I have one of the recent import original refurbed snipers and I can say for sure that these rifles have been given extra steps in making them more accurate. Barrel is very uniform in mine and trigger is much better. Iron sights are also zeroed for 100 meters instead of 300m. Shims added and stock inletted better than infantry rifles. I have some 3 shot 1" 100yd groups with milsurp. The rifle is capable of sub MOA with handloads.
I have a standard 91/30 also and the barrel is nowhere as good as the sniper bore.
I have both an original PU that I had to send the scope off to be refurbed and a clone. I also have a PE scoped rifle.
In all honesty, they all have excellent bores, althouth the original PU scoped rifle has almost zero finish. They all shoot about the same with good ammunition.
You mention that the trigger on your original is better. I will agree completely, same with mine but it doesn't shoot any better.
You also say your rifle is a refurb to as new. Maybe even rebarreled??? It should shoot very well in that condition.
On Milsurps Knowledge, there is an interview with one of the supervisors from a Russian manufacturing facility concerning the choosing of rifles for accuracy. The fellow laughed and told them that the rifles were only tested when they were proof (at the height of the war and production) tested with a hot blue pill and a couple of sighter rounds to make sure the sights were in the ball park. There just wasn't time for any more testing and the rifles were set aside for scoping, trigger work and of course more testing for function an accuracy. Not much though, the demand was very high and the attrition rate of both snipers and rifles was high.
I have both Finnish, Polish, Chinese, Hungarian and Russian examples of 91/30s that will all shoot into an inch with good ammo and of course, good eyes.
If your rifle will shoot any surplus ammo into an inch, you are a very lucky man. That just isn't the norm. I went through a lot of 91/30s before I found the examples I have. I was lucky and had access to a bunch of distributor rifles.
Most of the refurbed Mosins I've shot are at least capable of 2 inch groups, under the right conditions. It's the earlier dogs that came into the country and were marketed by Century that gave Mosins a reputation for poor accuracy. The first rifles that were offered were badly worn, inside and out.
Teppo87, I've shot at least a dozen of the repro snipers, both with the PE and PU scopes. The PE, is by far the best choice of scopes but is very difficult to find. IMHO. The Russian snipers preferred the PE to the PU but didn't dislike the PU either. Just keep things in perspective here. Those snipers, weren't so much out to put a bullet into a head or heart, but to maim and wound. Pin point accuracy, just wasn't needed or expected.
