Ive made a good living using Mosin Nagant's, in particular, the Finnish variety.
I used to collect them, and the wife did too, and we shot them all. Every country, as many variations we could find and very inexpensive.
Like Stalin said, ''Quantity has a quality all of its own''
Back in the early 90's Finns were dirt cheap, but names like SAKO, and TIKKA and VALMET as makers had me a bit interested, and it was Mosinitus since. If I couldnt hold one, I read about them.......LOL
The original Russian Rifles were fine rifles as well. The Finns just tweeked them a bit more. Any make of Mosins can be a great shooter, some are just worn out. You don't know until you try.
50,000,000 made , but only a percentage of that survived.
But the proof was in the delivery, the bullet. The bullet is the weapon, everything else is a delivery system.
The weight 0f the Finns(my favorite is the M-39 ) has the recoil at a minimum and that makes them comfortable for the wife and daughters.
Good balance, good sights to 400 yards, and a rod to clean the barrel of mud/snow, and scrub a chamber. Just needs a butstock cleaning kit trap and it would need any further improvement.
From my experience you can enjoy your rifle alot if you keep it clean.
Keep the chamber shiny and lightly oiled. "Sticky Bolt' is usually a dirty chamber. Lacquered ammo ( that is often corrosively primed) will gum it up fastest. Brass or copper washed cases will have less problems.
The bolt is unblued so that you will notice and remove any rust/tarnish/crap and keep it clean.
Lube the surfaces that cam the bolt and cocking knob against each other at the rear of the bolt.
You have an ''Interrupter' that actually lifts the next cartridge to be fed into the chamber, so ''Rimlock' is impossible with a fuctioning interrupter, so theres never a need to ''stack' any ammo rim first. Sometimes grease and wood will foul your interrupter, so when you have the stock is off the metals, inspect the stock as well.
A broken interrupter will bind a bolt too, as it lies besides and is activated by the bolt its self.
The best for you would likely be some commercial ammo of recent manufacture, that is non corrosive in priming and reasonably priced.
150 grain loads will likely match your sights 'enthusiastic' range setting, and be mild in recoil. Heavier loads are easily available as well, and I specifically buy Hornady red tipped hollow points and the girls have no problem with recoil.
Milsurp Czeck ammo and I can drop running Wolves at distance. Before I had my Rights taken away, I posted such regular like , here on these forums and others, and now that I have them back, its an M-39 I prefer over the others.
I live over the hill and far away, so shipping is half my expenses here. I do without most solvents, and have found that dipping my cleaning brush into my boat/snowmachines gas tank, I can scrub away, AND lube/protect bare steel with 2 cycle oil. The TCW-3 in such oils also keeps it from gelling at -40, which makes for great deep cold lube. That or its Seal oil.....LOL!!
I just carry hot water in a thermos when hunting , or boil some up, where ever I am., I use it to clean the corrosive priming salts out of my barrel by pouring boiling hot water down the chamber end and scrub, then rinse with another flush . Its the only Xtra step involved, and specifically for the salts the priming strews down the barrel, attracting and holding moisture to your steel bore...
The water dissolves the salts and the heat will transfer to the barrel and it will self dry in under a minute. Then a go with solvents and a protective coat of oil , and its a normal cleaning , just like everyone in the military was taught, "Clean your rifle and keep it clean''.Same gos for hunting, and when there's plenty of malfunctions that happen at 70+ to -40 with snow, fog and the Ocean, keeping a tool like a rifle in order for use is a constant process.
Plain old water poured or on wet patches will dissolve the salts too, but a good couple of patches to dry the bore are in order.
If its cold out, we leave our rifles out side to avoid ''sweating' the condensation in a warm house on frozen steel can gather alot of water and give you troubles. I often grease the steel thats under the wood.
Finally , use the safety, much the way a Russian would have or one of my daughters do; drop the butt stock from a firing position into the crook of your right arm while grasping the cocking knob with the thumb and forefingers, the left are grasping the stock firmly.
Then , with the buttstock fairly against the bicep, pulling the cocking knob is made much easier but the push back your bicep muscle will give when it swells to function the muscles that are pulling the cocking knob back. Then a simple twist and relax. Same for taking the safety off.
The safety functions EXTREMELY well, and locks the bolt closed, which is great when you drive around on a snowmachine or do not want small children to work/cycle the action.
You have an excellent rifle built by smart people. They kept it simple, and kept them clean. They were Socialists and not likely paid well, but the rifles are not ''Cheap' by any means, they are a bargin, even today.
