Can you polish a Russian Mosin into higher quality?

leave it alone and go shoot it, it will smooth up some just using the rifle.

The Finns rebarreled them -- that's the main difference in terms of function. I'm not aware that they did anything to the bolts -- a Mosin expert will probably come along shortly and correct me on that.

I agree with troy fairweather above: Just go and shoot it. It will smooth up in time. I would also suggest looking for an earlier specimen, since the ones that were produced during the war may have suffered somewhat from "expedited" quality control.

Mosin's are smooth where they need to be,
I'ts the outside finish that was left rough when things got tough and they didnt have time to make them pretty.

Smoothing and polishing the sear/trigger surfaces , adding a spring was a Finn upgrade to the trigger and that may be where you can make shooting ALOT better.

Good shooting demands a good trigger, not always something you find on a Soviet Mosin.
Finn Mosin's of all types and most Imperial 91 Mosin's have fine triggers.
Clean and lubricate the bolt and the bolt cams for cocking, on the bolt and cocking peice.

Now, bad cleaning, neglect and rust will make a Mosin stiff and clunky.
That happened to alot of them when bought cheap, with cheaper corrosively primed ammo.....shot and not properly cleaned, turned many into a sticky, clunky hard to work rifles. It takes alot of cleaning and polishing to get one of those smooth again.
No need to grind anything, Just clean and polish the white steel, scrub and scrub, dry and lubricate.

A dirty Mosin will get "Sticky Bolt" and be hard to use.


"IF" you shoot old military milsurp ammo thats corrosively primed, you need some water to dissolve and flush the corrosive salts from the bore.
It sounds goofy, but if you have ever shot Black Powder, you'll know that hot water heats the metal, the water dissolves the crap, and flushes it out, while the heat quick drys the steel -No rust-, even inside the bore.
Then clean and oil as usual.
Its just one ,easy step in cleaning that alot of guys missed when shooting Mosins and corrosivly primed ammo available at the time..

Lots of shooting and really good cleaning, lubricating will make your Mosin smooth over time ,with use.

Why would you?

They were designed to kill Nazis out to a few hundred yards or stick them with a bayonet. Most were built under a communist wartime philosophy under dire circumstances. They are often roughly made and the accuracy lackluster by modern standards. Ergonomics are mediocre. But they are tough as nails and they worked for their intended purpose.

If you want a more refined Mosin, the Finn made guns like the vaunted M39 are very excellent rifles. Other than that you'll be chasing your tail. Best to leave these historic guns alone.

the finns were riflemen and proved it in their two encounters with the russian army and took a frightening toll on the russian soldiers with their standard and rebulit russian rifles.

A little polishing may help with the trigger and action feel. Won't hurt unless you go too far. Make some good notes before on trigger pull, etc so you can measure some tangibles if possible. Cleaning internals well as you go may be the biggest gain.

Or, it may well be with a rifle of that age that is it as smooth as it will get on the surfaces which matter. Only one way to know though and if you have the time, few things needed, and motivation. Go for it (slowly).

I have a Romanian M44 which has smooth action by Mosin standards. One of the contributing factors was an original, matching bolt -- rumor has it that mis-matched bolts on surplus Mosins are pretty common.

Check out the animation from this video -- it's two minutes past the one hour point (if you have time, watch the whole thing!) It demonstrates how the Mosin action works and shows some of they ways it differs from other bolt actions.



BTW, along with the Finns, another country that did some Mosin product improvement was Czechoslovakia, where the action was reworked into a dedicated sniping platform:

Any “grinding” done on the bolt will increase your clearance - aka “slop” in the bolt way.

When folks blueprint an action like this, they’ll turn and polish the bolt to a true diameter, then sleeve the action and recut the raceways... which is a ridiculous amount of work to be thrown after a relatively worthless action.

As previously noted, the Finns improved the trigger and put on good quality barrels. They also floated the barrels, usually by putting a small zinc shim under the front of the receiver to raise the barrel out of the stock a tiny bit.

It may be worth your while to float the barrel and polish the trigger. Those are easy improvements.

Beyond that, I agree with just enjoying them for what they are. Russian Mosins at $99 were a decent, cheap path to a really basic hunting rifle. No amount of fixing is going to make them a nice modern rifle.

The Finns redid the entire weapon.

Only the receivers and bolts were not made in Finland.
Changes to stocks, sling attachments, hand guards, barrel bands, end caps, rear and front sights, a modified magazine "Jam proof", and better trigger set ups, shimmed into the stocks for a perfect action to stock mounting,
The stocks were spliced shorter pieces of wood that prevented warping in temperature changes and saved alot of wood by working with shorter pieces or parts of old stocks.
The stripped old 91's and such, bought or captured, and rebuilt more ergonomic and accurate rifles from the parts. That was done with what ever they could not immediately return to service.

Depending on years, Improvements and model changes.
The basic Russian M-91 became the Finnish M-24 and evolved into the M-39 with a great many improvements from 1920 untill 1939, over many models...M-24 P-26, P-27, M-27, M28, M28/30, M39.
There were two services designing and manufacturing Mosin Rifles for Finland, the Finish Suomi Army and the Civil Guard. basically

SAKO developed and made accurate Mosins for the civilians of Finland, the and upgraded older models for a cost to the latest types in production. SAKO also promoted home reloading, target matches, military gear sales and upgrades to M91' onward.

Tikkakoskoi "Tikka" made Mosin barrels for the Suomi Army, "SA", while SAKO made their own for the Civil Guard, "CG".
Valmet oversaw the rebuilding and model development and made .

The two services had friendly ,yet serious competition to make better and more accurate Mosin's.
They were fueld to have every man a Rifleman, having fought and won independence from Russia in 1919, so nearly every man was armed.

The SA had the Model 27, while the Civil Guard had the M28, with only miner differences. Then the M-28/30, with much improved sights was developed by SAKO, and when the Winter War started in 1938, the SA and CG had settled on one Mosin design, to be built by both the CG and the SA........the M-39. Basicly the Mosin action, excellent trigger, M28/30 sights with an improved stock and sling attachment points.
Early M39 stocks were 'straight stock' as the previous Mosins had, after 7,000 the pistol grip came into production.

My personal favorite is the pistol grip, for comfort.

The Finns had the military come together as one in time of war, and the Army Issued what they had, the Civil Guard brought what they had from home and beat the invading Russian soundly to a standstill, and again in 1941 Finland joined Germany in attacking Russia to retake what parts of Finland had been lost 2 years earlier.
They captured many more Mosins during both wars with Russia, and took them directly into service or rebuilt them.


Then, in 1944 Finland concluded its war with Russia and remained independent.
It had to disband the CG, and limit its rifles to so many hundred thousand (Im not sure how many)

One reason Finn Mosins are usually the best of the best is because the SA cherry picked the best rifles from the stocks on hand and destroyed the rest, as per the peace accords with Russia
. Later, they overhauled them and in 1962 adopted the Valmet made Finn version of the AK 47, the M-62 in 7.62x39.
Finn Army Mosins went into storage as the assault rifles replaced them, some to training, and later M-39's were built by armorers into the 1970's

Thanks to caribou for the whole story on Finn Mosins. I knew an expert would be along shortly.

caribou said:

Finn Army Mosins went into storage as the assault rifles replaced them, some to training, and later M-39's were built by armorers into the 1970's

Click to expand...

I have an M39 with the date stamp of "1970."

toivo said:

Thanks to caribou for the whole story on Finn Mosins. I knew an expert would be along shortly.

I have an M39 with the date stamp of "1970."

Click to expand...

Your rifle is made to shoot! The care that went into the post war M-39 was above and beyond the normal armorys work. I believe the Finn Army used them for competitions.

The original poster wont go wrong polishing his bolt back to bright, the wear spots are visible. I wouldn't use a large buffing wheel, they will polish metal away in no time.
Some oiled emery cloth on the end of a wooden dowel for the inside of the receiver and a dremel with a buffing wheel wold make those places shine.
Then lube them lightly with a penetrating oil on the plain steel.
Keep the steel bolt "bright" but you will also see the corresponding contact marks on the bolt, so a pass with a dremel or hand rub to smooth, then lube.
I would do this after a cleaning rub down with a bronze wire gun cleaning brush, and a course cotton cloth and a solvent.

One thing to do, if you have it out of the stock, is to grease the metal under the wood, keeps rust away.

Had one of those too....like a dummy I sold it....

toivo said:

Thanks to caribou for the whole story on Finn Mosins. I knew an expert would be along shortly.

I have an M39 with the date stamp of "1970."

Click to expand...

Yes, just Cosmetic polishing is a good way to term it, or 'very lightly'.

I prefer a wooden dowel in square or round and some very fine emery epoxied on. I oil the emery cloth, so its hard to overdo it that way
Even a dremel with some rouge will remove metal if your pressing it, so if you use power, be carefull.

The buff is to clean the steel bright and smooth, not remove metal.

This light buff is after a good hard scrub, and in contact places.
On the bolt and in the action you will see the marks.
. Sear engagement areas and the camming areas on the bolt and cocking piece can be polished nicely as well.

These are the days of 5th or 9th ownership for most of these rifles over 91 years for the 91/30's, and many are fixxed just by a good cleaning.

It is what it is, but I always do a little polishing on bolt and receiver surfaces and a little bit goes a long way to making "what it is" into "it's a little better", but no sense going overboard past the point to seek perfection, because it's just not designed and built to be able to get there.

Sounds like something I would do if I was snow bound with cabin fever, but I know where
you are coming from, once in a while you just have to find something to get into.
I have had to replace a trigger & a butt stock while itching to do something to improve
the looks or efficiency of a rifle. But go for it.

I've put Finn triggers in some of my Mosins and added brass shims under the receiver bolts as well.
I've also used BLO-soaked cloth strips under the upper barrel band to reduce barrel whip.
The resulting rifle is a good bit more accurate and the changes are easily reversed.
I'm not grinding on any of my milsurps unless Bubba got to them first... .

[QUOTE
I'm not grinding on any of my milsurps unless Bubba got to them first... .[/QUOTE]

Aint it something that 50$ 91/30's go for 400$ now and 5 wired in a bundle M-91's for 100$ can each go for 800$ +.......??

the finnish rifle i like the most, it came with several other finns in a package deal and i just liked it. it has a ex bore, bolt-receiver match.

Let us hope that these new gun owners are enthusiasts for more guns, responsibility as a citizen and self defense.
Buying 'any" gun often happens when people wake up to whats happening outside their door....Sometimes, all that matters is that the one gun you have works and theres ammo in it.

Gun ownership has a lot of responsibility that come's with it, running from from proper mind set to safe use, to cleaning after use.

I would further to say, a Mosin makes good "first gun" as its simple, built tough, you can still find parts, easy to maintain, ammos available, and its hard to shoot yourself with a long gun, accidentally.

Make mine a Mosin..... Take care of them, and they are a smooth, accurate, dependable rifle, and come in many flavors.