Mosin Madness And My Method

[Cosmoline]

The fall harvest of Mosin-Nagant rifles has come. I've recently picked up a very nice M30 (91-30) Tikkakoski and a near mint M44 Polish. Two of the finest Mosins ever made, IMHO. The Tikka stock has some repair work but otherwise it's mint. It's one of the fully Finlandized 91/30's with the new stock, new high blade sight and new barrel. More on those in a bit.

I also prepared a short demonstration of the loading and shooting method I use for Mosin-Nagants. The "wing" shape stack on the stripper and the ramming method help to minimize rimlock chances which is especially useful with older and rattier Mosins that may have a worn out interrupter. With these it's not really all that necessary but it's a good habit to get into. In the delta shape the rims naturally overlap in the right direction and you just "fly" the stack into the magazine using the top one to ram it home.

For cycling the bolt I use my palm and arm muscles NOT my fingers and hand muscles. With a little practice you can develop a nice smooth flow and you don't need to bring the rifle down to your chest to get leverage for your fingers.

Here's a short demonstration vid:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLZxpfcz_Dw&feature=youtu.be

 

[Cosmoline]

Some observations about these very interesting designs.

Polish M44:

--The trigger is a single stage type and very light for a military trigger. It's about the lightest stock Mosin trigger I've felt.

--The rifle is, not surprisingly, best with Polish light ball. This was the 54R made right about the same time as the M44, from the 1950's on. It's a very advanced cartridge design that features a 310" steel core bullet with an unusual hollow base. Later Polish 54R is more standard with the Russian types.

--It shot low, not high. At 100 yards the group was 3 inches low. Easier to fix than shooting high, that's for sure--just raise the tangent a notch.

--The rifle is OK with heavier ball. Best group of the day was about 21/2" at 100 yards, though I wasn't really trying to get a super tight group today. With some handload tweaking and high end bullets I suspect I can get inch groups.

--Carrying, the rifle is compact but not particularly light.

--I shot bayonet in and out at close range and 100 yards but could see no significant difference in groups apart from a very small right shift with the bayonet out. As before, I think the effect of the bayonet on M44's gets exaggerated.

--The post-and-globe sight is simple and easy to use, though not the best for precision shooting. I prefer it to the blade sight of the M30 because it doesn't keep snagging on everything.

--Overall a fantastic shooter. These are getting harder and harder to find. I lost several auctions for them on GB before finding this one at an Oregon gun show for the low low price of $300.

 

[Cosmoline]

The M30 is the Finnish answer to the 91/30. They captured a ton of these during the Winter and Continuation wars, and had many parts to recycle. Some were reissued as-is, others were partially revamped, and Tikka built up entirely new ones on receivers as well. These are called "M30's" sometimes to distinguish them from 91/30's. The design is very similar to the Soviet rifles, though. They were made to replace the M91's as reserve unit weapons. As such they didn't get the heavy match barrels of the M28's or M39's. The barrels are pencil thin and have a simple blade sight, often stacked high to bring down the zero. Some observations:

--The barrel heats up fast but also cools off fast. With my M39 and M28, the massive steel barrels get super hot and stay super hot esp. on warm days. I usually get burned by them during sessions. That's the drawback of having all that steel. In the cold months they also radiate a lot of heat which badly obscures the sight picture after about 25-30 rounds in quick fire. It takes half an hour for the heat to settle down. With the M30 it was safe to touch within a few minutes of a session, and didn't heat up as much in the first place.

--The barrel is not as inherently accurate as the heavier Finns. However, it can do remarkably well with the right loads. This one proved to be finicky as I expected. It did not like light ball, but locked in right on the bull with 203 grain SP commercial rounds. The difference between groups was pretty remarkable. With light ball it gave a poor and scattered group of about 4" at 100 yards. With the 203 grain it gave a 1 1/2" group right on the bull. I think this rifle will be a good one to experiment with D166 loads.

--The front sight is stacked and not too secure. I put some brass shim under it to lock it down better. This kind of problem is not typically found in Finnish production rifles but the method of stacking the front sight base higher and higher was not their best idea. The sight is sharp and tends to grab at things. But on the plus side the sight picture is wonderful and precise.

--The trigger is a standard two stage Finn with a very nice pull.

--Carrying, the rifle is about a pound heavier than the 91/30, probably because of the denser and larger birch two-piece stock. This is not one of the "potbelly" versions, but does have the joinery work in the middle. It balances very well and is a pleasure to shoot.

--Overall I have no doubt that esp. with handloads this will outshoot nine out of ten Mosins, and certainly most all Soviet 91/30's. But then again you can throw almost anything in a 91/30 and it will give you workable groups provided the bore isn't shot out. Whereas the Finn, finely tuned, spits out what it doesn't like. It's always a tradeoff. There's a wisdom to the Soviet slop.

--These were once easily found for cheap, and can still be found by a sharp eyed buyer mixed into 91/30 lots. But they're getting harder to find at auction and the only reason I won this one was because the stock had been repaired. The repair was very well done though and there's no sign of further problems. It isn't unusual to see cracked birch Finnish stocks. They had to work with substandard wood supplies during the war which led to innovative methods of joining the pieces together. It also means over the decades some of it has cracked along burrs and imperfections. In most cases these can be fixed without further problems.