tradja
Member
I was going to post this last winter, but never got around to it. Another THR'er asked me about it in a PM, and since I have it typed up, I've been meaning to ask about this.
Last winter, my wife and I went down to the local cinder pit to shoot. It can be a real yahoo scene. This time, there were 3 drunk Lithuanian men shooting at empty vodka bottles at 50 yds with an M44. They had no ear or eye protection
and each one had a flinch like you wouldn't believe, like 18" of flinch. 
Yeah, I know, we should have left. Anyway, they were friendly and offered to let me shoot. (in general, I am not into making a mess with glass, but this was their gig and the Pit has bigger worries). I don't recall precisely, but I think I remember being surprised that they were shooting Olympic (Greek?) ammo. I didn't know there was Greek 7.62x54.
I lined up the sights and squeezed the trigger. For the first time that afternoon, a bottle broke, but I felt a hot spray across my face.
Notice the spray across my lenses as well.
It felt worse than it looks. Each one of those blood spots (including the bigger one between my eyebrows) had a flake of black debris at the bottom of it. I ejected the shell, looked at it for a pierced primer or blowout, and seeing none, dropped it on the ground. I handed the rifle back to the Lithuanian man and thanked him. He wanted me to take another shot (he was excited that I had broken a bottle), but I politely declined. They went back to firing it and it seemed to operate just fine.
Then I went home to pick black bits of who knows what (lead? mercury-based primer?) out of my face with a needle. I still have no idea what the heck happened. My only guess is that as a lefty, I was catching some debris spray that the right-handed Lithuanians were not.
I admit that one shot from one rifle is a pretty small sample to judge all 100,000,000+ Mosins by. If this had not happened, I'm sure I would have had a great time with the friendly Lithuanians and picked up some variety of $69 Mosin on the way home that day. I searched this on other forums, and didn't find any reference to this happening to anyone else. I chalk it up to a fluke, from a very likely poorly-maintained and possibly-abused rifle. I don't know what one would look for on the rifle to determine what did this. Headspace? Bolt wear? Stuffing Greek surplus .30-06 into a Mosin?
Any ideas what caused this? As a history enthusiast AND a cheapskate, I want to like Mosins, but this was just unpleasant.
Last winter, my wife and I went down to the local cinder pit to shoot. It can be a real yahoo scene. This time, there were 3 drunk Lithuanian men shooting at empty vodka bottles at 50 yds with an M44. They had no ear or eye protection
and each one had a flinch like you wouldn't believe, like 18" of flinch. Yeah, I know, we should have left. Anyway, they were friendly and offered to let me shoot. (in general, I am not into making a mess with glass, but this was their gig and the Pit has bigger worries). I don't recall precisely, but I think I remember being surprised that they were shooting Olympic (Greek?) ammo. I didn't know there was Greek 7.62x54. I lined up the sights and squeezed the trigger. For the first time that afternoon, a bottle broke, but I felt a hot spray across my face.
Notice the spray across my lenses as well.
It felt worse than it looks. Each one of those blood spots (including the bigger one between my eyebrows) had a flake of black debris at the bottom of it. I ejected the shell, looked at it for a pierced primer or blowout, and seeing none, dropped it on the ground. I handed the rifle back to the Lithuanian man and thanked him. He wanted me to take another shot (he was excited that I had broken a bottle), but I politely declined. They went back to firing it and it seemed to operate just fine.
Then I went home to pick black bits of who knows what (lead? mercury-based primer?) out of my face with a needle. I still have no idea what the heck happened. My only guess is that as a lefty, I was catching some debris spray that the right-handed Lithuanians were not.
I admit that one shot from one rifle is a pretty small sample to judge all 100,000,000+ Mosins by. If this had not happened, I'm sure I would have had a great time with the friendly Lithuanians and picked up some variety of $69 Mosin on the way home that day. I searched this on other forums, and didn't find any reference to this happening to anyone else. I chalk it up to a fluke, from a very likely poorly-maintained and possibly-abused rifle. I don't know what one would look for on the rifle to determine what did this. Headspace? Bolt wear? Stuffing Greek surplus .30-06 into a Mosin?
Any ideas what caused this? As a history enthusiast AND a cheapskate, I want to like Mosins, but this was just unpleasant.
