Squeezing every ounce of acc. from my 91/30

[docsleepy]

Suggest handloading for mosin nagant Use Lee dies or any other brand. I use Norma brass, much better primer pockets. Sierra .311 diameter 150 Gr spire point. Varget 44 grains.

Recrown end of muzzle, visit YouTube to learn how to do this with a Lee case trimmer. You'll need the large size Lee cutter not the smaller size. This alone reduced my group size from about 4 inches to about 2 inches using a seven power scope at 100 yards with reloaded rounds

I took one MN 9130 gun and cut barrel down to about 20 inches, this rifle seems to be my most accurate at the moment. Some stock work was also needed.

Throat wear is an issue with these older rifles. I used a Hornady device to measure the position of the lands, in a store, to handpick the best rifles. There was a variation of almost 0. 2 inches in contact with the bullet.

If you recrown the muzzle properly after cutting back to good rifling, you should have. Sharp rifling.

Take off the rear sight, mount dovetail rings, glue with JB Weld, use a NCStae *pistol type scope. $40.

You can use JB Weld to bed action. Coat metal parts of underbody receiver with shoe polish wax, generous JB Weld at tang and lug recesses of wooden stock, after thoroughly removing cosmoline. Wax portions of screws that won't be inside screw threads. Adjust the trigger tension prior to bedding. I plan to use mine for hunting, so I adjusted only for 5 pounds. See YouTube videos for how to bend the metal spring.

I'm sure it is overkill, but I actually anneal the neck of Norma brass periodically so that the tension is constant. Set your full length die to do the absolute minimum shoulder pushback, or else only neck size Otherwise you'll have a head separation like I had once. If you add a 3 mm spacer, made from washers, to the bottom of a Lee .308 Win neck sizing die, you will have a neck die for 7.62x54

 

[docsleepy]

The way I re crowned muzzle with Lee trimmer was to use six or 7 mm spindle, surrounded by circular portions of drinking straws as shams. If you get the spindle for say six PPC, or 7 mm 08 it will easily fit in the rifling of the 7.62

 

[docsleepy]

This is a typical group from an off the rack 91/30. This rifle was counterbored. I cut off the counterbored area and recrowned. Sorry for slightly fuzzy photo. This is right after bedding. Far shot I think is flyer but I was rezeroing. From this group at 100 yards, planned to move the scope 1" to the left.

I used a hacksaw to cut off barrel ends, trying hard to cut square, because the recrowning is LOT less work that way. Finally bought $40 6" cutoff circular saw from Harbor Freight and some metal "cutting" (grinding, really) circular blades. This makes it a TON easier to make a reasonably square cut. When placing the muzzle in the saw (out of the stock of course) line the BORE up square, not the edge of the barrel. Use shims to appropriately take care of the conical shape of the barrel.

Note: I prefer to be 1 or 2" high at 100 yards.

 

[Paper_Zombie]

That's actually pretty nice grouping. If mine did that consistently, I'd call it good.

I didn't get to sleep at all due to an earache, and I'm still hoping to get to the range. Not sure how I'll do with sleepy-eyes, lol.

I'll see if I can't save a target or two for pics if I do end up going.

 

[docsleepy]

You want to get the Large lee case trimmer. Lee Case Trimmer Cutter and Lock Stud Large 480 Ruger, 500 S&W Magnum, 50 BMG available at Midway (in stock!)

Attached is a photo of that rifle's muzzle after recrowning and before re-bluing (cold blue).

Notice the now-obvious rifling! Also, even the large case trimmer doesn't make it all the way to the edge of the barrel. Just left it, after cleaning up the outside edge a bit with a file so it wouldn't snag on anything.

It takes me about one or two hours to get that crown to my liking if I cut it with the chop saw reasonably square. That is less than the time I spend on one range trip and boy, is it worth it! I just happen to have 6PPC and 7mm08 case trimming gauge (spindles) available, and if you take plastic straws (McDonalds) and cut sections and cut them lenghtwise and use several, you can make a nice shim that will keep the trimmer cutting square to the BORE. THis is a nice homebrew way to do a nice recrowning. It isn't original with me; I watched several youtube videos.

In order to bevel the sharp edges of the rifling, get a LARGE brass "round-head" single-slot (not Phillips) screw from the hardware store, larger head than the bore. Buy a small tube of valve-lapping paste from auto parts store. Put valve-lapping paste into the the slot on the screw and on the round head also. Chuck screw into variable speed hand drill, hold the drill pretty much inline with the bore, and slowly gently lap just a few seconds, stop and look at your work, decide if you want to do any more or not. Goal is SYMMETRY. Want everything exactly the same in all directions.

 

[Paper_Zombie]

Wow...that is, um...an awful large crown.

I guess if it works, it works though. I have a couple gunsmiths in the area that won't charge much for a simple recrowning though. Probably less than or equal to what I'd spend on the tooling and shipping costs to do it myself...and then of course, I wouldn't have to worry about messing it up.

 

[docsleepy]

$130 rifle. I wanted to see just how good I could get it to shoot for pennies. I did have to buy dies for 7.62x54R. The Lee classic Loader also works very well; I have one and have gotten good results. I have not yet seen any appreciable difference in grouping between 43, 44 and 45 grains.

I did use 174 and 180 grain HP match type bullets in the beginning and got better results with them than with the hunting bullets I'm now using, but since I use this rifle for deer hunting, I figured I needed to work with the hunting bullets even if they are a bit less accurate.

I have not yet proven any difference between using .308 spindles in the dies instead of .310 or so. I have both. Lee advises to just use the .308's. Can't prove it either way yet. Every rifle I have slugged (all of them) that I bought for $130 has been .311 bore. Use very small fishing weight, lubed, small dowel rods.

 

[docsleepy]

Lee large case trimmer / cutter is $8
7mm08 case length gauge is $5. and is available You could also use a 6.8SPC or anything in the 7'ish range. If you can find anyone who will recrown a muzzle accurately for $13, take them up on it!

I have a varmint Savage .223 barrel that has almost exactly this type crown on it (recessed flat center surrounded by raised rim) straight from the factory.

I was just stunned at how simple it is to do this myself, at home. Again, there are multiple youtube videos one it. One of them is from Larry Potterfield. The one I watched did a much more crude job than the Lee cutter.

Use a bit of oil on the plastic straw shims so it all floats well. Wear thin fabric gloves if you have tender hands like I do. Never hurts to learn a new skill!

 

[Paper_Zombie]

Well, while I've never put a crown on a barrel, per se...as a former machinist, I'm familiar with the technique and tooling, and would be much more comfortable with a sharp chamfer tool, vices, and a lathe, lol.

Give me a turret mill, a lathe, and a rotary grinder and I could probably build you a gun. Alas, I do not have a home workshop, and no longer have access to the shop. After working with tolerances of .0002, I simply can't abide shoddy workmanship, even if it's my own.

Delicate stuff I just prefer to leave to the professionals, lol.

 

[docsleepy]

I can understand that. It may well be the right answer. I just was unwilling to pay half the price of the original rifle, to a gunsmith for the possibility of improving the accuracy, when for $13 I could reduce the error rate by 50%.

I think total error is the square room of the sum of the squares of all the errors, or something like that. My problem is that I don't know which term in that long list of error variances in a rifle is the largest, and which is the next largest, and so on.

Not wishing to spend much $$, I simply attack the ones that I can cheaply, and see what happens! I was looking for a rifle cheap enough that members of the less-than-wealthy church to which I go, could afford it. The MN fits the bill nicely.

I have a couple of evil black rifles that group around an inch, and a benchrest gun that was capable of .375 and probably will do a lot better now that I learned how to anneal and got a 2-oz trigger on it...my hunting 7mm08 groups about 1.25" but had a double-group problem that may be solved by my most recent bedding effort. (It and two mosins on the kitchen table this weekend). What I have noticed about the MNs is that they seem to hold their zeroes well. I have three that I have worked on a fair bit and they are all under 2" at 100 yards, some closer to 1". If I can make them hold zero and group better than 1.5" I think I'll have very capable deer rifles up to 225 yards or so. And WROL rifles good to 400 yards or so, for very little outlay.

At any rate, I would never have been willing to try to learn some of these techniques on one of my expensive rifles!! The MNs added considerably to the skills I've picked up since the presidential election of 2008. Never had a firearm prior to that. Now can handload, headspace, fireform, bed, anneal, crown and simple trigger job. Only tools available were hand drill and hacksaw. Due to a friend dying, I'll be getting a milling machine and lathe for temporary storage soon....may learn how to chamber!

 

[stubbicatt]

Mexican Match ammo is really a fun and relatively inexpensive way to accomplish some of your goals. The Lee Loader for a few cartridges is also an enjoyable if not somewhat frustrating and noisy. I have many fond memories of the Lee Loader with x54r at a private range loading the same casing over and again. It was a lot of fun.

 

[docsleepy]

I have a Lee Loader for 7.62x54R. I adjusted the dipper for 44 grains of varget and set the bullet seater to my desired seating distance. Works well.

If you use Norma brass the primers will slide in without going off. I had some unpleasantries with S&B brass; buy a primer pocket uniformer if you are going to use those, as their primer pocket is SHALLOW.

I took a fired casing (i.e. fireformed) and made a fiberglass casting over its outside, and with a bit of work used it to find a way to measure effectively the headspacing of my cases. Found I was way oversizing them in my full length sider set up per manufacturer instructions. A bit of powder blowback from a nearly-separated case convinced me to do all this partiicular research.... One of my mosins has a bit shorter chamber than another.

You can make a headspace checking tool for checking rifles prior to buying by grinding down an appropriately sized washer to I think .074. Cut out a notch for the extractor to fit.

All of my mosins have the lands SO FAR IN FRONT of the case that seating "to the lands" is out of the question,so all I have tried is just a consistent COAL, rather than attempt any fine tuning there.

The NCStart scope was indispensible. I wasn't willing to try and tap the receiver after reading some horror stories of super hard metal....I tried to drill into one piece of Mosin metal and ruined four bits. For others, it has worked well and allowed them to use standard scopes.

The bolt handle can be turned down easily with an acetylene torch and a bit of pulling with pliers; have done this to a couple. Way cheaper than having somone do it for me.

 

[holdencm9]

Your problem is that, accuracy isn't measured in ounces. It is measured in minutes of angle.

 

[docsleepy]

^ ??

 

[BCRider]

With modern ammo, I was getting consistent 4" groups, mostly within 3.

With surplus, it expanded out to 8-10 inches

PZ, shot using the stock iron sights it sounds like your "old guy eyes" are pretty much on par with my own "old guy eyes" Those with keener eyes and nerves can manage slightly better with a good rifle and good ammo. Me? I'll have to be content with these 3 to 4 inch groups on my better days with plain sights. When using a bench rested scoped rifle I manage 1 to 1/5 inch groups fine. I don't do enough rested shooting to see them get tighter. Seems like rested shooting is as much a skill as prone, kneeling and standing. The devil is in the details and I'm still learning.

Those lathe'less muzzle crown tricks are OK for fixing something that broken or badly worn. But I'm with you and to achieve a truly accurate and completely axial crown job it's simply not possible without a lathe.

No offense docsleepy. You've obviously had success with the hand tool options for this but those methods rely too much on the existing crown being at an exact 90 to the bore axis. And as someone that's messed with a lot of things over the years I've found that it's never wise to assume that something is what it should be. I've simply been surprised and dissapointed too often in the past. So for my tastes I'd rather chuck the barrel into my lathe and reform the crown after centering up the bore axis to as good a degree as I can.

 

[holdencm9]

^ ??

My comment was directed at the OP, docsleepy, not you. And it was a pretty lame joke to begin with but i couldn't help it. In all seriousness this has been a fun and enlightening thread to read.

 

[John C]

I think your first step should be to segregate a sample of ammo into batches that are the same bullet diameter. Then start with a batch of .310 or .3105 and see how the shoot. Then try the .309 and .308.

If that still doesn't get you what you want, start pulling bullets and refilling the cases with uniform powder charges.

You could pull all the .308 bullets and sell them for probably more than you paid for the whole case of ammo!

-John

 

[docsleepy]

Made it to a 200 yard range today and worked more with two MNs and one rebuilt Savage. I'm attaching a photo of both a 100- and 200- yard target from one MN (the other isn't much different).

4 or 5 inch drop from 100 yards to 200 yards. I shot the 3-shot group at 200 yards first (3.5" 3-shot group) and then the 100-yard group to see where the zero was. These were neck-sized cases previously shot in that same rifle, Varget 44 grains, 150 grain Sierra .311 SP. These cases had been used for 5+ previous shots.

Happy to have you guys blessed with lathes to use them! I just don't have one. And to be clear, I *CUT OFF* between 2 and 9 inches of barrel, so there was no chance of "using the previous square cut"! Used hacksaw for some, chop saw for others after I bought it ($40). The trick is the long spindle of the Lee Trimmer -- THAT is what makes it square. You can see it obviously when you start (it cuts only on the "high" side for a long long time.....you can't stop until it cuts all the way 'round!).

These are very crude techniques to be sure. But they are virtually free, and for $130 to be able to get shots within 3" at 200 yards....with a 70 year old rifle....gratifying. And easily transferrable to others in my church who are dirt poor.

I can always pull out my Shilen barreled 6PPC with the 2 oz trigger, but that isn't going to be much of a hunting gun! Part of the fun of this hobby is learning how to do things myself rather than depend on paid professionals. Since I may end up with a lathe anyway, soon, I'll have lots more options!

 

[Paper_Zombie]

Since I may end up with a lathe anyway, soon, I'll have lots more options!

Lathes are fun fun, but watch out. Machining as a hobby goes far beyond tinkering with guns. Before you know it, you'll be making all kinds of stuff. Neighbors will be coming to you with broken screws, etc.

@John C

That was precisely my plan. I didn't make it to the range today (still muddy out from last night's rain), but I did measure and separate about 100 rounds. I had pulled about 60 or so at .3095-.310, and about twenty at .309.

They're waiting for me next time I go out. Hopefully Friday.

 

[Centurian22]

Wow awesome thread! I guess I have to count myself luckier than I thought. I'm getting 2-3" groups at 100yards with my '42 Tula and surplus (147gr I think) ammo. The only explanation I have beyond sheer dumb luck is it had brass end caps of the upper hand guard possibly indicating (from what little I've been able to find out) it was awarded to an officer and therefor potentially of higher quality. Anyway's I have had wonderful luck with trigger shiming and polishing (down to a smooth and crisp(er) 4-4.5lbs), as well as "spot corking". I corked by the action screws (where some use shims) and at each end of the upper hand guard. Also oiled the cork pieces so they don't attract moisture and trap it against the metal.

I pulled two surplus rounds just to check the powder charge weight out of curiosity. I only plan to 'Mexican match' load for some hunting rounds after slugging my barrel to find what bullet size I'll best be served using.

Docsleepy: could you elaborate on making a 7.64x54r neck sizer from a .308?!? I have a .308 neck sizer and would love to avoid purchasing a new die if I can get by with a DIY trick of what I have (as long as its reversible). Also any idea if a .308 bullet seater can be used on 7.62x54r?

Thanks and good luck to the OP with the accurizing!

 

[BCRider]

Since I may end up with a lathe anyway, soon, I'll have lots more options!

Oh my.... you have NO idea how deep THAT swamp can get....

If you have the time and want to take up the challenge you can make a LOT of your own tooling and have a great time doing so. It'll make you a better machinist AND save a bunch of bucks at the same time.

The morse tapers in this photo were made by me. I used existing arbors to zero out the cutter on the compound rest and an MT3 to MT5 adapter to wring the taper marked with felt pen to fine tune the fit with a lathe file. In the end a few ounces of push required a bunch of pounds of pull to yank the taper free so I'd call them successful. I went on to make a few more for various tooling uses that didn't make it into this picture. The point being that if you think abotu the basics you can do some amazing stuff in the machine shop.

 

[michaelbsc]

Bedding alone seems simple enough...but I also have to take into account any pressure on the barrel further down. I've heard of wrapping a layer of oiled felt around the barrel....Well, the only felt I know of is the craft stuff, which is pretty darn thick,

The ammo discussion seems to be well under control, and over my head anyway.

Let me offer this about bedding the action and dampening the barrel harmonics. You're correct that finding the "right" thickness cloth is hard. So don't.

Modern cloth like acrylic wont work because it melts.

Wool works great, and wool roving, basically loose wool fiber, is available at most fabric stores for almost nothing. A half oz of the stuff is more than you'll know what to do with.

You can mat it down with gun oil to "make" your own felt any thickness you need. You can stuff it into cracks in the stock to bed the action, and tightening the screws will make it conform to the contour. Plus it's period correct for the rifle. And it won't be damaged by heat.

 

[docsleepy]

Wow. I don't even know what a Morse Taper is, but those look very difficult to make! I used to run a milling machine for an alphabet agency of the government when I was an engineering student 30 years ago.

The idea to use matted woolen cloth, oiled -- brilliant! Sounds like a very easy way to "bed" an action!

As for the Mosin neck sizer made from a .308 neck sizer -- attached are the photos. (Sorry it has some accumulated grime on it)

This is a standard Lee .308 Winchester Collet Neck Sizer Die, with the breechlock adapter. The primer stem is intentionally broken off because I once wanted to size some cases that I'd already primed. I normally deprime with either a decapper or full length sizer.

If you look at the cartridge specifications, basically the 7.62x54R is 3mm LONGER than the .308 Winchester. You want the "neck" of the case to just fit inside the collet that is inside the Lee collet die. Since the case is 3mm too long, it is going to jam 3mm too far inside the Lee collet die. The fix is to create 3mm worth of "spacing" to accomodate the longer case. You could do this with anything; I chose steel washers. The trick is to ream out the inside large enough to accept the 7.62x54R case, and the OUTSIDE small enough to fit inside the I.D. of the Lee press (or whatever) that you are using, so you can get the die in and out.

It could be done with a "stick on" simpler contraption since it will only be used in compression, if you want it to be "reversible" easier than breaking the glue.

 

[docsleepy]

Centurion22: I am very impressed if you are getting 2-3" out of surplus ammo, but sounds like you have tuned your trigger a bit more than I. Mine are at 5-6 lbs.

From looking back again at the case dimensions of .308Win and 7.62x54R, the case dia just below the neck are very similar. To account for the 3mm longer length of the MN case, you would probably back the die upwards 3mm in the press and re-lock it. At that point, it should seat fine for 7.62 x54R.....but I have never tried it.

I have also used the Lee Classic Loader and as far as I can tell, they work fine. This is not collet neck sizing (which presses the neck onto a carefully machined exact dia. spindle) but is O.D. squeezing -- but it works. For someone who wanted to get into "precision" Mosin reloading on the cheap, that would be an ideal way to go. Using Normal brass in my expedrience results in almost zero primers going off.

Your 1942 officer's piece might have seen less action also,,,,and thus less throat erosion of the rifling there. From my measurements in an accomodative store, there are big variations in throat erosion.

 

[Centurian22]

I was impressed myself. I was even more impressed after setting some unbroken clays (4" I believe) at 75 and 100 yards. With just the stock iron sights, not only was I able to break them relatively consistently, but so could three other people, two of whom had never fired a mosin before. Mine is also dead on at 100 yards. Not the usual 6-12" high that many people encounter.

As for not seeing much use, I'm not so sure. It is counter-bored about an inch and the rifleing isn't the sharpest I've seen. My FIL picked it out as a gift for me (as I was away during an awesome sale at my LGS) having basic used firearm knowledge but knowing nothing about mosins beyond what I told him after a few minutes of online research myself. I often wonder if I would have chosen a different one myself and ended up with poorer results.

Thanks for the tips on the die mod. I'll also have to check availability and price a die set, vs the classic whack a mole kit in the near future. Then try to obtain a couple boxes of the elusive 7.62x54r boxer brass which I will probably only use for hunting and possibly the "Frozen Mosins" shoot they have in Feb up here in Maine. If things are out of stock or more than I want to pay right now I may see just how creative I can get.