Anyone with Mosin experience, what do you think of this rifling?

[lhartman89]

I would like to see if anyone with Mosin Nagant experience can tell if the rifling on my 1933 Tula 91/30 is good? I notice pitting, but no rust. I just wasn't sure if the rifling looks worn down or if it looks pretty good? I still haven't been able to get out and shoot it since I bought it and a 440 round spam can of Russian ammo. I really appreciate any opinions. I am hoping I have a decent shooter. It is just a run of the mill refurb. So I am guessing that since it is a refurb it should be a decent rifle. I've checked the firing pin protrusion but don't have a headspace gauge and don't have the money to pay a gunsmith. I am gonna guess it is ok as all the serial numbers match. But again, Please let me know what you think and thank you in advance!






And here are a few of the gun.

 

[Jackal]

Thats what we call a dark bore. It will be more difficult to clean, but it may still shoot quite well. I have had bad bores that outshot mirror bores before, depending on the load.

 

[LUCKYDAWG13]

nice lookin 91/30 but your rifling dont look to good with the pits in it
but you really won't know until you shoot it i can keep about a 2" group
at 100 yards with my 1942 but its not a bench gun it cost $150.
i bought it just to shoot at a 6" steel gong at 100 yards

 

[Sergei Mosin]

I've seen better, I've seen worse. It's an 80-year-old battle rifle that's been through a world war, not a target rifle that's been out of the safe once. Shoot it. It'll be fine.

 

[chitoryu12]

Yeah, best thing to do is take it out to the range and start shooting. It's not going to explode or curve the bullet around to hit the guy next to you or anything.

 

[Tolkachi Robotnik]

It could improve, and is not so bad.

You have prominent lands and deep grooves. Sure there is a little darkness and pitting of a sort. It will likely stabilize proper sized bullets and shoot pretty well. My experience is the surplus is not all that great for group tightness, but it can be fun to shoot if you can hack the recoil.

My first Mosin was dark bore at the start. If you shoot it and clean it it will brighten some over time. Those pits or perpendicular slashes will not help things if you try cast loads.

A lot depends on the throat and crown. If it gets bullets spinning from the start and releases them correctly at the muzzle yours could shoot just fine.

The rifle looks pretty good to me. It will hold up better than some 03A3's that were made with only a button type rifling. Those high lands and deep grooves are your friend.

 

[lhartman89]

Thank you all for the help. I just cleaned it some more and went through about 20-30 patches alternating between wet-brush-dry and so on. It definitely cleaned it up more. But I have heard that shooting it and then cleaning helps clean the bore up.

I refinished the stock with minwax red mahogany and tung oil finish as I wanted a deep red color and the shellac finish was flaking off at the hand guard. I really wanted a Mosin so I bought this one at the local Gander Mountain for $192 out the door. I sat there and looked at the two hex receiver Mosins they had and they had this one an a 1928 Izhevsk and mine looked like it had a better bore but it is hard to tell with no bore light and them being so dirty.

I just wish I didn't have to drive an hour away to shoot and the range about 15-20 mins away is indoor and doesn't allow steel cased or core ammo. I actually got 3 other new guns and haven't shot any of them since I got them either. It really sucks.

 

[bainter1212]

Yup, that's a Mosin bore!! . FYI, Walmart has a cheap little Winchester bore light that is a must to take to the gun store. Only costs a couple $.

If you ever get into reloading, measure the bore of that rifle. I'm willing to bet that bore will measure out to .311 or even .313. Then you can pick the proper size bullet.
With the right size bullet, even a pitted bore like that can produce good accuracy.

 

[jackblack86]

you will be surprised how much shooting it will clean it up.

 

[BCRider]

A few patches of something like the coarser JB Bore Bright compound would not be a bad way to begin. It'll clean up some of the copper fouling at the same time it polishes out the edges on the pitting.

I can't say that my two Mosins had any of the patches of pitting like your barrel appears to have. But they WERE pretty crusty looking before I began to wear out two bore brushes per barrel getting the darn things truly clean. In the end the bores looked pretty nice.

The big issue seems to be that the copper washed mild steel jacket surplus ammo LOVES to shed the copper in the bore. Even as little as 8 to 10 rounds produces a mess that seems to have the Wipe Out copper solvent coming out intensely blue for quite a while.

On top of this I've recently discovered that shooting Privi ammo resulted in the groups being about 1/3 the size of those I can get with surplus ammo. As a result I'm going to try both with some home reloads for groups and dedicate the "lesser" to the milsurp stuff and save the better for accuracy shooting with the reloads.

 

[LUCKYDAWG13]

oh just when you think that you got all of that cosmoline out go back
and clean it some more. bring a rag with you to the range and wipe the bolt
and action out if the bolt starts to stick

 

[lhartman89]

When I bought it, it wasn't covered in cosmoline. I took the whole bolt apart and cleaned in, then oiled it with Rem Oil. I also ran an oiled patch down the bore so it doesn't rust. So I think it should be good to go. Once I do finally get to shoot it, I plan to clean it really good afterwards and see what the bore looks like then. Thanks again for all the suggestions and help.

 

[Cosmoline]

I've seen worse. Sometimes these still shoot fine, but they are a SERIOUS pain to clean. That's the biggest difference between mint bore Mosins and dark bore Mosins. The former take some squirts and a pull-through to clean, the latter take removal of the action, placement in a vise and about four hours of elbow grease to truly clean up. Most of the time people just clean enough to neutralize the salts and call it good.

 

[Jcinnb]

I have four in various versions and none of my bores are anything like that. But that don't mean a lot. Put a bunch of round,s down range and see what you get.

If you reload, please measure the bore. There is huge variance between Tiflis with pristine bores. Finally, think about the history.

 

[rszwieg]

Brownels sells a kit containing a can of Kroil and a jar of JB compound. Just follow directions.

It works.

 

[Awsomepossum]

How did you take such a good picture of the bore?

 

[Onmilo]

It's a sewer pipe but don't let that get you down. If you reload, bullets made for the .303 British or 7.7 Jap can be made to shoot very well in these older pitted Mosins.

 

[lhartman89]

I used a bore light and macro on my cell phones camera. To get ones further in the barrel, I zoomed in and moved the light so it wasn't directly in the bore, but let some light in.

 

[SilentStalker]

I am no expert but to me that looks like pretty good rifling. I mean yes it does have some places in it but as others have said you really won't know until you shooting. 20 rounds or so down the pipe and most of that will be a nonissue most likely.

 

[carbine85]

Buy a can of Wipe-out and let it soak. Follow up with JB bore polish. Mine had so much copper fouling it took 3 days of soaking and cleaning to get it out.

 

[lhartman89]

This is what it looks like after a few more cleanings. It is starting to look a little better, but I need to get out and shoot it some.

 

[Bull Nutria]

I second the use of Wipe Out with the accelerator. let the wipeout foam soak overnite. you can plug the bore with old disposable ear plugs. and just run dry patches thru it . works great without a lot of elbow grease!

Bull

 

[morcey2]

One of my best shooting mosins looks worse than that. It does like to collect copper a little faster than the others, but it shoots very well. Shoot it and see what happens.

Matt

 

[351 WINCHESTER]

I've seen much worse. Get some J & B bore paste and a couple of new .30 brushes and from the chamber end go to work. Finish off by putting a patch around your worn out brush with more J & B.

 

[BSA1]

I would firelap it with 20 rounds and reevaluate.