Mosin Surprise--Or Why You Should Test Multiple Loads

I took a Soviet rearsenaled 1928 Izhevsk out for my annual Winter War shoot. I usually take a Finn but this time I decided to take an early 91/30 for a change. I brought about eight different types of cartridges from 203 sp commercial to various light ball. Early results were disappointing, with scattered groups even once I bashed the front sight into proper position. Then I tried ten rounds of 148 grain Wolf FMJ. This usually does well with Mosins, but not always. On this particular rifle, though, it did fantastic. I had ridden by bike to the range in the snow so I was already tired and my contact was giving me troubles. On top of that the rifle barrel was getting hot and obscuring my vision. So my shooting was not at top form at that point. Nevertheless at 50 yards I got 8 rounds touching. By that time I could hardly see the target and the last two were fliers.

You can see from these targets how much variation there was between loads. It's always a good idea to test a variety from these old rifles, because you never know what's going to shine!



I didn't have to dodge Finns on the way, but I did have to dodge this guy:



Almost ran into him coming down a hill en route to the range. There's no place for a moose to go in that spot so it's a bad place to run into one.

That was a particular surprise, since the Win/S&B usually does exceptionally well.

It was only shooting fair with the other light ball I'd brought along. CZ silvertip was fair but not nearly as good. It does definitely favor light over heavy.

In contrast, I've had other 91/30's that do exceptionally well with 203 grain and 180 grain but scatter light ball. There's no way to tell except to run samples through the rifle and see what stands out. The Mosins have a lot of variation between models and even amongst models depending on who was making them and what they happened to be sighting in for. Compounding the issue is the considerable variation between 54R loadings. Bullet type, weight, shape, and even diameter all have variations. I guess that's what happens when so many countries use a cartridge for so long.

The Wolf light ball usually does well. It's not a bad one to buy if you get a chance, but the Romak-3 crowd tends to hog the stuff. It doesn't hurt the action on those rifles and it's non-corrosive.

It was single digits, so not too bad. The sun was out too. I got a little frostbite in my lungs from gulping too much air on the first hill out of downtown.

I need to get kitted out with period military gear for next time. Of course we all know what happened to the Red Army up there, so maybe not. I don't want to actually freeze to death. Poly fleece is nice!

The wolf was the steel case variety (not gold), right?

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I believe it's steel washed with copper. It has the distinctive two-tone appearance. Of course while a steel case might be a problem to an AR, it doesn't matter even a little bit to a Mosin.

It's like a biathlon, only with a bike instead of ski. I did load up the trailer with meat on the way home, but it was from the Cost-Co. I am thinking of doing a hunt with that setup this spring, though. No noisy engine, and it can haul quite a bit.