Get a Mosin or save for something else?

Get the Mosin

The thing about the Mosin is it's the rifle the Russians used to defeat the Nazis in WWII.

I read somewhere that 8 of 10 German soldiers killed in the war died on the Eastern Front.

So the Mosin is forever linked with winning the Second World War.

I bought my 91/59 (that's a Model 91 that had the barrel cut to carbine length in 1959) from an old gent about 10 years ago for $100.

It's pretty accurate and I can ring hanging steel out to about 300 yards with it (from a rest, of course!) Have sometimes managed to hit the steel (and this is about 18" by 24" stuff) out to 500 yards I kid you not. Not often but often enough to get a charge out of it.

Yes I have a M-1 Garand and a 1903A3 Springfield that shoot much better but every once in a while I break out the Mosin - I'll never get rid of it. Ammo? You won't shoot enough rounds per session for it to be an issue, believe me!

My advice, buy one and make it a carbine!

Go for it. I have an M44 and its a hoot. Big noise, big fire, good medicine.

eldon519 said:

I got to where I could hit clay pigeons on a berm at 100yds reliably with my M91/30 shooting milsurp offhand. I'm pretty happy with that performance given that it's offhand and iron sights. It's also certainly adequate shooting for deer hunting at that distance and then some. I never put any money into any sort of accessories for it. Can't help but feel like you are over-complicating this somehow. It's a good rifle, ammo is cheap, you shoot it a lot, you'll get good with it. Voilla! Seems about right for the OP's mentioned uses. He didn't say anything about trying to win benchrest competitions with it.

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They are a lot of fun. I like the cheap ammo too. I love milsurp. Affordable milsurp ammo too. Definitely got a good bit of power in the 7.62x54r round too. If you can hit it, it will hurt it. Heck i remember punching through 6+" trees with milsurp ammo and depending on the type a decent bit more thickness.

As far as bench rest i don't think the op was going that route either. I meant that many try to add to a Mosin in the way many people do other guns and sometimes it can get out of hand. I myself played with the idea of an Archangle stock, bedding and free floating. But after seeing others results with the cost overall i deemed it unfruitful for a few good reasons.

Besides a stock Mosin is better off stock in order to maintain a wonderfully imperfect gun IMO. That's what they are to me. In all their glory just as they were built. Kind of a nostalgic in its own way piece of history. Even the smell. Just smells like time. Gotta love them .

eldon519 said:

I got to where I could hit clay pigeons on a berm at 100yds reliably with my M91/30 shooting milsurp offhand. I'm pretty happy with that performance given that it's offhand and iron sights. It's also certainly adequate shooting for deer hunting at that distance and then some. I never put any money into any sort of accessories for it. Can't help but feel like you are over-complicating this somehow. It's a good rifle, ammo is cheap, you shoot it a lot, you'll get good with it. Voilla! Seems about right for the OP's mentioned uses. He didn't say anything about trying to win benchrest competitions with it.

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...and they take deer just fine.

Get Mosin now while they are relatively cheap. M44's are fun (and loud), but you can find 91/30's for less than $200 in most places. Just don't expect MOA accuracy out of them. But at least you can expect them to be reliable and great range guns.

Then save up for another rifle of your choosing, preferably in 308 or 5.56 depending on your purpose.

Every households needs at least one mosin. That's the rule. So get a mosin.

Are you more interested in a historical relic, or a budget modern hunting rifle?

The M44 is a crude and primitive carbine that was hurriedly constructed and likely grossly abused during a world war. Getting it degreased and running smoothly may be a small project. But it's one of the last affordable WWII rifles out there.

A Ruger American will be several pounds lighter, easily scoped, will have a trigger a world better, a usable safety, and should be at least MOA accurate or better. But the plastic stock might be a little cheesy and it has no history.

7.62x54r is drying up fast. It has just about caught up in price to .308.

mosin nagant is a great gun.

My son shot an antelope at a measured 330 yards 2 years ago with a 1923 made mosin. Open sights, of course he is young and has good eyes. But my dad had a new england westing house mosin made in 1915 and he killed a whole lot of game with it before he got a 243 in his fifty's. I even got a deer or two with it. Ammo is cheap available and a powerful round. Go for it and put extra money into ammo for practice.

I was bitten by the Mosin Nagant bug around 5 years ago. I had 2 91/30s- A 1943 round receiver and a 1938 Tula hex head. I had a lot of fun shooting both for a while. Then I found they were both staying in the gun cabinet. I decided that I didn't need 2 and sold the Tula. The round receiver 91/30 still is in the gun cabinet and I will keep it just because it isn't eating anything and I still have a spam can plus of milsurp ammo plus several boxes of PPU Soft point hunting ammo. I have a set of dies for it also. It is a fun gun to shoot with a lot of history behind it. Buy one for what it is. You won't be sorry. Caribou's wife Agnes still feeds her family with a Finnish model.

I've never been enthusiastic about the Mosin. Nothing about them appeals to me other than they use[/I]to be cheap and ammo use to be cheap. IMO nearly ever other surplus rifle is more interesting. At $79 I'm a buyer but I'm cold to the current prices for a rack grade MN. If you're into surplus rifles you could do better but, then again, you must have one.
If not, leave them to others that can appreciate them and take a good look at modern technology.

I guess my mosin craving started at the right time. Crates of them were selling for $69 per. I bought a few and did some research on what to look for to get a good one. They are fun. Install that 3 foot pig sticker on the end and your ready for WWII or a zombie apocalypse. As prices rose, I've sold them all with last one going a year ago. Some have talked about the trap of investing to much into it and I agree 100%. But on the other hand, cleaning the como and sweating the stock was a hobby and fun although messy.
A Ruger American can be had for a little over 3 bills and is a dam fine shooting rifle for the cost. Doesn't have a 3 foot bayonet though. One other thing, the fun wears off and then your looking for a hunting rifle

My advice is to buy up milsurp firearms while you can. The deals are no where near as good as they were even a year or two ago, but if there is something that you think you might like, even if you have your doubts, buy it. The price of milsurps is only going up.

For instance, I bought a couple Mosins a little over two years ago from AIM Surplus. I got one round receiver variant for $130 and a hexagonal receiver variant for $140. I kicked myself then because I remember seeing them sold for $80 at local gun shops a couple of years before. Now, they are increasingly difficult to find and are $190.

My advice is to buy them now. It might get on your nerves that you could have bought for a lot cheaper if you had bought earlier, but I guarantee you that in a year or two you'll really regret not having bought now as the price will have gone up even more. I don't doubt that Mosins will be $300 and the M44 and other variants will be in the $350-400 range two years from now.

I like milsurps. They have history behind them and while some are crudely manufactured and perhaps beat up, they still carry that history and most are no longer being produced and no one will produce copies because the designs are outdated and modern manufacturing processes allow better firearms to be produced for less money. It's a common belief that the Swiss series of rifles (1891/11, 1911, K11, K31, etc), if produced today, would cost somewhere between $1500-4000 per rifle. No maker is going to produce them when they can stamp out sub-MOA rifle for under $600.

If you're still unsure, think of it this way, if you buy a milsurp that you're on the fence about and it turns out you don't like it, it's nearly impossible to lose money when you sell it unless you abused it while you had it or bought it at some inflated price.

That is a lot of money for a M44. If I was paying paying that much I would get a M38.
I sold my last M44 for $80. The M38 is also a carbine, but seems nicer. To the shoulder and ear..
Get a 91/30 if you can, but its not a carbine. Gun digest shows 0 drop at 200 yds with a 7.62x54r. Its fun, its cheap and ammo still out there from many era's.

Mosin

Someone needs to post a photo of the muzzle flash from a Mosin carbine just to demonstrate one of the cool things about them!

I don't have such a photo but everyone who shoots a Mosin carbine has had folks comment about the sight. Especially at dusk.

Guess it's not too good a weapon if you are concerned about concealment! But then again, I don't think the Russkies worried about that much at all.

smithman 10 said:

Someone needs to post a photo of the muzzle flash from a Mosin carbine just to demonstrate one of the cool things about them!

I don't have such a photo but everyone who shoots a Mosin carbine has had folks comment about the sight. Especially at dusk.

Guess it's not too good a weapon if you are concerned about concealment! But then again, I don't think the Russkies worried about that much at all.

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A simple Google of "mosin nagant muzzle flash" will bring up dozens of muzzle flash images. While the cool factor is amusing it does not place bullets in nice tight little groups on paper at one or two hundred yards.

Ron

Mosin

No one should buy a Mosin to shoot tiny groups - that's understood.

Thanks for the photo link.