Mosin Nagant Snipers - What's the differences?

No real comparison between a repro sniper and the actual thing....they look the same,but certainly do not shoot the same..I have a VZ54 and Finn rifles I thought were damn accurate...however an original Tula sniper rifle recently acquired blew that out of the water..it’s the most accurate mosin I have shot for grouping,..easily MOA or better....take your time and find a real one,otherwise a repro would do for casual shooting...
 
As I understand it there were no special production Mosin Sniper rifles. They simply selected the most accurate ones when testing new production rifles and used them as sniper rifles. The Russians don't really use true snipers. They are really designated marksmen and very widespread in their use. The sniper mosin was really only good out to about 300-500m which was fine for Russian military doctrine. Beyond this it typically wasn't accurate enough and the scopes of those times were pretty crude. Even the Enfield sniper rifles which were actually specially manufactured to higher standards were not really good for much beyond 500m. Similarly for the American Springfields, so that mile crack in Saving Private Ryan is complete BS. Don't expect anything like what you can get out of 6.5 Creedmoor for example. If you want the true history of a genuine WW2 Mosin Sniper good luck they are very rare. Almost all are actually reassembled from old parts but are not truly a matching sniper. If you just want to shoot one in that style then a repro should be fine provided the rifle is decently accurate, a big question with any Mosin. They were typically "used hard and put away wet". Mine is about 6MOA on a good day.

What you describe as "no special production" Mosins is accurate only for Izhevsk, it was different for Tula.

In Izhevsk, they had no special sniper-specific production lines, instead, they test fired every single barrel, and selected only the best barrels to a regulation "sniper standard", to be fitted on special highwall receivers, which would themselves be fitted out with their optics, and be sent to the further steps of production and issuing.

In Tula, unlike Izhevsk, they had dedicated production lines for sniper rifles, where barrels would be sniper-purpose made from the start.

Real sniper production Mosins, in order to be issued as a sniper rifle (instead of having being tossed in a pile of regular infantry rifles), had to reach a standard of 10 shots into a 3.5 cm grouping at 100m, 7.5 cm grouping at 200m, 18 cm grouping at 400m, and a 35 cm grouping at 600m. A standard which is easily surpassed by modern standards of high quality commercial rifles, however is a rather good factory precision standard in its own right given the context of its production and peers, and considering that it is far better than the average of the "minute of man" precision of pretty much all contemporary regular infantry issue rifles.

Also what you say about the Soviets having a different sniper doctrine is very true, being more close to contemporary support Designated Marksmen roles.

I haven't properly shot and measured my (non-reproduction) PU Mosin, but from very casual shooting, it has gotten a solid 3 MOA, though the barrel on mine looks barely used and well preserved.
 
If you check the best bolt action milsurp thread in the surplus sub-forum you will learn that the best PU snipers have different profile barrels, untapped receivers and bolt heads machined from rebar.

It's a fact...
 
There is no way to guarantee that you will get authentic sniper online. Unless you call the store and ask the owner to insure that you are getting one.

BTW. Do you want authentic Mosin sniper or accurate Mosin?

There is a finnish M39 on EE for $900, that one will outshoot majority of mosin "snipers".

I highly doubt a finn mosin will out shoot a russian mosin sniper. The standard of sniper is pretty high and Ive seen many of them are able to shoot submoa with right ammo. In addition, there is no way to mount a scope on a finn mosin.
 
In addition, there is no way to mount a scope on a finn mosin.

Is that because Finnish Mosins are based on French Gras receivers?

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What about the mosin snipers that crappy tire had recently? The one I have is a Izhevsk 1943
It has the made in Russia laser engraved on the side with a T in a diamond I think?
The scope mount is electropenciled to match the serial on the receiver

The question is are these actual snipers or just ones that are cobbled together?
 
I highly doubt a finn mosin will out shoot a russian mosin sniper. The standard of sniper is pretty high and Ive seen many of them are able to shoot submoa with right ammo. In addition, there is no way to mount a scope on a finn mosin.

You missed the quotes on the sniper. I meant fake snipers.
 
What about the mosin snipers that crappy tire had recently? The one I have is a Izhevsk 1943
It has the made in Russia laser engraved on the side with a T in a diamond I think?
The scope mount is electropenciled to match the serial on the receiver

The question is are these actual snipers or just ones that are cobbled together?

0IS52lN.jpg


Tulsky import, i’m going to say real.
 
Hello,

The Russian Mosin sniper rifles were selected from standard infantry rifles that showed better-than-normal precision during precision testing. Generally, these rifles had slightly coned or tapered bores due to worn tooling -- or at least I've read this. Limited experimentation seems to bear this out: My most precise Mosin is a 91/30 with a 1938 receiver and 1939 barrel. It's a Russian, of course, but the barrel slugs to 0.3095". Additionally, when pushing a patch down the bore from the breech end, I can feel it constrict.

Accurizing work included wrapping the barrel and shimming the action. I do this as well, but use a more Finnish method.

While I have shot sub-MOA groups, these groups are more typical of the best I can personally do with iron sights.

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They were shot during product prototyping, mostly, and the targets and distances look funny because I have 20/60 vision and I prefer to shoot uncorrected. Others more talented than I can shoot their Mosins much better.

The point to this is simply that there were stock Mosins made that can flat out shoot -- not all were made into snipers. If you can take a cleaning rod and patch into the store with you, you may do better to buy a local one you've personally examined and convert it. Trigger pulls are easy to clean up, so I'd concentrate on the bore.

Just some random thoughts from a Mosin fanatic.

Regards,

Josh
 
i was lucky enough to pick up a 1943 dated serial 5XX MN 91/30 PU Tula not long ago. All matching, including scope, mount and the whole wazoo. No electropencil anywhere :D Ill post pics soon because we all know :needPics: The gentleman who owns the PEM please post pics ... im begging you haha
 
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