My Mosin Scout
Ok, this will run a little long...
My goal with this rifle was two-fold. First, I wanted to get my feet wet with some basic gunsmithing and second, I wanted a scout rifle. I saw this M-N at Gander Mtn. for $80.00 and grabbed it up. It was definately this worst of the lot that they had there, but also the cheapest.
If you are going to go this way with your scout project, please learn about Mosins. You do not want to buy a nice one and pay to much just to bubba it and ruin a great historic rifle. Mine was trashed, the stock was chipped, cracked, and repared badly. There was no bayonet or other accessories. It is from later in WWII so it is not as finely made as earlier Soviet M-Ns. It is not from the Tula factory, it is an Izhevsk. It is a M91/30, not a more desireable M44 (I have a friend who just bought a really nice Polish M44 from the 1950's for $120.00 and I advised him to leave it as is.)
I bought an
ATI stock. Installation was a breeze. I've read where som have hade to shave some of the stock to get their M-N to fit, which is a possibilty given the wide variance in the different M-Ns out there, but I did not have to do any such modification. Along with the stock I got a limbsaver butt-pad replacement (trimmed to fit the ATI stock), a cheek riser (solid rubber screw in), and a butt stock ammo sleeve.
A word about the ATI stocks. This is an non-destructive replacement part. If you have a nice Mosin and want to preserve the wood stock, the ATI stock is a good choice. Be aware that the original wood covers the top of the barrel and the ATI does not. The barrel can get HOT! Watch your fingers.
I bought some sling swivels, a nylon sling, and a bunch of nylon webbing the same width as the sling. With some strap adjusters and slides, I connected it all together for a Ching Sling. The duct tape in the picture is just to control the excess webbing.
Next came the scary part, cutting the barrel. I enlisted the help of my father who, while not a gunsmith, is a retired millwright and so he knows his way around tools, metal, and mechanics. We watched some videos from Midway USA (thanks Larry Potterfield!) and talked about cutting and crowning the barrel. We made a test cut 2" back from the crown using a pipe cutter. DO NOT DO THIS! It squeezes the barrel.
After that, we knew we had to use the chop-saw. This was a problem because the barrel of the M-N tapers down. The cut needs to be perpendicular to the muzzle, so we had to do a lot of measuring and build a jig to hold the barrel so the saw came down true. We did another test cut to ensure we were good. It was perpendicular, so we made the final cut.
All the cuts totalled around 6". A M91/30 barrel is almost 29" long. My final barrel length is a shade over 22". The M44 carbine has a 20" barrel by comparison.
We crowned the barrel using Mr. Potterfield's method of a rounded carriage bolt with some polishing compound and a power drill. We used a Dremmel Tool and the polishing compound for the fine work. I also used the Dremmel and polishing compound to polish up the bolt and action to make everything run a little smoother.
This mount from Overstock.com replaced the original rear sight. Installation was easy, I popped out the pins holding the rear sight and slid the new mount in, tightening the screws to keep it from wobbling. This later became a huge issue.
I bought a
BSA Edge Pistol Scope (also from Overstock) after a few months of looking around. I did not want to spend too much on this project but the 7.62x54R round is a kicker and I didn't want a cheap NCStar falling apart on me. So I went the next level up and got the BSA.
I mounted the scope and took the rifle to the indoor range for a test fire. The mount wobbled. I tightened. It wobbled. I went home. I applied Loc-Tite. I tightened. I shot. It wobbled. I tightened. I stripped the threads of the mount. :banghead:
I know better than this. The mount is aluminum, the screws are steel. It was inevitable. Anyway, I went back to my dad's and drilled and tapped the rear sight brackets on the rifle and the aluminum mount. Inserted a bolt and nut to lock it down. The mount still wobbled forward! If you look in the picture in my post above (I will post some better detail pics later), you can see where my dad drilled and tapped the front end of the mount and braced it with a brass bolt.
I know, you are saying "The mount only costs $11.00, why not just get a new one?" It's a project rifle, I was trying to work though the problem. Also, I'm cheap. The mount is still FUBAR and ugly as heck so I probably will buy a new one eventually, but at least the wobble is gone and it shoots straight.
I have a few things I would still like to do. I want to buy an
angled bolt handle of the M-N sniper style, not to clear a scope mount, but for the increased leverage when operating the action. I will most likely replace the scope mount I am using now. That lesson has been learned and learned well. I have strange thoughts of glass bedding the rifle and reinforcing the stock then shaving it away to free float the barrel, but I am sure that these are delusions.
Well there it is, the Mosin-Bubba Scout Rifle.
