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

I'm wondering just how accurate a rifle could be when shooting:

a. surplus 7.62x54R
b. paw loaded 7.62x54R

The rifle would be used at ranges between 300 and 1000 yards. The objective is to create a rifle for under £1000, which is cheap to feed and capable of pretty good accuracy. I'm thinking of maybe a Border barrel and a laminated wood stock from Richard's Microfit , but unsure about the action and trigger. Any suggestions along those lines, and what level of accuracy might ultimately be possible from this cartridge (and this one only please).

meles meles wrote: The objective is to create a rifle for under £1000, which is cheap to feed and capable of pretty good accuracy.

What's your definition of "pretty good accuracy"?

From this particular combination, I don't know. Hence the question.

I rather suspect that we're on the wrong side of 2 or 3 MoA but given what the Finns were capable of with their accurised Nagants I'd imagine that there is scope to get close to that, maybe, just maybe, better it.

I could get just over 1MOA for a 5 shot group @100m with an MN Sniper with Milsurp Light Ball off a rest. The 'scope let it down as one click was a lot!

That sounds pretty impressive ! So it may be that with a decent barrel on it, a standard MN action in a well fitted and bedded stock might be capable of sub MoA accuracy ?

I believe the Finnish rifles were rebarreled to .308 rather than the standard .312 and was redesignated 7.62x53R http://www.chuckhawks.com/30Russian.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7.62%C3%9753mmR

Having a new barrel and .308 bullets to choose from would certainly help accuracy, but for under £1000 there's plenty of options.

The triggers are a PITA on the MN however you can do a reasonable job of lightening, and I agree a new barrel that allows you to use .308 bullets would help as well. I may well have a trigger return spring left over, if so you are welcome to it. A new stock and bedding would make a difference as well, the rifle as standard needs more weight in my opinion to make recoil more bearable.

MN barrels can be very difficult to remove, I watched a video a while ago and I think the person taking the barrel out had to go past the 240ft/lbs mark, I was cringing as I watched :shock:

Also A border is going to cost a fortune, why not consider something like a TrueFlite?

I have a MN M1891 with an amazing trigger - purchased from Paul Green at www.thamesvalleyguns.co.uk - it is now a light, single stage unit that breaks very cleanly, a real testament to the magic Paul can breathe on a rifle. It's nothing like the standard MN 'dragging an anchor on a chain across a cobbled street and then snagging it on the pavement'.

ovenpaa wrote:Also A border is going to cost a fortune, why not consider something like a TrueFlite?

I'd never heard of TrueFlite until you mentioned it... I went with Border simply because they are the best barrels I know of but I am sure there are others out there worthy of consideration.

Border are good, however a TrueFlight will probably cost GBP400 less and is a lot of barrel for the money, Christel and I both use them for our wildcat cartridges with stunningly good results.

I think this has the making of a very interesting project. I shot next to a MN shooter a couple of years ago, he was running a tacticool 54R with a 'scope as long as a drain pipe with a composite stock all in matt black. It shot very well.

I rather like the standard Russian / Ukrainian POSP 8x42 scopes. I think they're made from old T34 tank gun barrels with a nice piece of glass at each end and a very good reticule. The MN 1891 I have is quite accurate hence my interest in seeing just how well this cartridge will perform in a really good barrel / stock set up. My, perhaps simplistic view, is that the barrel is the most important component of any gun. Everything else is just a means of getting the bullet through that barrel as efficiently as possible, hence I'd pay most for the barrel, then spend the rest of any budget on the action , trigger and stock.

I'll go and hunt down Trueflight on t' interweb...