Mosin–Nagant question?

[Blue Brick]

Is the Mosin–Nagant produced with a high quality heat treated steel? Any safety issues I should be aware of? Thanks.

 

[M-Cameron]

well they literally made Millions of them......and i have never heard of anyone having any safety issues or tragic failures with theirs.....

so your as safe as can be.....

 

[Bear70]

You just need to always beware that you are firing an over 60 year old milsruplus rifle that (most likely) was made in haste because the Germans were coming and have been in storage since WWII. That said I have never had a problem. Although I have traded away all 3 that I had.

 

[murdoc rose]

As with any gun you do want to look it over first. Firing pin gauges often come with the rifles if your worried about it. Other than that if the bores clean and the bolt locks then you should be fine.

 

[ArchAngelCD]

I've never heard of any safety problems from a Mosin Nagant that was in good operating condition. I have several and have shot at least 1000 rounds through each without a hitch. Those rifles brought Russia through both World Wars. I'm sure they can survive surplus ammo at the range... lol

 

[harmon rabb]

They're built like tanks. No need to worry. Only real "safety" concern is that the manual safety is a bitch to engage and disengage, if you were going to use it for, say, hunting. But if you want to hunt with a milsurp rifle, might as well spend a bit more and get a k31.

 

[Franco2shoot]

Built solid, no safety issues, and if you clean one up and take steps to accurize (91/30) it easily becomes a 1 moa rifle not to mention in-expensive to shoot 7.62x54r surplus ammo.

KKKKFL

 

[sansone]

I sell many because they are cheap.. no safety issue other than what harmon said, difficult safety to engage since you must pull the entire weight of the firing spring and turn to make safe. difficult to mount scope, I would spend a little more for something nicer but they are built to last. Do not expect moa accuracy, some of these have bore scars and hastily cut lands

 

[Cosmoline]

The quality is excellent. The only ones made in a hurry were the wartime production, and those are just rough around the edges. I've never seen an actual kaboom with one, in person or in photos. The only factory safety issue I ever heard of was during the First World War when the Austrians noted out-of-round chambers with some captured M91. They seemed to think this was unsafe and marked those rifles accordingly, but again I never heard of one KB'ing. Nevertheless I would be wary of first world war production rifles from the Czar's factories on the eve of the Revolution. Things got pretty crazy then.

The only after-production safety issue comes with the US Bannerman conversions to .30'06. These rifles, or at least some of them, were modified by shortening the barrel from the chamber end and as a result a portion of the rechambering sticks out into the thinner part of the barrel.

Safest of all are the Finns. You can see on Finn rifles the pips from strength tests performed on the receivers. They didn't use anything that failed to pass muster.

 

[Phaethon]

The wartime production Nagants aren't really as bad as they're thought to be. In fact, I bought a 1943 manufactured one a couple of months ago whose machining was so rough that the bayonet wouldn't even slide onto it, but when fired, severely outperformed my hexagonal pre-war 1927 Nagant. At 100 yards I shot about 3 inch groups, which is great in my opinion, as I'm an inexperienced shooter.

Bear70 is right though; in any case when firing any old firearm, there's a slight risk. As long as you inspect the weapon and get it looked at and OK'd by a gunsmith, you're golden.