a tiny blue flame. As a finishing touch, we also drilled a small hole through the bolt handle nub at a right angle to the new handle, drove in a finishing nail as a pin, and soldered that in. The handle will never come off. The feel of the action is greatly improved, and it’s like a new rifle. I would say that a lot of the “stickiness” of the Mosin-Nagant is because of the
short straight bolt handle which is much shorter than the Mauser bolt handle.

All this was done for free by a retired machinist with a good drill press and experience using taps, so it worked the first try.

For the iron sight, I put on a Mojo aperture rear sight only. And to improve the stock length I added a size small Pachmayr Decelerator recoil pad.

I won’t brag that the gun was a bargain – I paid about $120 at a gun shop where I got to pick the best of about eight guns. Some were really beat, some had terrible triggers. This one seemed good. The bore is very good, although the crown shows some wear. A little polish and a shim job on the trigger (as seen on Youtube) got the trigger pull down to about 3.5 pounds and is fairly crisp.

At this point I called it quits because costs were approaching $300 (even with free labor) for the mount, scope, pad, sight, and rifle. But if I had a pile of Mosins, I’d want one with a scope. And the bent bolt will probably outlive the rifle, if I don’t care about matching numbers. Be sure to check the headspace before firing.

Sincerely, – Hardy Citrus

Mr. Rawles,
Frog’s article on the merits of the Mosin Nagant was a well written piece, and effectively drove home the main point of having one or two: they’re inexpensive.  At the same time though, there are a couple points he makes which seem a bit optimistic.  He mentions that with a good quality optic, 1 MOA accuracy is not uncommon.  This is true.  I have friends who have achieved such accuracy, but only when using high-quality, modern manufacture ammunition, a good optic, and a good bench to shoot from.  Achieving the same results under field conditions would be quite the feat indeed.  Bearing in mind that the whole point of the Mosin is cost effectiveness, I would argue that an optic of high enough quality to achieve such accuracy will probably run 2 to 3 times the cost of the rifle.  He also asserts that a Mosin is a great budget sniper rifle.  This may be only a difference in definition of terms, but in American sniper doctrine, a sniper rifle is made to be employed beyond 600 meters.  Russian sniper doctrine focuses more on shorter range urban precision shooting, like in the siege of Stalingrad portrayed in the film Enemy at the Gates.  This makes the Russian sniper more comparable to the western Squad Designated Marksman, a role which focuses on targets 300-600 meters out.  Beyond this distance, Russian sniper rifles simply are not built to maintain practical accuracy, nor is the ammo made for them made to such tight tolerances as their western counterparts.  To truly turn a Mosin into a sniper rifle that is up to western standards, one would have to invest much time, effort, and a bit of money into working up hand loads to maximize the available accuracy of the rifle, or buy much more expensive factory ammo.  As Major John Plaster would say, consistency equals accuracy.  Accuracy is everything to a sniper, and in the area of consistency, the Mosin requires so much improvement to raise it to true sniper grade as to negate the initial cost effectiveness.  To be fair, the Mosin really is a fine budget hunting rifle, and a passable mid-range battle rifle.  To the survivalist with extremely tight budget constraints, it would make a decent general purpose long gun.  But to those of us who would take on the role of group sniper, there are far better offerings to be had from Remington, Winchester, Savage, and others.  Surely not as inexpensive, but much better. – John in Spokane

JWR Replies: I must concur. The real bargain tack-driver in today’s market has to be the Savage Model 10 series. Used ones can often be found for around $275 to $325 at gun shows (sans glass.) We have a Savage Model 10 Tactical .308 here at the ranch, and love it. The only change we made to it was having a Holland’s of Oregon muzzle brake installed.