7.62x54R surplus ammo question

Status
Not open for further replies.
B

bernie

Member
Joined
Jan 1, 2003
Messages
898
Location
The great state of Arkansas
Okay, I have seen Mosin's for a while now but was never tempted to buy one because of what I have read about them. For instance, the recoil is excessive and harsh, one guy even compared it to firing a 12 gauge slug. Well, I found an M38 in really good condition and got it. It is truly a nice rifle. While the muzzle flash is impressive, (my buddy nicknamed the rifle "boomer"), the recoil is not at all bad. As a matter of fact, I have had .308's that kicked harder.

Anyway, on to my questions. I initially fired Wolf ammo out of it, and it would hold minute of silhouette all day long at 500 yards. Then I ran some surplus of unknown origin through it and about 20% of the shots were way off. Like 2 or 3 feet off the target at that range. Looking at AIM's website, they list Hungarian light ball, Czech light ball (steel core), and Hungarian heavy ball. Which of these has proven to be the most accurate for y'all?
 
My impression is that most people who call the recoil from Mosin's "excessive" really haven't fired rifles all that much.

My personal experience is that the heavy ball is more accurate in Mosins than the light ball. This is from my M44, 91/30 and Finn M39. YMMV.
 
Recoil on the Mosin hurts me if I'm shooting it from a bench. If I'm standing or kneeling, it's just a good push.

I can't tell much accuracy difference between the 148gr Wolf and 185gr Brown Bear that I shoot most often. They have different POI, but still tend to have shotgun patterns at 100 yards. I need different sights to do anything useful, IMO.

jmm
 
Regarding the recoil. Millions of Russian soldiers shot millions of rounds of 7.62x54R thru the things. I'd like to think we're at least as tough as the Russians. Anyone who claims Mosin recoil is "harsh" probably doesn't have a whole lot of trigger time.

I've had unpleasant experiences with the Albanian surplus ammo but have found the 80's production Russian ammo I have to be pretty good and especially the 80's Polish ammo. My M38 is a decent rifle but my M44 loves the Polish ammo, nice tight groups at 100 yards with iron sights.
 
There are dozens of different kinds of M-N's, and hundreds of subtypes and combinations. Each will tend to shoot a little differently and each tends to prefer different kinds of ammunition. Get a selection and see what your rifle prefers. Some are better with light ball, but most seem to do their best with bullets in the 180 to 200 grain range.
 
bloody he!!

you are complainging about accuracy on your m38 at 500 YARDS?!?!

I have a hard enoguh time getting a decent group (i call ad ecent group at about 4") at FIFTY YARDS.

bear in mind i'm shooting offhand, but still..

i suppose maybe it's the ammo - i use czech silvertip - but then again, maybe not.

i definitely have to adjust the sights on my guns, though.
 
Silverlance

you are complainging about accuracy on your m38 at 500 YARDS?!?!

I have a hard enoguh time getting a decent group (i call ad ecent group at about 4") at FIFTY YARDS.

bear in mind i'm shooting offhand, but still..

i suppose maybe it's the ammo - i use czech silvertip - but then again, maybe not.

i definitely have to adjust the sights on my guns, though.
Click to expand...

maybe they mean 'online' accuracy as opposed to 'firing line' accuracy? I am not a bad shot. When I have shot Mosin rifles at the range, I was not able to get better than 4 or 5 inch groups at 100m. I have never seen anyone else at the range do much better. Here though, folks seem to have acquired magic, match grade rifles. :rolleyes:
 
He didn't say MOA@500, he said "Minute of Silhouette". That could be a pretty big target area depending on which one he was using.
 
maybe they mean 'online' accuracy as opposed to 'firing line' accuracy? I am not a bad shot. When I have shot Mosin rifles at the range, I was not able to get better than 4 or 5 inch groups at 100m. I have never seen anyone else at the range do much better. Here though, folks seem to have acquired magic, match grade rifles.
Click to expand...

If my M38 or m44 did better than 4-5" at 50 yards, it might go to the range with me once in a while. To me these rifles are nothing more than what people tend to describe them as- noise making novelties. The 91/30 on the other hand can reliably pick off pop cans at 50 yards and is a cheap rifle to use for practicing offhand shooting.
 
First of all, guys, Mosins (and every other battle rifle, including 1903s and M1s, and later on, the M16s) had 4 MOA as their acceptance standard. Because we weren't being bombed and having to leapfrog our factories back every few months, so we were able to keep MOST of our rifles more accurate than that. Now, if you get a C&R rifle that shoots 4 MOA, you don't have an inaccurate rifle, you have an average one, and it probably shot better than that when new (50+ years ago).

Now 4 MOA at 500 meters is about 20". On a full-size human silouette, that'll give you 80%+ hits on the torso. If the original poster was getting ALL of his hits on the silouette at that range, he's still not claiming more than 3.5 MOA.

Now to answer the original question:
Looking at AIM's website, they list Hungarian light ball, Czech light ball (steel core), and Hungarian heavy ball. Which of these has proven to be the most accurate for y'all?
Click to expand...

Mosins Nagants are rather fickle rifles. They love some ammo and are surprisingly accurate with it, and hate other ammo and pattern worse than a shotgun with it.
Consistantly the Hungarian heavy ball has been very accurate for me, and just about everyone I know that shoots Mosins. The Czech silvertip has been very accurate with all but one of my Mosins, and there it was still on the silouette at 300 meters most of the time. I haven't tried the Hungarian light ball. Some people have had the Czech be wildly inaccurate on them, so YMMV.

Cosmolene had the best answer, get some of as many different kinds as you can get and try them out. If you can only get them from places that only sell by the tin or case, then buy a tin of it. Worse that happens is you'll have to drop to 100 or 200 meters with the stuff your rifle doesn't like.
 
Or if the ammo you bought doesn't shoot well in your rifle, just buy a couple or 3 more Mosins and try it in them. With a C&R, the rifles cost about as much as a big can of ammo anyway.
 
M-38

I have a M38 which is one of my favorite rifles to shoot. It was 'new' when I purchased it from 'Dave Collectables. Once I shoot ten rounds it heats up and the bolt gets a little tight. The mor I shoot it the better it seems to perform. I cam get some reall good tight groups at 100 yds. I can usually put three rounds into a 5.5 inch circle at 100 yds. My best has been three shots into a citcle that was no larger than a ping-pong ball. :D I love a bolt action rifle. It will make you take your time and make the first shot your best. Generally I use this rifle as my cold shot group. I will fire it first before I 'warm up', generaly with great results. I have learned through missed shots that the 'COLD' shot is your most important shot. Take your time, make it count as if it is your only bullet. :scrutiny:

People are impressed w/ the big flash of fire that come out the barrel when fired. :fire: As far as recoil - yumm-yumm eat it up, I'm a recoil freek. At first I caught myself flenching, I have worked through that one. :D
 
My 1931 Izhevsk 91/30 is capable of 8" groups at 200 yards from a sandbag rest using Czech Silvertip or Polish ball ammo. From what I have read, the Soviet Army WWII accuracy standard for that rifle was somewhere in that area. The average Russian soldier was a drafted peasant who most likely had never seen a rifle before. If the soldier and his rifle could shoot minute-of-Nazi at 200 meters, that is all they really needed.

The recoil is not much more than my 1903A3 so I reall don't mind shooting it from a standing position or even off a rest.

My M38 is a different story. The short barrel provides a great fireball and a pretty stout swat to my shoulder. I use a recoil pad with it so that takes up some of the hammering.

The M38 was issued to support troops so long range accuracy was not apparently a big issue for these units. Mine is fairly accurate out to 100 yards and at 50 yds, it's capable of 2-3" groups from a rest. Fortunately the barrel on my M38 is in decent shape and not counterbored. I have seen lots of them with barrels closer to smoothbores than a rifled barrel.
 
Thank you smince and Cpl Punishment for defending my honor and marksmanship. I realize none of you guys know me personally, and I too have read some claims made by people here that I find questionable, but I do not know them and they could be right, so I keep my mouth shut. I did not go back on the recoil posts and tell them that they were ninny's, let's play nice.

The silhouette was full sized. As a bright man once said, only accurate rifles are interesting, hence this post.

I have been able to shoot a full sized silhouette all of my life, and it is no great feat. If it was tough, when I went into boot camp in '87, how did only two guys in a company of 120 people not qualify on the rifle? Mind you, we were shooting shot out M16A1's (mine would not run a full mag without jamming, and yes, it was spotlessly clean!) with 55 gr. ball at ranges out to and including 500 yards.

For those that actually answered my question, thank you and keep it coming.
 
I have a pretty good amount of trigger time. However, I do not enjoy recoil. Guess I've just had enough of it over the years.

The 91's are fine for me. The 38's and 44's are not much fun.

I picked up a recoil shield recently and have 5 or so different types of ammo that I'm going to take some time putting through the lot of them. Should be a good time and interesting.

Does anyone have experience with the super light weight training ammo? Supposed to be a real short range low recoil training round. Got some of that also, not sure what to expect from it. Input?
 
Cosmoline hit the nail on the head, all Mosins are different and prefer different ammunition for optimum results. Now, for what it's worth my M39 seems to really like the 70's vintage Hungarian light ball. I will definitely be buying more the next time I am at AIM.

-jagd
 
I have had three Mosins, and have one left, my Babushka Thunderboomer, a 1943 Izzy M38 in M44 stock, rearsenalled, and counterbored about 1/2 inch. It will shoot 3.5 inch at 100 yards with Wolf, or 5-6 inch with Czech Silvertip, or about 4 inch with Polish ball. Get some surplus, and have fun - at the price it is RIGHT NOW, I would snag a couple of crates of it!
The stuff listed as Albanian, (actually Russian production), has been real inconsistant for me, so the few boxes of that I have left sit waiting for SHTF...
I did start to reload, and still have all the stuff for it, but lost a lot of interest when I got my Enfield....much more accurate. Besides, at the prices of surplus, the Polish light ball I bought will never run out.:cool:
 
Folks, my M44 is a beauty. Made in 1947, I always avoid purchasing C&R rifles made in the midst of WWII, and Russia especially, had QC issues as they were being bombed while they attempted to crank out as many rifles as possible. If you Like Mosin Nagants, you owe it to your self to watch the movie "Enemy at the Gates".
At any rate, I worked up a load of 174 grain round nose bullets, using 7.62x54 brass from Grafs and sons last fall. I put on a 4x pistol scope on a scout mount ( my greater than 1/2 century eyes really need a scope) and was able to place 5 rounds in 7/10" at 50 yards. That is from a mediocre rifleman! What is there not to love about an accurate rifle that cost $39.00 (with C&R) and Czech silver tip that cost $40.00 for 800 rounds?
 
Post wouldn't edit - forgot to mention that I am not a recoil freak by any means, and a cheap $7 recoil poad from WalMart made the M38 quite pleasant to shoot. Some said those of us complaining about recoil have little trigger time - true to a point. I really didn't like battle rifles until a few years ago, and most of my shooting was with AK, Mini14, SKS, M-1 carbine, M-14, etc. I have had and shot 1903A3, and Mauser 98k as well, and the one bolt action battle rifle I really like is my Enfield Number 4 Mk1* - very low recoil, only 292 FLBs less than 30-06 at 100 yards.
Matt, I might try another quick 5 reloads now, using the 3.105 dia 174gr bullets - is that what you used, Hornaday FMJ/BT?
 
My Chinese Nagant carbine loves Albanian surplus even with it's dents and lousy bullet crimps...stays in the black (8-10 ring) all day long at 100 yards.
On the other hand that same rifle as well as my Izzy 91/30 does really well with the Czech LPS Silvertip surplus BUT when it's over 80 degrees or so out here I get pierced primers and a stuck bolt!!!! I had to pull the heads and download that ammo by 6 grains to keep it safe. (and yes I did check firing pin protrusion on both rifles)
I have no problem with blown primers with any other ammo, Wolf, surplus Russian, Albanian, Privi Partizan, etc.
 
Does anyone have experience with the super light weight training ammo? Supposed to be a real short range low recoil training round. Got some of that also, not sure what to expect from it. Input?
Click to expand...
Very little recoil. Probably not much good past 100 meters. Humongous muzzle flash.

Get some surplus, and have fun - at the price it is RIGHT NOW, I would snag a couple of crates of it!
Click to expand...
Preach it brother! I've been buying a crate everytime my "ammo fund" allows. I learned my lesson from the 7.62x39 days. Was $60, then $80, then $110, then not available, now $130+ per case. I ain't waiting for that to happen with 7.62x54R!

The stuff listed as Albanian, (actually Russian production), has been real inconsistant for me, so the few boxes of that I have left sit waiting for SHTF...
Click to expand...
Which do you mean? There's Chinese-made brass-cased ammo that they sold to Albania, that's now been sold to us, then there's the laquered steel cased stuff. The brass stuff I've had very good results with. The laquered stuff is iffy. My Romanian M44s love it, one of my Ishevsk M38s is ok with it, my others hate it. Despite the neck splits and dents in the laquered stuff, the rifles that like it, really like it.

and the one bolt action battle rifle I really like is my Enfield Number 4 Mk1* - very low recoil, only 292 FLBs less than 30-06 at 100 yards.
Matt, I might try another quick 5 reloads now, using the 3.105 dia 174gr bullets - is that what you used, Hornaday FMJ/BT?
Click to expand...
What make of No4? I have a few No4 Mk1*s that are Longbranches with the 6-groove left-hand twist Bren barrels on them. Give some 174 Sierra Matchkings over some Reloader-15 a try. My Longbranches will drive nails with that combo.
 
it is surprising that the wolf didn't shoot well, i would try osme diff wieghts in them , they also make a 185 grn, and a 200 grnr. they are great through mine. Also the czech is usually very good milsurp, but just remember, wash your action bbl out with some cleaner, because most all 762 milsurp is corrosive.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

Dave Markowitz
  • Locked
7.62x54R Light Ball
Replies
13
Views
1K
Davo
D
E
  • Locked
Mosin Nagant ammo test
Replies
1
Views
301
EricTheBarbarian
E
ssyoumans
  • Locked
Fun shooting ammo for the Mosin Nagant!
2
Replies
35
Views
2K
Cosmoline
C
A
  • Locked
M38 Mosin Nagant
Replies
9
Views
493
Hoppy590
H
JonB
  • Locked
7.62x54R Hungarian light ball
Replies
7
Views
1K
Trebor
T
Back
Top