The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

If you truly want to worship at the High Altar of Mosin Nagant then you could do a lot worse than registering with the 'Gunboards' forum. All the info you could ever need about Cosmo removal, polishing triggers, barrel cleaning, history etc.
Just remember that your rifle will have been stripped down and refurbished at least once (probably more often) during its life whether it needed it or not. Keeps the workers busy see! Also there a degrees of 'all matching numbers'. I don't care what most RFDs say, unless there are two Cyrillic characters that match the number on the barrel shank it's a force matched part. Tula rifles seem to demand higher prices and apart from a nicer stamps there is no discernable difference. Many were made using Izhevsk parts during the war anyway.
Finns, in my humble opinion, are worth tracking down. All of mine have lovely triggers and bright shiny bores. I wandered into Henry Kranks last year and picked up a Finned 91/30 with a Tikka barrel that was mislabelled as a Soviet rifle for a lot less than some RFDs sell bog standard ones for. There are always a couple of Polish M44 s for sale somewhere (there's even a mint mislabelled Yugoslavian refurbed M44 out there if anyone's interested).
Still tickles me you bought yours for £110. Also a M38 for £60, is quite frankly, free!

DanTheMan wrote:

legs748 wrote: In the end I decided on a 1938 M91/30 from Tula, with reasonable wood, a nice bolt and importantly a good feel to the trigger. Now it gets sent for proof and I can play with it when it gets back. I can spend the time in between thinking about what others i can save from the hatchet man!

Cool, how much was it and from which dealer ?

There should always ALWAYS be a place in everybodies cabinet for a mosin nagant, highly addictve to collect, some have been around the "bloc". Me have 4 and will get more.

I sold my m44 just to make a slot for another gun. I will get another one as I miss it dearly. As for shooting them, 600 yards with Lightball on the money and Bayo extended !

Blighty wrote:The bore will need cleaning on an industrial scale and clean patches take many hours to achieve. They tend to chuck lead high and right. Corrosive ammo is fine but remember to clean the bore thoroughly after use. You may have a problem with the bolt sticking after firing (to the point where you may have to whack it with a lump of wood to lift it) however this is a result of cosmolene and lacquer (from the steel ammo cases) binding together when hot - clean the receiver thoroughly!

Well I picked up the beast from the east last week and shot it for the first time on sunday morning. On arrival home the action came out of the stock and got stripped down, the degreaser from work made short work of any cosmoline, the stock got a rub down with some wax furniture polish and everything went back together.

At the range I suffered all of which Blighty mentions above, shots were going about 6" high and right at 75m, easy enough to aim off but I would like to get the windage straight. Am I right that if I work out the angle the sight is off and then work that angle out over the sight radius it will give me the amount I need to drift the foresight? 1.24mm seems quite a lot! Primary extraction proved stiff too, the final click to get the bolt to vertical before pulling back often needed a thumb on the reciever and a good tug, I have since bought a .410 brush to attack the chamber with, but i also noticed a small scuff in the same place on a lot of the cases so i may take a chamber cast if a good brush out doesnt solve this.

I took some pics but the forum wont accept them from my boing, ill have to get my camera and laptop out at some point.

All in all i'm quite enjoying my first battle rifle, its not flash but its mine.

legs748 wrote: All in all i'm quite enjoying my first battle rifle, its not flash but its mine.

Mosin's are great fun mate - and a piece of history.

I don't think there's many rifles that offer more enjoyment for the money. :goodjob:

Mikaveli wrote: All in all i'm quite enjoying my first battle rifle, its not flash but its mine.

If it's flash you're wanting, get the carbine...

meles meles wrote:

Mikaveli wrote: All in all i'm quite enjoying my first battle rifle, its not flash but its mine.

If it's flash you're wanting, get the carbine...

It's on the list!