can anyone actually hit squat with their Mosins?

[El Barto]

It has always been my impression that the Mosin is a "close enough" rifle. It is the definition of quantity not quality. I wouldn’t want to be the lone guy fighting 10 that are armed with Mosins even at 200 yards apart, regardless of having my choice of weapon.

Most of the ones out there were made under war conditions and the craftsmanship shows it. The machining on my M38 and M44 is rough as heck and I could probably do better with just my Dremel, but what do you expect with an $80 rifle that is 60+ years old.

Now there are exceptions. I have heard that the newer (relatively) Finns can hold their own and maybe in the course of production, one day everything clicked and an Izzy 91/30 tack driver was born. But GENERALLY, the Mosin is not as accurate as other comparable rifles. The key word is generally. If I go to Big 5 and get a K31 and a 91/30, off the rack I will bet on the K31 being more accurate.

That being said, I do like my Mosins!

 

[Cosmoline]

Get Swiss....

One of the most accurate rifles I've ever shot was a Swiss 96/11. It was almost perfect with GP-11 ball. I defy anyone to fire that rifle or the 1911's and come back saying that mil surps are overrated furniture legs. I remember shooting that at the 300 meter targets at Birchwood. I could barely see the target stand, let alone the target. But I alligned my sights up with reference points I could see and eased that thin, fine front sight to the middle of the tiny blur. I looked through the binoculars and to my shock the six rounds were centered in a three inch group, all on the shoot-n-see like I'd been firing at 100 meters. I then spent the rest of the afternoon banging the gong with nary a miss. That experience taught me never to underestimate an old rifle and never to blame the iron sights.

It has always been my impression that the Mosin is a "close enough" rifle. It is the definition of quantity not quality. I wouldn’t want to be the lone guy fighting 10 that are armed with Mosins even at 200 yards apart, regardless of having my choice of weapon.

Think of the Mosin like the Win '94 or the AK-47. They're designed with a fair amount of slop in the action with loose tolerances. That's one reason they've been so effective in the field, whether for hunting or warfare. But that doesn't mean any of them should be shooting pie plate groups.

 

[R.W.Dale]

2. I don't know if I can stand another withering attack from Krochus if I don't properly webhost the image. Nor do I think Krochus' membership here would stand scrutiny from the mods after he broke Forum Rule #4 a second time.

You don't Really know what you did do you. When you Hotlinked to the image on that other website itstead of it being a picture of a M44 you got a picture of two guys bare bottom mooning the camera. The reason for this is because the websites owner doesn't want other peopel wasting thier bandwith and so had an automatic switcharoo of pictures. So Who broke what rule by posting a picture of partial nudity.

Instead of admitting your mistake you deny it happened.

Nor do I think Krochus' membership here would stand scrutiny from the mods after he broke Forum Rule #4 a second time.

Getting banned from this website would be concidered an honor. Ya'll may not realize this but a lot of the topics here get brought up elsewhere for some great laughs.

 

[armoredman]

Well, I got one pic before the camera battery died...
I shot the 1920 91/30 Izzy at 100 yards, and started with Czech Silvertip surplus ammo. An 86 year old rifle, and 40 year old ammo. POA was both for the same, but the second group is on it. After this pic, I changed targets, and all of my subsequent groups were in the 3-4 inch range, excepting the few handloads I had built for the M38...about 2 years ago. THEY were TERRIBLE!!! Some weren't even on the paper! I guess the 7.62x39mm .310 123gr slug isn't for all 30 caliber rifles...works OK, in the M38. Will redo them with some 303 bullets. Just happen to have some.
After about 30 rounds of 7.62x54R, my shoulder cried uncle. I switched to a "combat" target, and the venerable Enfield, but my shoulder had had it. Best group I could get was 3 inches. Oh, well. A bad day shooting, beats a good day at work.

 

[silverlance]

wow

i'm impressed. if i could put 3 consecutive shots ANYWHERE on a 8x11 sheet of paper at 100 yards using my ammoman.com czech silvertip i woiuld go home a happy man.

unfortunately i have a hard time doing that. granted, i am no Jude Law, so i may be at fault. indeed, i must confess to being a fairly lousy shot, despite having been shooting for 15 or so years. Being -7 diopters myopic sure as heck doesn't help!! the good part is i never feel compelled to spend money on real tack drivers since i know i can't see the the 600 meter gong properly anyway.

of course, it may also be the fault of my ammo. the moron who delivered it left it out in the rain where water soaked through the box, through the crate, and into the ammo blue boxes themselves. many of my silvertip shells have green corrosion on them. i fire them anyway through my cheap mosin m38 because, well, it's my cheap mosin m38.

in any case, we will soon see whether the fault lies with me or my ammuntion. i ordered GP11 from sportsman's guide some time ago, and in it i also included an order for two boxes of wolf gold x54r. we shall soon see who is to blame!

if the wolf gold doesn't cycle smoothly and shoot accurately in my 3 mosins, off to the auction block they go, including the blasted darrell mount that keeps bucking loose (probably my fault, not darrell's). the repro sniper i'm keeping, even if just so i can watch enemy at the gates with my russkie pot helmet on and sniper in my hands.

 

[Cosmoline]

paper! I guess the 7.62x39mm .310 123gr slug isn't for all 30 caliber rifles...works OK, in the M38. Will redo them with some 303 bullets. Just happen to have some.

I've had good luck with the 123 gr. AK bullets in some 91/30's but not others. If you haven't slugged your bore you should. Some of them are too wide to do well with a .310" and do much better with heavier .312" .303 bullets or the .313" Argie mauser bullets. A pre-war 91/30 that was built off a Dragoon could have had multiple re-bores each one making it a little wider than the last.

 

[armoredman]

Yep, gonna load 5 with the 174 gr .3105 FMJ/BT, and 5 with 150gr .312 Sp interlock. That wipes out my brass supply....

 

[MJ]

First five shots of the day at 100 yards.

I had the scope off so I used the first two to re-zero.



This rifle while not the most accurate will hit soda cans at 100 yards all day long and it will put three out of five in the bottom end of the can.



I mostly shoot Enfields so I'm not in practice with the Mosin.


MJ

 

[bernie]

I have an M38 that is VERY accurate with Wolf new production ammo. It is also pretty good with Yugo heavy ball, but with Czech silvertip it really is below my standards. It shoots OK, just not great with it.

 

[Gord]

I have two M44s, an M38 and my new 91/30 only has nine days left in Big 5's back room before I can bring it home.

One of the M44s was the first centerfire rifle I'd ever bought, and at the time, I didn't know enough about them to pick and choose - I basically pointed at it randomly on the rack and said, "I want that one." Then I took it home, stripped the stock (don't kill me ) and cleaned it.

It's got some crown wear and isn't very consistent - keeping five rounds in a 12" circle at 100 yards is lucky.

The other M44 I won from Bluebroker.com - it's a '44, and has typical rough wartime tooling marks all over it, but it's a nice-looking gun and the crown and bore are fine. I can scatter red and yellow shotgun shells on a hillside and blast them from 150 yards with boring regularity. No problems there.

The M38 was another Big 5 find, all matching, looked unfired, reinforcing bolt in the wrist of the stock, but had been counterbored about an inch, so it obviously had been fired. Same deal with this one - shotgun shells at 150 yards with boring regularity.

I'm horrible with traditional paper targets, but that's more a function of the targets than the guns or me - I can't aim at a black target over black sights to save my life. Shoot-n-C targets work fairly well, as do white-with-red-bullseye targets, but I can't seem to find anything but 25-yard black pistol targets around here... so I will continue to hone my accuracy with shotgun shells.

This was all done with milsurp ammo, but you have to keep in mind that Mosins are milsurps and as such their bores and crowns can vary widely. It's definitely a "good enough" platform in terms of accuracy to begin with, and a worn barrel or crown can exacerbate this fact, as with my first M44. I can still make COM hits on a man-sized target at 50 to 100 yards, but I wouldn't put money on my chances of hitting anything smaller.

The others, though, would happily score headshots on jackrabbits all day long.

 

[jon_in_wv]

I have a little trouble with the sights of my Russian 91/30 because the front sight is so dang far away but I've shot 50yard five shot groups of about and inch with it using Yugo surplus and Russian surplus ammo. I think its much more accurate than I am capable of shooting it.