👉Mosin People: This Is How You Fix Sticky Bolt

[Josh Smith]

The Mosin bolt is meant to be fitted. During refurbishment, it often wasn't and this led to hard to impossible bolt operation. What is really a very robust rifle gained a bad reputation in the West for this, and other malfitment, reasons.

The arrows in the photos above point to the areas that often end up contacting almost parallel, and need profiled.

Contour and polish the ramps.

There are notches which, if not cut and polished correctly, may make the bolt harder to close than it needs to be.

The notches should fit into each other shallowly; just enough to retain the bolt in that position but not so much that it requires extra effort to overcome when closing the bolt.

Fitting the bolt in this manner, as well as tweaking the extractor, was and is the proper way to fit the bolt and was done on almost all Finnish rifles I've seen since they kept their rifles in service and, if they did refurbish them, took the time to fit the parts.

We see similar issues with triggers on Russian refurbished Mosins; they're not fit correctly, either, and unfitted ejectors prevent easy loading from stripper clips.

The Mosin is an excellent, rugged rifle when a little care is put into it.

Regards,

Josh

 

[milsurpo]

The trigger release is the only thing I've ever felt compelled to try to improve on a few Mosins. Many of mine (Russian, Soviet, or Finn) are factory-original and matching and the bolt function is adequately smooth. The Finns had many ways to improve the trigger pull, including fairly radical re-designs like the M27, but their armourers could also modify a standard trigger/sear to near perfection. I've also noticed the trigger pulls on my PUs are quite a bit better than with a typical 91/30. PUs also have smooth bolt operation simply due to the longer bolt handle—more leverage. They are definitely excellent rifles.

milsurpo

 

[corwin-arms]

One improvement that worked for me is replacing trigger pin. The original is relatively soft steel. I put much harder very smooth pin and trigger is always much nicer. I used old drill bit for the new pin

 

[TimberWolf_3063]

Lol I have done the same to replace a firing pin retaining pin on a SVT.
Good old Soviet engineering.

One improvement that worked for me is replacing trigger pin. The original is relatively soft steel. I put much harder very smooth pin and trigger is always much nicer. I used old drill bit for the new pin

 

[Josh Smith]

The trigger release is the only thing I've ever felt compelled to try to improve on a few Mosins. Many of mine (Russian, Soviet, or Finn) are factory-original and matching and the bolt function is adequately smooth. The Finns had many ways to improve the trigger pull, including fairly radical re-designs like the M27, but their armourers could also modify a standard trigger/sear to near perfection. I've also noticed the trigger pulls on my PUs are quite a bit better than with a typical 91/30. PUs also have smooth bolt operation simply due to the longer bolt handle—more leverage. They are definitely excellent rifles.

milsurpo

 

[Eaglelord17]

The trigger release is the only thing I've ever felt compelled to try to improve on a few Mosins. Many of mine (Russian, Soviet, or Finn) are factory-original and matching and the bolt function is adequately smooth. The Finns had many ways to improve the trigger pull, including fairly radical re-designs like the M27, but their armourers could also modify a standard trigger/sear to near perfection. I've also noticed the trigger pulls on my PUs are quite a bit better than with a typical 91/30. PUs also have smooth bolt operation simply due to the longer bolt handle—more leverage. They are definitely excellent rifles.

milsurpo

I never understood why a longer bolt handle never took off with the Mosin. The Imperial Russians even trialed a rifle in the early 1900s with a longer straight bolt handle (more Mauser ish length, forgotten weapons has a video on it), but it never went anywhere despite being what I would consider a obvious improvement.

 

[Josh Smith]

I never understood why a longer bolt handle never took off with the Mosin. The Imperial Russians even trialed a rifle in the early 1900s with a longer straight bolt handle (more Mauser ish length, forgotten weapons has a video on it), but it never went anywhere despite being what I would consider a obvious improvement.

I never understood this, either. The only thing I can come up with is that they looked at the Berdan II's bolt handle and decided the longer one on the Mosin-Nagant should be sufficient, and then it was too late to change the design later.

Still, it's not hard to work when properly fitted, but rather feels stubby.

 

[mephisto002]

That's very interesting, thanks for sharing.

This sticky bolt fix should be made a sticky.