7.62x54R Ammo

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mardig88

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Hi,
I have a Mosin Nagant M91/30. I recently found some surplus 7.62x54R ammo at a local gun show and went to the range last weekend.
I had just cleaned the gun before going but at the range I noticed that after firing, it was hard to extract the shell. I had to put lots of force to turn the bolt 90 degrees upwards, but the pulling motion afterwards was normal.

One of the guys there at the range looked at the shells and told me that there was something wrong with my chamber. (he was pointing where the arrow is pointing in the photo)

Can anyone explain what's wrong and what can i do to fix it?

Thanks in advance,
-Mardig

IMG_0549.jpg
 
There's nothing wrong with your chamber. That mark is an expansion ring created when the cartridge is fired and the case swells out and forms to the chamber walls.

The cartridges you're shooting are steel cases and coated with shellac. The shellac melts dureing fireing and will sometimes leave a bit of residue behind in the chamber, causeing stiff extraction.

That looks like the Hungarian soft point ammo that was offered for sale about 10-15 years ago. It's quite hot and gives a fairly stiff recoil.

I've found that regular cleaning solvents clean the shellac residue from the chambers dureing the normal cleaning process.
 
bearhunter said:
There's nothing wrong with your chamber. That mark is an expansion ring created when the cartridge is fired and the case swells out and forms to the chamber walls.

The cartridges you're shooting are steel cases and coated with shellac. The shellac melts dureing fireing and will sometimes leave a bit of residue behind in the chamber, causeing stiff extraction.

That looks like the Hungarian soft point ammo that was offered for sale about 10-15 years ago. It's quite hot and gives a fairly stiff recoil.

I've found that regular cleaning solvents clean the shellac residue from the chambers dureing the normal cleaning process.
Click to expand...

Looks more like the new Czech Silvertip 150gr.
I've got a bunch of the Hungarian Heavy ball and it's got brown shellac and a yellowtip, I think there was another tip color but it had the same brown shellac.

Apart from that your'e right on.:rockOn:
 
mardig88 said:
thanks guys for the guidance

do you know where in canada i can find surplus 7.62x54R (*cheap stuff since i'm a student)>?
Click to expand...

haha nice im a student too;) no money ethier lol glad you finally found some surplus....

the hard to open bolt known as "sticky bolt" is fairly common in nagants mine does it sometimes to apparently if you smooth out the inside of the chamber it reduces the effort needed to open the bolt....mine isint bad enough to be too worried about.....
 
diananike, I have a bunch of the Hungarian with bullets like the one pictured. I bought them in bulk. They came in white boxes with plastic partitions. I bought 1000 ea soft points and 1000 fmj.
They tend to give the same problem mardig88 is haveing.

I was going to use them for hunting but they didn't prove to be accurate enough for my tastes. I did shoot a bear with an M38 at 50 yards with them and they performed perfectly as far as expansion goes.
 
I had some USSR surplus ammo dated 1945-46, non-shellac coated cases. When my M44 got hot from repeated firing the bolt would get sticky also. Back in the 80's when I was a younger lad, there were a few WW2 Red Army vets in our community. Many commented that the bolts would get sticky on their MN after repeated firings. I'm sure the shellac coating only helps to get the bolt sticky quicker vs non-shellaced cases.

I did try a M44 with a sniper bolt, and the extra bolt arm length and configuration does help with leveraging and makes it easier to cycle. I actually found the cycling so much easier I ended up getting a sniper modified bolt for my M44 also, just haven't installed it yet.
 
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