Mosin Nagant accuracy trouble.

It is possible that peasant built rifles weren't made with great accuracy in mind.

Have you slugged the bore? Correct diameter bullets make a difference. What does the crown look like? How BAD are the groups?

Put a lot of time and money into a $99.00 rifle.

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That was your first mistake.
I have a 91/30, free floated and bedded. Shoot iron sights with handloads or weighed and massaged mil surplus. It shoots well enough at 100 and 200 for vintage matches.

Some shoot well and some don't. I have seen many of them counter bored as a work around for muzzle erosion. What this will always come down to is you can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear. Getting one is the luck of the draw as to accuracy. Some, as ford8nr points out shoot well enough to take to vintage matches and some just don't shoot very well and short of a new barrel and some custom work likely never will. I would try a counter bore or remove the end and re crown the barrel. If that fails I would just off the rifle and try another.

Ron

jeeptim said:

Hey fellas
got hold of a miosin and changed everything, bent bolt handle rock solid scope mount timney trigger
Sport stock bi-pod bushnell scope.
I have used mil-surp, commerical, hand loaded, and several different weight bullets with the same result. BAD first few rounds ok not good just ok then it goes to heck. Went back to all original parts same deal. Are we thinking bad barell harmonics? I am at a total loss. As of now my best thinking is cut a few inches off the barell and see where that goes.
Put a lot of time and money into a $99.00 rifle.
Just hate to give up. Any ideas?
Thanx

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How did it shoot before you changed everything?

jeeptim said:

Hey fellas
got hold of a miosin and changed everything, bent bolt handle rock solid scope mount timney trigger
Sport stock bi-pod bushnell scope. ...

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I have to ask ... you did check to see how well it shot before you did all of that extra stuff, yes?

I too say, "slug the bore to see the groove diameter." I have a mosin I built into a scout rifle, I had the exact problem. I was shooting about 5-6" groups at 50yds no matter what ammo. I slugged the barrel and found this tikka to have a .312 bore. Bought some hornady rn 174gr bullets, since it's for short range, and it went down to 1" groups at worst. I also cut and recrown ed the barrel to 26" in length to help with the harmonics!

How bad are the groups? at 100yds first five rounds or so 3" after that 1 moa thats 1 foot so bad!

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I don't get it, first 5 in 3" then next at MOA (1") that's 1 foot bad ?
Does the point of impact shift?
A 5 shot 3" group, then 1" groups don't equal a foot.

What about I dump more money into a muzzle brake and not crown? Is that even an option? I would rather spend on a brake then a tool or kit i would use maybe twice.

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We're kidding right.
A muzzle brake will not fix a bad crown and an arbor crowning tool is much cheaper.
You could throw more money at a different gun for better results (may be) :-0

Doing a simple barrel cut down and crown is not difficult when you have the right tools. The idea is to get the initial cut straight and true and then cut a simple crown. This is a good example. That assumes you have a good barrel and chamber to start with. The rifle was designed as a field combat rifle and not a target rifle. I read countless stories in gun forums of Mosin Nagant rifles shooting sub MOA but all of the ones I see at the range shoot about 2 to three MOA with three being the common. What are you expecting? A muzzle brake is not going to make the rifle more accurate. A poor crown or off center crown going into a muzzle break will still be a poor crown. How is the rifling at the muzzle?

Even if the rifling is good and tight we have no idea what the chamber looks like or how well the chamber head space stacks up?

I would try more hand loads using .311 bullets. If this is not going to give you what you want and you exhaust all simple fixes I still say to sell the gun.

Just My Take....
Ron

Go to the Gunboard's forum and look for Raupleminze. He sells a Mosin accurizing kit for about $21. I bought one and have done part of the stuff but haven't had the right weather to test it yet. but haven't had time to test it yet.
I think it will work though.

Did you try grouping it all with just the iron sights before you dumped all that money into it?

If not, that is where you failed. Sporterized Mosin Nagants are hard sells too. Few want them, as the collector's value has been destroyed in most cases.

Well, even after butchering/modifying the rifle theres still the factors of what ammo you are using and how competent a shooter you are.

It could easily be be a Mosin Finn 28/76 and if your flinching or burning cheap milsurp, your not gonna do any better.

After the first 5 , you state that the groups opened up, did you get 3 inch groups after letting the barrel cool?

How is the trigger?

Are the sights the type you are used to using?
Were you bench rested or shooting free forms ie; standing, Kneeling, prone?

How was the weather?

Theres much more to putting a bullet where you want it than having the rifle work right.

As for mods, a basic as issue Mosin can often use some smoothing out with the trigger, the stock relived at contact spots, and the barrel wrapped with an oiled wool.

As for sight, Forums member Josh Smith (Smith sights?) has sights that my 2nd oldest daughter has found "better' than the original, and shes happy, and with out permanent modifications..

It is possible that peasant built rifles weren't made with great accuracy in mind.

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You have a point there. It took this Finn peasant boy, Simo something-or-another, to use it to kill a few Russian. And then there was this Georgian farm boy, Vasili, who pestered the Germans with another. Maybe a peasant built rifle is only good on the hands of peasants?

Quote:
Put a lot of time and money into a $99.00 rifle.

That was your first mistake.
I have a 91/30, free floated and bedded. Shoot iron sights with handloads or weighed and massaged mil surplus. It shoots well enough at 100 and 200 for vintage matches.

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Garands and M14s used to be $50 rifles.

Jokes apart, I would think the OP should wrap the rifle on one of those fixtures benchrest shooters like so much. Some ranges will rent them and some friends might have them. Then aim it at a large piece of paper 50 or 100ft away and then shoot it forgetting about the sight. Just keep the rifle clamped in place. And then see the grouping. You know, eliminate the human of the equation. If it does well, figure out what it making you do it wrong: form, trigger, etc. If it does badly, then look at the rifle.

Also, I think -- and believe some here would agree with you -- you should change variables one at a time to see how the affect the equation.

jeeptim said:

More info.......
Shot like crap before any mods. ...

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Something you posted in another Thread comes to mind:

jeeptim said:

Yep way to much money and no common sense here in California. ...

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Dude, maybe it's time to seriously consider relocating.

Flinch......

I would get a handle on the bore. Slug it and you may be surprised.

My buddy had one that would not shoot with jacketed ammo, like at all. Not even fun. Slugged the bore and wound up using cast bullets at .317 or so. Shoots great with those, literally groups 1/8 of the size at 50 yards. Heck, you can even hit things at 100 yards haha.

FWIW it is a battle rifle, despite being bolt action. Accuracy is a subjective thing... I bet you can get it sorted out to reliably hunt with. Not sure beyond that.

I am sure the russian sharpshooters and snipers got to cherry pick their rifles and avoided the nasty ones. Heck, its just like buying a marlin today.

redbullitt said:

I would get a handle on the bore. Slug it and you may be surprised.

My buddy had one that would not shoot with jacketed ammo, like at all. Not even fun. Slugged the bore and wound up using cast bullets at .317 or so. Shoots great with those, literally groups 1/8 of the size at 50 yards. Heck, you can even hit things at 100 yards haha.

FWIW it is a battle rifle, despite being bolt action. Accuracy is a subjective thing... I bet you can get it sorted out to reliably hunt with. Not sure beyond that.

I am sure the russian sharpshooters and snipers got to cherry pick their rifles and avoided the nasty ones. Heck, its just like buying a marlin today.

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Sniper rifles were picked from standard rifles that happened to shoot the best out of a certain lot. They were not specifically made any different that a standard M91/30 rifle. After being selected, they were equipped with a turned-down bolt handle and either a PU or PE scope.

After the war, during the arsenal refurbishment process, some of these sniper rifles were re-converted back into standard infantry configuration.

It could also be as simple as snugging your action screws or as hard as bedding the action, just depends on where the problems start and end.

A cold shooter warming up and dispersing sounds like its contacting the stock or the hand guard (if its still there), you could look for wood compression or rub spots on the blueinmg and touch these places up so they dont touch....

Clean the copper fouling out of the barrel. I haven't seen one yet that wasn't fouled.
Use some rubberized cork gasket for the barrel harmonics.
Check you crown.
Check your scope and mounts.
Trigger job. These rifles are easy to do and lots of information out there.
Good ammo. Surplus ammo sucks for accuracy.have two that shoot great and two that don't
I

Is this an ATI bolt on bent bolt and scope mount, maybe stock too?

Pictures would help....

From jeeptim's post #9

More info.......
Shot like crap before any mods.
.......So shot it before mods, no go, fixed it all up same. Put it back to original put the trigger in same, removed trigger swapped stock same, no matter what I have done or undone first few rounds ok at best then it seems as it warms up I may as well just throw the rounds at the target......

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So it shot like crap as it came and you figured that doing all that other stuff would help? Sorry but that's just makes me shake my head in amazement.

And no, adding a brake or anything else isn't going to make this better. You need to go back to the basics to find an answer.

The crown might look good to the eye but is the rifling worn just inside the muzzle from some old Russian peasant soldier using the original steel cleaning rod. You want to put another slug into the bore and feel for the friction all along the bore. Pay particular attention to how loose or tight it is near the crown. If it gets loose over the last 1/2 inch the bore has some wear at the end that is causing a flaring out of the bore and that's going to hurt your accuracy. There is also a lot of good information on how these barrels will often not do that well if free floated and how adding a pressure point at just the right spot will sharpen up the accuracy by damping out the harmonics in just the right way. Google for "corking mosin nagant". "Corking" being the name given to this trick when done with the Mosin's due to the popular option for material to use as the pad between the barrel and stock.

There's other things to check too that are all common items when looking into why a rifle doesn't shoot well.

Consider too that if the slug you push into the bore has a lot of odd changes in the friction as you push it through the bore then it's possible that the barrel is just plain no good. It may be really badly pitted or it may have a bulge from a squib and then a live round or it might be any number of other things. But the key is to step back and cover off the basics first.

^ I agree with this guy, on every point.

+1 on corking.

If it makes a difference at all, at least you have some idea of what your next step might be (proper bedding job).

What year is it?

Remember most of those rifles were thrown together in wartime FAST and were not fitted very well / at all, plus all of the intervening years when parts may have been swapped or the rifle rebuilt /re-arsenaled. The only job of the rifle was to go "bang" and hit a man-sized target at not-too-distant-ranges.

It's also 99.9% likely the crown has been dinged at some point in time, from hard use, training, negligence, bad storage or shipping.. or worn from hard steel cleaning rods being used from the wrong direction (cleaned from the muzzle end instead of breech end). Fixing the crown is not an overly difficult or expensive proposition but you need to make sure it's done *properly* or you'll just make the situation worse.