A Ratty Old Mosin--Good Object Lesson

I picked up a war torn 1891 Tikka a few weeks back for $180 off gunbroker. The stock is dark and worn, but intact. The bore is a rarity among Finns--a counterbore. I wasn't expecting much accuracy wise but figured it would at least provide an excellent parts resource for my main M91 Tikka. Visual inspection of the bore confirmed it was very well worn for a Finn, and a far cry from my other Tikka's mirror sharp bore. Any shooting would involve extensive cleanup.

I had a chance to swing by the range yesterday and tried it out. I got a rough zero at 25 yards, which indicated I would need to hold to the left of target just a bit. I then moved out to 100 for the real test. First batch at that range was Wolf 200 grain BT. This is often a very good shooting round with Mosins, esp. M91's. But while I was aiming at the lower target's left side I was hitting over a FOOT high with a scattered group, as indicated by the red marks.

If I'd stopped then I would have figured this was a parts gun and probably packed it up in the lock box. But I also had some 148 grain Wolf FMJ. Out of curiosity I popped some of these in and aimed to the lower left of the top target. At 100 yards with those super small M91 sights, plus a very hot barrel in 10 f. air I was getting a ton of heat mirage off the barrel. The target bent and twisted in the mirage, making it very hard to get a bead. But even then you can see the results--three in the middle with one just off! I've indicated the point of aim and impact with blue.

So my beat up old parts gun shoots better than my main rifle, at least with light ball. It's a good example of why you should check every Mosin out with a variety of loads. You can actually have the same rifle through horrible, super high groups with one load of 54R and be a near MOA tack driver with a notch lighter load. Further shooting revealed it also shot extremely well with Winchester 180 softpoints, making it a natural choice for hunting.

In this case it was the Finns at Tikkakoski. It seems that while the older M91's were geared for heavy ball, the late model 91's were geared for the lighter ball that was more common by that point. At least that's my theory. At any rate it's a good example of the kind of variation you can get with one Mosin shooting different weight ball.

Mike56, I had completely forgotten about that load. I'll have to work up some loads for the Mosin with it. For plinking that would save considerable powder costs. Now I just need to find a nice cast bullet to go with it...

I have a Fin rearsenalled Tula 91/30 thats counterbored, though the rest of the barrel is in fairly decent condition. The only time I've shot it since I got it was with Wolf 200 gr and it shot high and scattered the shots.

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That is interesting. I suspect Tikka's gunsmiths may have been gearing them to lighter ball on purpose. The wolf light ball is available all over. And Albanian and a number of other surplus loads are also light ball. Let me know how your results turn out.

If you look where the blue is, that's right about where the POA/POI should be at 100 meters when the tangent is on 150m. At 150m it should come down to meet on that setting.

That's a Tula 91/30 with an SA stamp, correct? You might have better luck with a Tikka M30.