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Congrats on your new rifle !
and thanks VM for this most interesting & well written right up.

snayperskaya wrote:The diamond and triangle stamps on the bolt are quite common but the meaning of them seems to be unknown in Mosin circles......some marks remain a mystery unfortunately.

My 1926 Izhevsk ex-Dragoon has loads of marks and cartouches on the stock and metalwork and the meaning of most of those are unknown.

That's a shame, but if you don't know what they mean then no-one will!

meles meles wrote:Heed the big chikkin ! D46 is the way to go !

And klikky https://full-bore.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f ... t=m28%2F76

I think I might go down that road. The Lapua D46 bullet isn't much dearer than the 167gr Scenar so it's worth a try. I was speaking to my Finnish friend over the weekend who is sending a sling over for me, and he also recommended the use of the D166 bullet, which is a whopping 200gr. What powder do you use with your pawloads? In terms of suitable powders on hand, I have Viht N135, N140, Reload Swiss RS50 and RS60.

I reload for 7.5x55 Swiss I use reloder17 and am very happy with that, n140 also works I would suspect the reload Swiss version of rl17 would be a good choice. It might be worth giving the ppu 7.5 174grn bullet a try as it is a copy if the gp11 bullet and that has a good long range rep, it's also a .308 bullet and is available at very good prices

WelshShooter wrote:

snayperskaya wrote:The diamond and triangle stamps on the bolt are quite common but the meaning of them seems to be unknown in Mosin circles......some marks remain a mystery unfortunately.

My 1926 Izhevsk ex-Dragoon has loads of marks and cartouches on the stock and metalwork and the meaning of most of those are unknown.

That's a shame, but if you don't know what they mean then no-one will!

I'm learning new things all the time, every days a school day!.I must admit my knowledge of Finnish Mosins isn't great and even with the Russian stuff there is still a lot to learn.I think the problem with the unknown stamp marks is that as well as the main Arsenals there were many many smaller ones carrying out repairs and refurbs scattered across the Soviet Union and many records were lost over the course of the war and so the origins of many of the marks remain a mystery.

Interesting as my mauser K98 sniper rifle has a Bohler barrel dated 1938.

You're right, that is interesting. I always thought that Mauser made the barrels to go with the receivers.

Back in February of this year I acquired a box of one hundred 185gr Lapua Scenar's (thanks dodgyrog!) to try out in this rifle. I used Reload Swiss RS60 and an overall length of 75.0mm. Load data from Reload Swiss' website is for a .311" diameter projectile and the data was for a 180gr projectile. I backed off the starting load slightly and stopped lower than max too. I entered the information into QuickLoad using as many input parameters that I could configure and the maximum average pressure was below other published loads, so I had reassurance this was acceptable

Wow, what an amazing combination in this rifle. Maintaining a 6 o'clock hold so my front sight doesn't obstruct my target, and putting my sight elevation to the lowest position of 300m, the point of impact is centre to the target and just outside the 10-ring at 100m.

I found a great accuracy at 49.7gr, 50.2gr and 50.7gr (I loaded at 0.5gr steps) so that's a nice band to play with! The preceeding steps were nothing special, and the final load of 50.9gr opened up the groups. I'm assuming that the starting loads had poor accuracy due to inefficient burning of powder, as I did purposely start a little lower.

See attached target from the weekend. Some patches fell off which uncovered previous groups, but there are 5 shots at 49.7gr, 5 shots at 50.2gr and 5 shots of 50.7gr, two of which started opening up the grouping.

I think the 185gr Scenar and RS60 load is the way forward for this rifle! Now, what shall I do about those 1,000 x 155gr Scenar's I have knocking about...

Looks like a winner!

Ah, lead is classified as toxic waste these days isn't it ? Tell you what, we'll take the surplus bullets off your paws and waive the disposal fee...

Nice shooting - I used to own this actual rifle a few years back, and too had (not as) good results with the lightball /heavyball when it was about. (Yes I did clean thoroughly)
The receiver on this rifle is French (Circle L) on the tang , which is rare, and made between 1892 - 1894.
I almost bought this back off the seller, but now I have another one with a New England Rec' and german stepped barrel, which I have not got round to properly shooting yet, so I may be pming you soon for some tips.

A belated congrats, its great to see it's in good hands !