How accurate are Mosin 7.62x54 ?

The one I shot did pretty good, it was heavy and the seller and bellot 180 factory load was definitely made with elk in mind, TON OF PENETRATION AND POWER, but honestly, you'll need to make sure the barrel isn't shot out, and they're a bit on the bulky/heavy side. That helps em stabilize well certainly. Are there better options? Sure. But if you get a good barrel they'll kill anything you can aim at. Using the iron sights that were stock, once you get some practice in, I'd give it minute of dead out to 300, which is my limit usually with iron sights anyway lol.

They can actually vary in accuracy to some degree, depending on when and where they were made. Wartime models may have been "slapped together" to standards below those required during the years before. Also, those made in some countries may be better-built than some in others. For example, the Finnish models command more respect than wartime Soviets, but peacetime Tula Soviets seem to best those same Finnish guns in respect. Those guns tested after manufacture and deemed worthy of "sniper" designation would certainly make good hunters.

Of course, there are many people who hunt with M-N rifles. I would, once it checked out. I haven't shot mine yet, but I have shot another, and found it pretty easy to place on target, at least, at the limited range at which I tried it.

Most ammo sold for these rifles is FMJ, a poor (and sometimes unlawful) choice for game hunting. Suitable ammo may be more difficult to source, and more expensive, than in some more-common calibers. As the rifles become more scarce and more expensive, the trade-off is becoming less logical than it once may have been. Still, I'd love to try it some day.

MedWheeler said:

They can actually vary in accuracy to some degree, depending on when and where they were made. Wartime models may have been "slapped together" to standards below those required during the years before. Also, those made in some countries may be better-built than some in others. For example, the Finnish models command more respect than wartime Soviets, but peacetime Tula Soviets seem to best those same Finnish guns in respect. Those guns tested after manufacture and deemed worthy of "sniper" designation would certainly make good hunters.

Of course, there are many people who hunt with M-N rifles. I would, once it checked out. I haven't shot mine yet, but I have shot another, and found it pretty to place on target, at least, at the limited range at which I tried it.

Most ammo sold for these rifles is FMJ, a poor (and sometimes unlawful) choice for game hunting. Suitable ammo may be more difficult to source, and more expensive, than in some more-common calibers. As the rifles become more scarce and more expensive, the trade-off is becoming less logical than it once may have been. Still, I'd love to try it some day.

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On the ammo point, you should check out the sellier and bellots they're not terribly expensive and they're a good old soft point.

^^ Yeah, I saw that in your post. If I ever do get to hunt with my M-N, I'll check them out. For hog hunting here in Florida, anything goes, since hogs aren't considered "game" animals.

My sporterized mosin 91/30 would shoot 1-1.5" with handloads and sierra 174SMKs, of which i still have a few I keep meaning to try in my arrisaka. It really seems to be gun dependent, some shoot great some only so so, ive never seen one shoot truly poorly with decent ammo. The mad rush of buying them up over the last few years has left very few fins (which are generally considered the most accurate, and usually .308bored?), and Russian, much less american made mosins available. Now most of what I see for a reasonable price are the chinese 53s which ive never handled.

If your looking for a project, getting a previously bubba'd mosin is a good choice, as they generally offer pretty decent accuracy, and are pretty tough rifles to "ruin"

but if your looking for a cost effective hunting rifle, buy a used commercial sporter. It will be nicer, easier to mount a scope on, and probably shoot better with easily available ammo....unless your me and buy a wierd wildcat or defunct cartridge.
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Accuracy is dependent on the shooter, the rifle, and the ammo. I can't speak to the first two but I have a target shot with 7 different loads, commercial, reloads and surplus to see how they fared out of the same custom "Mosin" rifle. All 5 shot groups were shot at 100 yards in the order marked on the target.

When they were $99 they were a really cheap way to get a basic hunting rifle. At today's prices, I would have zero interest.

If you get a good one, 2 MOA is a reasonable expectation.

They are heavy and ugly. They are rugged and functional. Mounting a scope is kind of a pain.

The carbines are ideal truck guns.

If Trump reverses the restrictions on importing them, we might see them at $149.

They can be very accurate. Got a buddy that shoots factory norma loads and gets around 1 MOA with his. Its taken several deer the last couple years over 200 yards and 2 over 300 yards. Factory barreled action in a nice boyds stock.

They are surplus. So you can get a real crap shoot in terms of quality and condition of the rifle. My Mosin was a 1943 Izzy. After I cleaned all the cosmoline out it went to the range. I was easily hitting 6" paper plates at 100 yards without ever touching the sites and using surplus ammo. I was firing one round at a time because the extractor was covered in burrs and needed to be smoothed out to feed correctly. There are some Youtube videos online on how to do a cheap trigger job on Mosins. The trigger on mine broke between 9 and 12 pounds with sloppy takeup. With just a few minutes on a Dremel I got it down to 6 consistent pound pulls with clean breaks.

I own six Mosins of various types and flavors. Terrible hunting gun. Super fun plinker. My most shot Mosin is my '53 Hungarian M44 carbine, It's a 3 MOA gun at 100-300 yards. Good enough for hunting but it's heavy, unbalanced with the weight of the bayonet at the front and the trigger is nothing to write home about. They are crude guns and trying to turn one into a sporter is a fools errand. If a Mosin is all you have, plenty of deer have been harvested with stock Mosins, but if you can afford a few hundred bucks, get a Savage or Mossberg inexpensive bolt action.

I have never got a 1" 5 shot group at 100 yards with a Mosin with original barrel.
I have seen it done.
I can do it with one rebarreled to 300 Win Mag or 223.

I have an X-sniper that I did some trigger, sight and minor bedding work on. It shoots the Russian Match ammo at about 2" with the irons. So this one is pretty good. The work was done the same way Russian snipers modified their rifles. I have others that shoot 3"-5" groups. The accuracy can vary a lot in these guns. They are the least overall accurate surplus rifles that I own when compared to the 03, 1917, M1, Enfield and Mausers. When they sold for $100 it wasn't a problem to make changes. Now they go for $300+ so I have moved on to other things. Nothing really special about them anymore IMHO.

If you want an accurate Mosin, get a Finnish M27, M28, M28/30, or M39. They are not cheap. you can buy two or three Axis (Axes?) or Americans for what they are going for these days. PU's (the Enemy at the Gates rifle) are more accurate than the run of the mill 91/30, but only authentic snipers, not the many fakes that are out there. Not a beginning collector's gun.

Please do not sporterize a Mosin to try to get an accurate rifle. It will cost you more that the return, and you will have ruined a fast vanishing milsurp. If you want a nice accurate, inexpensive hunting rifle, the forementioned Axis, or American, will serve much better.

I got an M39 for $90 off a gunshow table in 2004.
It is a Sako VKT M39 barrel on a Westinghouse 1915-18 hex receiver.
I welded the bolt, drilled and tapped the receiver for a scope base I made from an AR15 scope riser.

In 2004 I took ti to the range and shot a 0.4" 3 shot group at 100 meters. 150 gr Hornady at 2950 fps.
In 2009 I took it to the range and shot a 0.47" 3 shot group at 50 yards.

I have only taken it to the range twice.

And if you had left that M39 in the issue condition, it still would have shot a half inch group at 100 yards, and it would be worth $3-400 today instead of zero.

entropy said:

And if you had left that M39 in the issue condition, it still would have shot a half inch group at 100 yards, and it would be worth $3-400 today instead of zero.

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wheres the fun in that?

Entropy, Checkpoint Charlie's and Classic Firearms have had Finn Mosins for pretty good prices recently--closer to Russian Mosin than German Mauser prices.

I suspect that a lot of the variance in Mosin experiences deal with wartime production and stock bedding during those situations. The Mosin is about as accurate when fed what it likes as most other WWI, WWII bolt actions. The Finn Mosin might be a little more accurate on average but condition can affect that. The Finns also built a target model the 28/76 that is probably the most accurate Mosin as a general rule.

If you want to build a sporter, there are some decent aftermarket stocks and you can pick up barrelled actions for pretty cheap (try watching on Gunbroker for a while) or previously bubba'ed sporters (ditto). A real handicap is the military trigger, especially on Russian models-so for a sporter you would need to fix that and the Mosin safety is probably worse than doing without one like the French did with their bolt action military rifles. Get the Trigger block Timney trigger if you want a safety or keep the chamber empty when transversing fields.

Given the steep increases in price from less than $100 to $250-300, it doesn't make economic sense to cut up one left in military configuration anymore especially when you can buy something like the Ruger American, Savage Axis II, etc. for $350-500 with scopes, about 1-2 MOA accuracy, better safeties, etc. By the time you put a Timney trigger with a safety, get a sporter stock, pay a gunsmith to tap for a scope, etc., you will be paying a couple of hundred dollars to modify a rifle that will probably be a bit less accurate than what you could buy at any big box sporting goods store for less. You will probably have to handload as well to get the top in accuracy.

Now, if you like tinkering and don't mind the 19th century technology behind a Mosin and its peculiarities, then you can make a rugged, accurate enough, sporter rifle that will shoot minute of deer, etc. just fine. Just buy one that has already been buggered to lower your cost or if you have one in military configuration--sell it and use the money to build up a project.

I have three of them and am finishing restoring a Finn 28 that someone had tapped the receiver ring for a scope.

In the post WWII era there was a glut of military surplus and a lack of sporting rifles on the market. To be collectible a military rifle had to be Excellent or better condition, and there were a lot of Very Good condition military rifles around for sporterizing. It made economic sense to sporterize military rifles in the 1950s and 1960s.

With the rise in value of as-issued military rifles as collectible curios and relics and the relative drop in price of commercial hunting rifles, it makes less and less sense to "sporterize" surplus military rifles. I've done it though, three-four times over the years, I am just less likely to do it now or in the future.

Like most things milsurp, it depends. The cartridge itself is a dandy hunting cartridge. It'll kill any game in North America. Hunting accuracy is off hand and inside a 9" pie plate at 100 yards. No need for one hole or 1" groups.
The rifles, on the other hand, depend entirely on the condition. Years ago(35 to 40 of 'em), when the only ammo available was high priced Norma stuff, the rifles we had in the shop, all of 'em shot 'on target' at 200 yards with no fuss. Don't remember what they sold for but $100ish sounds right.
Scoping/sporterizing one drops it's value by half. And it'll never be worth the same as a full military rifle again. There are still some on Gunbroker, et al, that appear to be in decent condition running a bit over $100. Most are running $300 to $400 though.

denton said:

If you get a good one, 2 MOA is a reasonable expectation.

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In my experience, you'd be extremely fortunate to find a stock Mosin capable of 2" groups at 100 yards with match ammo, much less the surplus stuff most people will be shooting. And why would you waste match ammo on a 2 MOA rifle anyway?

2 MOA is not a reasonable expectation. Maybe 3-5 on average, using Russian mil-surp.

azrocks said:

2 MOA is not a reasonable expectation. Maybe 3-5 on average, using Russian mil-surp.

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Mine all shot in that vicinity, using handloads. Some a little better, some a little worse. YMMV. We have a group that has a meet every year at our range, shooting stock (or very close to it) 91/30s. Most of them are able to hit a pop can at 100, most of the time.

You do have to go through and remove barrel rubs, and it doesn't hurt to slick up the trigger a bit.

Matt,
All original Mauser 96's in good condition are bringing enough in the milsurp market to get a good modern hunting rifle. However, the local market may vary and it may be advantageous to trade or list the firearm nationally via things like armslist/gunbroker/etc. or perhaps at a a private sale at gunshow (if allowed). Metro areas usually have a pretty good market for milsurps.

BTW Copes is selling a bare Mosin receiver for $39.99 and barrels and stocks are around if you really want a project.
Mosin Nagant 91/30 Stripped 7.62x54r TULA ROUND Receiver