well, throughout the last century or so it seems the russians kept finding themselves in one war after another with a very, very large population to supply.. its present in everything theyve made over the years.. their tanks throughout wwii were some of the simplest, and easiest to make, though were never the fastest, the most powerful, or the most armored.. german tanks were much better, but a lot more expensive to make which was fine as they had a lower population and needed the better,more expensive stuff to make up for it
i believe the russian planes in WWII were basically plywood, and judging by the actions of the government in charge over this period of time i doubt their "leaders" really gave a damn about the safety of any of their soldiers and basically had a philosophy of throwing everyone they can at a problem whether they had the appropriate tool for the job or not.. granted, their stuffs a lot better now since there hasnt been a big change in firearm technology in the last 60-70 years.. germans invented the assault rifle in the early 40s and there really has been much difference since
but, not to get off topic my point is this.. just because the mosin nagant is a bolt action, dont assume its going to live up to the expectations of what you may assume a bolt action is capable of.. most people i speak to assume theyll pick up a mosin nagant and start hitting half inch groups because its a bolt action.. and nope, not going to do it, not even going to get 1 inch groups, and will be lucky to get 2 inch groups with good ammo
thats not suggesting the design is in any way flawed.. it is a front-locking design with a total of three lugs, they can handle abuse and im fairly certain the 7.62x54R ammo ive made recently is quite a bit hotter than factory or military ammo and it handles it just fine.. with a hell of a fireball though but zero signs of wear or pressure.. the barrel i have has tooling marks on the barrel itself from when it was contoured so you can see it was slapped together with great haste and little care..
so if you were to smooth out some of the tool marks on the bolt, on contact surfaces, and had a NEW .311 barrel contourted to match the original, yeah, .5MOA is quite reasonable, but the way MOST were made theyre just not that impressive