Looking for wisdom on a mosin nagant.

[JustAnotherJoe]

Hi Everyone.
I'm like brand new here so please bear with me.. I just picked up a 1937 MN 91/30 made in Izhevsk from a local pawn shop and have been working with it for the last three days yet. In its currrent state, its in bad shape. Although the rifling is good the barrel is pitted, and cut down i dont know how many inches. The sights are third party Marbles sights from michigan and are missing the elevation ladder. Basically as far as i'm concerned the only good parts to the rifle are the receiver and bolt ( which i've just spent two days carefully working on to file down the rough file marks causing the bolt to bind ).
I'd like to order a new barrel for it but the videos and sites ive seen regarding head spacing have me a bit concerned. I'm not a smith in any sense of the word and I feel i may be over my head on this. I'm also not a bolt action type person. Since Nam ive mostly owned and used gas operated stuff like M-1s and SKS's. I guess i'm mostly worried about how safe a procedure this is on these old weapons. Will it be ok or am i risking blowing my fool head off??
Thanks in advance.

 

[JustAnotherJoe]

Thank You Mr Rogers, but perhaps i didnt express myself well.. I already Own a Mosin but due to its condition, wish to modify it and replace most of the weapon. I'm just uncertain of the safety factor that will be there once its done. On my income, i cannot afford another MN, but a part here and there over the year for the one i own and i can do it..

 

[Sport45]

On my income, i cannot afford another MN, but a part here and there over the year for the one i own and i can do it..

Mr Rogers is right. You'll probably spend less buying a replacement than fixing the one you have. Set aside $30 a month as your repair budget and in August there will be enough money to buy another.

 

[LJ-MosinFreak-Buck]

Swapping barrels is going to be the hardest thing you are going to encounter with that, as well as head-spacing. One, the barrel is going to need an impossibly large amount of force to turn off without some sort of cutting. Send Gunnerboy a private message and he'll tell you all about it. He's been through that. Secondly, since the rifle headspaces off of the rim of the cartridge, you're facing the possibility of having to keep turning the barrel in to bring it to spec, or the easiest, but possibly the most expensive way, of buying numerous bolt faces (piece with the locking lugs) to find one that will headspace correctly. This is just something to enlighten you to what you are planning to undertake. Honestly, I would just shoot the rifle in it's current condition. You never know, it may surprise you.

 

[mgkdrgn]

Thank You Mr Rogers, but perhaps i didnt express myself well.. I already Own a Mosin but due to its condition, wish to modify it and replace most of the weapon. I'm just uncertain of the safety factor that will be there once its done. On my income, i cannot afford another MN, but a part here and there over the year for the one i own and i can do it..

You can't "modify or replace" 1/2 of the weapon, much less most of it, for what it will cost you to buy a fully functional one outright. Or... you could purchase a fully functional one for parts.

Either way, the most economical way to accomplish your goal is to buy another intact, functional Mosin.

 

[JustAnotherJoe]

Thanks Guys..
I think your advice is good. All that work on the barrel sounds like a nightmare i'm not at all prepared to have. I guess i was hoping to get it to shoot out to 200 or 300 yards since i'm pretty positive that right now it wont make it past 100.
That idea of saving up 30 a month though seems pretty sound. I can keep this one as a plinker and get something better in a few months. I'll still be able to go shooting with the kids ( well, kids to me, theyre in their mid twenties ). Not exactly what i was hoping for, but then again at least what i spent isnt going to be a total waste..
Joe

 

[marktx]

How much are you into the gun for? Unless you got it for less than $50 it would be hard, in my mind, to justify throwing any money at it. Yes, you can get Mosin parts but in a lot of cases they will cost you an excessively large percentage of the cost for a whole new (surplus) rifle. From my casual observation nearly all the Mosin spare parts are from torn down rifles which means they are gonna go for a significant premium as it costs something to break the guns down.

Just to put some numbers out from Cope's Distributing.... New stock set $35, bolt head $12, trigger/mag assembly $25, rear sight parts $17 and you are up to $89 which is the same price AIM surplus is selling complete rifles for.

 

[shinyroks]

Mosins often outshoot their looks. A little pitting may not be too much of an issue, just have a 'smith check the bore and let you know that it would conceivably pass a bullet, then see what it will do.

Try to use ammo such as Winchestser or Privi, if you can find and/or afford it. This usually does the best job filling the grooves and giving you an idea of what the rifle is actually capable of. Avoid Polish ammo, I measured a few of those bullets and they all miced at 308-309". If you are going to shoot surplus, the best for that rifle is the Chech (blue-box, hard to find), followed by the Russian brass (harder to find), but the Russian steel-case will work almost as well, and you can buy it by the case right now. Or try Wolf. It's okay.

Good luck, you can't help but enjoy that rifle

 

[LJ-MosinFreak-Buck]

I've been surprised by the Mosin Nagant many times. I've read about some of the worst looking ones being able to shoot just like a clean one. Like I said, your rifle just might surprise you.

 

[ball3006]

You should have come here first before paying good money for the rifle you describe. Just pitch it in the parts bin and buy a good rifle for about 100 bucks....chris3

 

[Coyote3855]

I bought an unissued Mosin with all accessories recently at a Big Five store. Under $100 bucks out the door.

 

[LJ-MosinFreak-Buck]

Keep the rifle and do as you normally would. If nothing else, it's a fun range toy.

 

[pubb]

Lots of people report success at shooting their MNs clean. The rifling won't magically come back, but the rust and pitting will go away. Clean it regularly immediately after shooting. Surplus ammo is incorrectly called corrosive - it should be called hygroscopic. It attracts moisture, causing rust over time. Hoppe's or other cleaners will deal with it just fine.

P

 

[War Squirrel]

Here's an interesting tip I learned while on my hunt to replace my own Mosin barrel.

Remington 700 barrels have enough meat on them to allow for rethreading to the Mosin threads, and a .308 chamber is small enough to be rechambered to 7.62x54r. Also, the new bullet size will allow you to have far more options if you reload while still allowing you to shoot regular surplus without issue.

Also, Winchester Model 70 barrels will fit a Mosin action if you turn off .0018" from the height of threads. You still need to adjust the length of the barrel tang and recut the chamber though.

You can pick up Remington 700 take-off barrels for about 80 bucks.

 

[BCRider]

If you're on a budget such that you have to stick it out with the present gun then I'd say you have a good start on a Mosin sporter. Since the barrel is already cut down you can't do much else wrong to it. Although it saddens me to think that one of the potentially nicer pre-war guns has been butchered in this manner before it came into your hands. Oh well.... there's still a few million more out there....

Since you may as well approach this from the aspect of a sporter given the damage done already you are free to do things that we would not consider as proper on a stock original Mosin.

I find it odd that you have had to file smooth the bolt to make it cycle smoothly. Mosins may not have the smoothest bolt but the ones I have, three in fact, did not need any attention to cycle smoothly. By any chance does the number on the bolt not match the receiver? That's one possible reason for rough cycling. Otherwise I'd begin to suspect that something in the gun's past resulted in a bent or otherwise deformed receiver.

 

[Old Shooter]

Numrich Gun Parts Corporation has some Marbles sight parts on their web site. The elevator is listed at $1.70.

I don't know if that is the elevator for your particular model but it may work or you may call them and find one that will work.