can anyone actually hit squat with their Mosins?

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silverlance

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I have 4 mosins. by "can't hit squat", I mean that I have dificulty putting even 5" groups on a man sized target at 50 yards.

M91/30: big 5, rearse, war years. can't hit squat.
M91/30: big 5, rearsenal, war years. can't hit squat.
M38: big 5, very good condition. this one does tolerable. groups of about 12".
M91/30 1928 mosin rebuilt sniper, acurracy stamps. this one can actually put very nice groups of about 4" at 50 yards.

i have a mauser yugo, which also does fairly well at 50 yards. nothing major, but at least i'm putting rounds in the zone.

i just bought a mauser k98 from classic arms (same place where i got the cobbled together m91/30). i hope it shoots better thant hose darn mosins.

i'm probably going to wind up selling all of them except the sniper, and then use the money to buy an sks m59 (i live in cali) or one of those hard chromed m38 abominations from classic arms.

ps: i'm a shooter, not a collector.
 
Yep.

The one in the video is a replica sniper, originally a 1929 Tula. I've printed a 1.5" group at 100 yards with it. I have a 1939 Izhevsk that can also hit 400 yard gongs with open sights, but it's more difficult.

jmm
 
Sure we can

I got mine at Big 5 a couple of weeks back, got it to the range last Saturday. Right from the showroom floor I hit a gong @ 200m, not once, but 7-8 times out of ten. The other shooters with their fancy expensive rifles and scopes looked at me funny, and even more amazed when they saw an iron sighted antique doing it LOL.

Have a great Kenpo day

Clyde
 
I can hit well with my 91/30's but my m38's HA! broad side of barn comes to mind. If you want a rifle thats accurate , buy Swiss.
 
The two MNs I own and the ones my nephew and brother in law have seem to be all over the place with milsurp ammo (like buckshot at 100 yds). My Yugo SKS is a much better shooter. My VZ24 and M48 are pretty good shooters. I disassemble milsurp ammo in 8mm and load them into boxer primed brass to make them shoot better. Out of the box 8mm milsurp is horrible like the MNs. My K31 is a tack driver with milsurp GP-11 and handloads. The M1 and 1903a3 are almost as good as the K31 with the greek ammo at the CMP.
 
The important thing to remember about the Mosins is that they are finicky about what you feed them and what works varies from gun to gun. Also the diameter of the barrels varies alot. One might like a heavy bullet while another may want light ball ammo, experiment with different bullet weights. If you reload, consider slugging the barrel and using cast bullets sized to fit.
 
I got mine down to 2 inches with reloaded ammo. The problem is many Mosins are shot out and being feed with really cheap surplus ammo that saw its best days half a century ago. The key is to find a Mosin still in good order.
 
NO

If you are talking about 91/30s then my answer is no. My Finn M39s built on Mosin actions shoot good.
I bought my first 91/30 years ago for $39 dealer price (my dealer didn't charge me anything for ordering something that cheap, he made enough on me as it was). I spent a lot of time cleaning that gun up and it now looks pretty dang good. But, it won't shoot for crap. I tried handloads, commercial ammo, milsurp, nothing would work. One day I had it out in the desert and was shooting at a large rock that was an estimated 500 yards out. I had a buddy spotting for me. I would fire a shot and it would be 10 YARDS to the left, the next shot might be 10 YARDS to the right................. I finally slugged the bore and it was something like .321" or something ridiculous like that. The bore LOOKED ok, but was WAY oversized. I guess their quality control wasn't the best that day. :eek:
Then I bought an arsenal refurbished one. It's bore measured reasonable and it shoots fair. Definitely not good, even for an old mil-surp rifle.
When people discuss accuracy, there is only one way to define it: what kind of groups did it shoot on paper from a bench ? Stories of hitting a beer can and all that really don't give us a good answer to any question about accuracy.
 
I have one of the m91 that does not look like it saw much service. The wood is pretty good for an old military gun. It will do about 2in or less at 100yds if I can keep the sites on target. I think my son could do better with it, he a better shot. He wants to trade his 91/30 for mine. This gun looked like a smooth bore until I cleaned it, suddenly found alot of rifling. I don't know what was being shot thru it but it was laded with lead and copper.
 
I have a M44 and it's not very accurate. I bought a 91/30 cheap and ended up giving it away at the gun club, bolt was too sticky and it too was not accurate. I have a Swede M96 and a British Enfield MK4 #1 that I shoot in Military bolt matches that are accurate enough but won't buy any more Russian crap..
 
My M38 will do 3 inches at 100 yards with Wolf ammo, and 5 inches with Czech Silvertip. The Albanian sometimes gives very good groups, but it is inconsistant. My M38 is a 1943 Izzy with counterbored barrel. I have my 1920 hex on the way, never shot her before I had to sell her, now bought her back, and the guy I sold it to said he could ring gongs all day long at 200 yards with surplus ammo...can't wait to try reloads.:cool:
That being said, I still like to shoot the Enfield more, lighter recoil, and I can get 1 inch groups at 100 yards with my 174gr FMJ/BT reloads.
 
i had a re-arsenalled M-44 that was pretty good...but not necessarily with me shooting. I can't use iron sites worth a darn (vision problem) but my buddy can. You don't mention what you're shooting, but I never had any luck with surplus ammo. Most was 5-6" at 50 yards, but the czech silvertip would get around 3" (with my buddy shooting---double those numbers if it was me shooting!) BUT, with commercial ammo (I think we used some S&B) it would do 1 1/2" We shot with the bayonet folded, always.

Any way, I sold it, 'cause I couldn't shoot it well, and the recoil beat me up pretty bad. Plus, I never liked the so called "safety" mechanics on the Mosins (you have to put it in battery to engage the safety!:what: Sat in the gun closet for about 3 years without being fired, so I figure it had to go.

Any way, the biggest problems I see with many of the milsurps, is cleaning rod wear at the muzzle. I sporterized a Turkish Mauser, shortened and recrowned the barrel. It now shoots near MOA (1 1/4") with S&B commercial ammo, and 1 MOA with handloads, and we've just started load development.
So, to get good accuracy you may need to re-crown, or counterbore the barrel.
 
Silverlance,
How are you shooting? Is that from a bench with a front and rear rest? I had trouble with the sights initially, and put mojo sights on my 91/30. It was a tough decision because I didn't think it was accurate enough to mess with, but with the new sights I shot a 3" group with Czech silvertip, so I think it was worthwhile.
RT
 
I'm on my fifth Mosin carbine and finally have one that shoots fairly accurately. My Chinese type 53 can't hit a darn thing, my Polish M44 is pretty good...but...I recently bought a 1948 Russian M44 that looks unissued, mirror bright bore, sharp lands. Took it to the range this past weekend and had no problem with clay birds at 50 yards and had 4" wall tiles propped up at the 100 yard line and would hit them 2 or 3 times out of 5. Am NOT using corosive mil-surp ammo in this gun ever. Was using cheap Wolf 180 grain and have some Wolf Gold, S&B, and Norma (or was it Olympic...I forget...) ordered for the gun.
 
My Mosin seems okay with modern ammo. Not cheap to shoot that way.

If you're a shooter, for less than the price of all the milsurps, it'd have been a better deal to get a Howa package gun from Howa (Nikko scope and flat comb) or Weatherby (Bushnell scope and California Monte Carlo). Turner's has 'em both on sale right now. They'll hit targets, and modern .223 is far more accurate in a modern rifle than any of the milsurps will be, and it's still cheap even without reloading. Much more fun to shoot tiny things at long distances with a good rifle, than to sling lead semi-randomly with a milsurp, after the initial excitement wears off.

As much as a lot of people seem to like shooting milsurps, they're not on top of my list as shooters. I just wanted to get a few while they were around and cheap. Now that there's a kid on the way, I won't be buying more, unless something really interesting comes down the pike.
 
first 91/30: Bullets keyholed at 50 yards and group sizes were large pizza sized. What we thought was just a very dirty barrel, was a sewer pipe. Always take your bore light to the gun show!:rolleyes: Got this when the very first 91/30s were starting to hit the shores. Hubby has since murdered this poor thing in an attempt to save it. I think he is trying to make up for this Bubba action by sheltering as many milsurps as possible.

Next 91/30: Group size about the size of a personal pizza at 50 yards. Nice looking rifle. My pick, bore nice and shiny, good muzzle but not too accurate.

Finnish M39: Gosh darn tack driver. Gives our K31s a run for their money. This is my hubbies baby, I much prefer the trigger on my K31s.

Last 91/30: Worse shape than number 2, but almost as accurate as the M39. It was even 1938 dated, but it seems not have seen much service. Probably used by some rear guard or something.

1947 M47: Depends on the ammo. When we lived in Phoenix my hubby put 3 out of 5 shots on the 300 yard gong at Rio Solado in a quasi-rapid fire to empty the weapon upon the 1 minute cease fire warning. He had about 30 seconds to spare, but was happy with his results.

All of this was shooting czech silver tip.
 
I can routinely hit a 24" gong at 200 yards with mine. I consider that plenty accurate considering it's age, and cost.
 
If you know the bullet drop at that range, you can routinely hit a 24" gong at 200 yards with a smoothbore slug gun or a Brown Bess, of course...:D
 
My M44 was getting 18 inch groups at 25 yards, and the bore looked like a rabbit hole. I sold it for $60 which is what I paid for it.
 
I think that you'd be happier buying any milsurp because it's an interesting, historic, collectible firearm that's cheap.

Most guns of that description are out of the price range of the casual collector who has other pressing needs in life, so the milsurps give many of us the only shot we'll have of collecting historic guns, now that an antique SAA goes for well into 4 and even 5 figures.

If a milsurp gun shoots well, great! If not, it's still an interesting collectible that will only get older and more interesting when your kids are grown.

Just don't buy a $100 rifle and think you've gotten the equivalent of a brand new $500-800 bolt gun. Most modern guns, even the cheap ones, are capable of MOA, or even better, out of the box, with off-the-shelf ammo. Milsurps tend to be old, used, sometimes worn or rusted. They were often built during WWII, a MASSIVE war of attrition, where sheer volume of troops and weapons were priority 1, or they were built in Communist countries, where again, the armies were just big mobs of soldiers with rifles, not today's US Marines. Manufacturing methods were different, so you might see more hand-machined action parts, but barrels that aren't up to today's standards, or if they once were, aren't any more.

YMMV, but do manage your expectations!:)
 
Well, I know its in jest, but even with bullet drop known, you couldn't reliably hit anything smaller than a barn, much less a barn door, at 200 yards with a Brown Bess, not with that round ball bouncing as it can do down the bore. Horatio Hornblower was right, that a man would be hard pressed to hit a barn door at range with a musket, hence the standing in long columns and firing away at each other.

Ash
 
Hits at 200 yards were about 35-40% on a man-sized target, 50% on a cavalry-size target, with an aimed Brown Bess (which has no rear sight) in testing, back then. Much smaller than a barn door, and modern shooters have reported far greater accuracy than that with BB replicas, quality powder, consistent bullets, clean bore, etc. Not MOA, not 5 MOA, but better than MO barn door.

In combat conditions, that's a different story, but we're talking about hitting a gong here.:)
 
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