Looking for details on 7.62 NATO used in a Mosin Nagant

Holleyman

Holleyman

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In a conversation with a local old timer he brought up the "fact' that in a pinch during combat that soldiers have used 7.62 NATO in a 7.62 x 54R Mosin chamber as they will work. I have done so Google-fu and have been unable to find anything on the subject. I have checked the 54r vs the 51 and the case dimensions are quite close for length of case to shoulder. If it does work it must head space off the shoulder due to the lack of rim.
I am not looking to try this, I am just looking for some documentation on the practice.
 
NEVER heard of this... Certainly wouldn't try it...

When did he claim this happened? Not too many conflicts (if any) where 7.62NATO and x54r would have been issued in any number on respective sides...
 
Phat Eagle said:
NEVER heard of this... Certainly wouldn't try it...

When did he claim this happened? Not too many conflicts (if any) where 7.62NATO and x54r would have been issued in any number on respective sides...
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Never pushed him for that. You're right that there wouldn't have been too many conflicts. I could see Vietnam being one.
I did find a Youtube video of a couple of guys testing the Mosin Nagant using 30-30. Surprise, surprise the cases ruptured on every firing.
 
I've seen .308 rounds work in a mosin but the ejection of the spent casing don't work very well.So, I guess it can be done but I wouldn't do it unless the alternative was dire. Old timers in my neck of the woods always referred to the mosin as a Russian .308.
 
I fired some out of my shooter Mosin. 308 win and 30-30. Didn't pay too much attention to accuracy either. Mosin will handle all of them. Only thing you'll need is cleaning rod to pop the empties out. If ammo is brass cased then you'll have some rupture at the case. Never heard of this being done in battle, but there were some accounts of Russian partizans (where else) during WW2 behind German lines, had trouble soursing the 7.62x54 and x25. So a big heavy press was invented and drop shipped to them that could make 7.62x54 out of 7.92x57 and 7.62x25 out of 9mm just by ramming those cartridges through this press.
 
So a big heavy press was invented and drop shipped to them that could make 7.62x54 out of 7.92x57 and 7.62x25 out of 9mm just by ramming those cartridges through this press.
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I've got a bridge in New York you might be interested in, too.
 
Internet nonsense before there was such a thing.
So is any account of a Russian partisan making ammo in the middle of nowhere. An 8mm Mauser bullet is .323" and rimless to start. You can't make rimmed ammo out of rimless cases. In any case, a Russian partisan would just kill a Hun and take his weapons and ammo. Problem solved.
 
You can also wrap a .50 BMG in electrical tape and fire it in your 12ga, but again not recommended. I've heard of Vietcong wrapping 5.56 and using it in their sks/ak as a single shot, maybe this is what he meant?
 
Some guys did this in 'Nam to test-fire and/or play around with their intended bring-backs. They did seem to headspace adequately on the shoulder and I never saw or heard of a head separation or split, but given the difference in head diameters, I suspect you may be better off with mil-spec 7.62mm brass rather than .308, which can be thinner there with resulting greater case volume. I sure wish now that I'd tried harder to get one of the Hungarian snipers.

Joel
 
I think you'd be better off using a mosin as a club than trying to hit anything with a .308 bullet rattling down a .311-.314 bore lol

I recall an anecdote in a gun magazine about some mexican policeman wrapping 44 magnum in tape to try out an old antique 44-40 Colt SAA. I don't think that it turned out very well either.

Iraqvet8888 also did that Mosin torture test where they utterly failed to blow one up. Wrecked it beyond all serviceability, yes, but couldn't blow the bloody thing up.
 
Mark-II said:
I think you'd be better off using a mosin as a club than trying to hit anything with a .308 bullet rattling down a .311-.314 bore lol

I recall an anecdote in a gun magazine about some mexican policeman wrapping 44 magnum in tape to try out an old antique 44-40 Colt SAA. I don't think that it turned out very well either.

Iraqvet8888 also did that Mosin torture test where they utterly failed to blow one up. Wrecked it beyond all serviceability, yes, but couldn't blow the bloody thing up.
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I saw that video as well. Pretty amazing! The last WAAAYYY over pressure loads they fired off using a clamped down rifle and a string on the trigger, seized up the action so much that they had to take the rifle back to the shop to beat the hell out of it to get it back open! I loved how at the start of the video they smashed a concrete foundation block by beating on it with the buttstock too!! Amazingly robust rifles!

Ian
 
In the late 80's, I had an instructor in BMQ (aka boot camp) who told us that 7.62 NATO picked up off dead NATO soldiers could be used in Russian AK's. Even then, I knew that AK's used either 7.62x39 or 5.45x39. I had a hard time keeping my mouth shut on that one (laughing at an officer is usually NOT a good idea :d).

He was a 2nd Leftenant, if anyone's interested.:rolleyes:

That said, 7.62 NATO would probably feed into a Mosin-Nagant, but I shudder to think how inaccurate a .308 bullet going down a .311-.312 barrel would be. Might be kind of hard to extract, since the 7.62x54r is a RIMMED cartridge and 7.62 NATO isn't (meaning the extractor probably won't grab the rim).
 
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