91/30 accuracy (lack there of)

Hell, I dont care...interesting stuff regardless ( I had no idea Nagants started life as 'smoke poles')

Either I will tinker this rifle into a good shooter or I will find another.

Then I will take over the world
 
Polish M44 that I bought from desporterizer bruised me a couple times with a single shot of Bell SP 150gr ammo. I've put a copper shim on the front surface of the crossbolt and she became a kitten. She would still bruise me after 10-15 shots, but that's been fixed with a slip-on recoil pad since. I flinch alot and still shoot 2" groups at 50 yards with LPS ammo.
 
svt-40,
I've shot up to 80 rounds of heavy ball in a couple hours from my M44 (prone and seated at the bench) and never been bruised. The next day I'm a bit stiff in the shoulder, but no pain.

Are you holding the rifle correctly? Maybe you're lighter than me?
 
I got a 91/30 from SIR and accuracy was about 4MOA on average (which was good considering I don't have good eyesight, it was windy, I didn't have the bayonet on and I wasn't compensating, and my rest consisted of a hoody and a 2"x4") with Hungarian crap. Nice looking rifle too.

-Rohann
 
The milsurps are always a mistery, as we have no idea what was the intended use of it: in Maxim LMG, Mosin, SVT or SVD. When it comes to old Mosins proper bedding is the key: the stocks dry up or warp and metal start touching wood. As soon as the bolts and back of the receiver start pushing on the stock, the felt recoil increases times. That's where shims come to the rescue. The proper way is to remove the crossbolt, cut slots in the left and right surfaces and insert copper shim so that it stays put in the slots, but I am a lazy bastard and just inserted the shim into the crossbolt the way it was. It stays there pretty firmly and works well. I used a piece of water pipe leftover from the house construction.
 
Never managed to shoot a group less then 3" with 91/30.... so I can't anything... I had more issues with SKS than with Mosin, so for me Mosin is one of the best rifles. I don't like to bolt though.... I wish it was curved...
 
Hey Klunk,
Where did you find your original scope? I too intend to be a Zeitsev wannabe, but can only find replica scopes on Ebay (I bought a repilca mount because they look similar at a little less the $$). The real scopes I found wont ship to Canada. So I'm just looking for an original scope if you can help me out.
 
desporteriser, be very careful with that black powder load that you're thinking of trying. That powder was compressed into a pellet in a very similar manner that the British used to load cordite strings and their own black powder loads in the 303 Brit. The powder/ cordite was loaded into a straight case then swaged to the final shape. I've seen original pics of people sitting at tables, counting strings of cordite and inserting them into the straight cases for later swageing, it was mentioned that the black powder rounds were made similarly. A friend of mine and I tried to fill the cases with fffg powder and tapping it down as much as we dared, then loading 220 grain round nose copper softpoint CIL bullets over it. We won't go into how smart this was. The recoil was very sharp, the first bullet was accurate, the next one wasn't etc. We then tried 30 original black powder rounds. I know, collector rounds today, but in the early sixties, there was lots of that stuff around, especially with an army base only 15 miles away that had a storehouse full of stuff that would make you cry if you saw what they did to it in the mid seventies. Well back to those original black powder rounds, they were hot as hell, had a lot more muzzle flash and smoke, not to mention recoil than our anemic handloads that we thought might be to hot. I don't really think it's possible to replicate the original black powder load without the proper equipment or the straight walled caseings to begin with. I also don't know how they safely swaged thos black powder filled cases either. I do know that safety protocols were far more lax in those bygone days. bearhunter
 
Thanks for the advice bearhunter, but it turns out my original source for load info was wrong. The original load for a mosin was alway smokeless.
 
I beeded my M44 with epoxy putty. I greased up th action and the threads of both the screws and their holes. Cleaned the stock with some acetone, applied a small amount of putty to the recoil lug area and the rear attachment screw area. Then placed a piece of bristol board (cereal box) in th barrel channel. Tightened the action into place and removed any putty that squeezed out with an exacto knife. I waited half the time for a full set (5-6 minutes) and carefully removed the action again(wanted to make sure everything wasn't permanentlly attached) I then did a little more cleanup of excess epoxy and removed the cereal box piece. Now the action is tight, No gaps in the rear attachment area any more and the barrel has a nice space around it. I did remove a little bit of wood from the top handgard piece with some sand paper around a copper pipe. It made things a lot better for me. I also shimed my trigger. My gun is a mint (not referbed) polish 1955 though with matching factory numbers.
Your gun may have force/miss matched parts. Does your bolt have a lot of play between its respective parts? Is the crown of the barrel in good condition? What does the bore slug at and is the rifling sharp?
I have also found that the brass cases that I reload and only neck size shoot FAR better than the steel surplus cases or new brass. This is because the chambers are oversize and the older guns are even worse because of wear,repair and use. Especialy if there is any bolt play since the 7.62x54R spaces from the rim this can allow the whole cartridge to sit off centre with the bore. If the rim of your cases and the face of your bolt allow for play and the chamber is oversize(military specs+age/use/abuse/repair)and the bolt has play and the bore is worn.( A life of shooting steel jacketed ammo plus repair( rearsenled guns sometimes receive a polishing treatment to brighten dark,pitted bores) this can all add up to a slingshot of a gun. There are ways to correct for some of these things or fix them.
 
Hell, I dont care...interesting stuff regardless ( I had no idea Nagants started life as 'smoke poles')

Either I will tinker this rifle into a good shooter or I will find another.

Then I will take over the world
No! The 7.62x54R was always a smokeless cartridge. The 303 brit on the other hand was not always. Check out 7.62x54r.net for mosin nagant absolution!
 
"There was no such thing as heavy ball when these rifles were being designed"
Oh yeah? The very first rounds adopted along with Mosins had
heavy (round nose on pix) projectiles. They were around 180, or even more.
"adopted at the same time" -- I'm talking about 1890s not 1950s or 30s ;).
And barrel twist AFAIK was not changed during modernization. (Correct me if I'm wrong)
mosin_ammo.jpg
http://world.guns.ru/rifle/rfl03-e.htm

I'm using yellow tips most of the time and yes I have noted that probably their MG origin theory has some ground. However it has nothing to do with groupings.

Klunk
IMHO it does not really matter what ammo you will be doing you tests after accurizing. In mine Mosin it all gives comparable results. Expect the same.
You are right. The original roundwas in the neighborhood of 220gn lead with nickel cupro jacketed round nose. This was lighted somewhat after experience in the Russo/Jap war. And all the mosin nagant variants have a 1:9 twist. Wich acording to my calculations make them fire a 180gn bullet fairly decently.
However, it is my experience that fire formed,neck size only, gun specific ammo shoots far better than random ammo. But if you own a lot of different mosins or don't reload. Then ya its a mute point.
 
yaa...those Finn M-91s shoot sweeet...

Maybe I should just put the PU on my M-39...would that be bad?

I know I can shoot good from a bench with irons so even 5" groups wont cut it.

Whichever 91/30 I end up using it HAS to shoot under 2 inches before I drop the coin on mounting this scope

There were some reasons the Finns preferred the M-91 to the M-91/30 and one of these was the ease with which you could slacken the handguard bands just enough to control band to barrel pressure.
Usually it was snug at the front and loose at the rear. Small screws were put in front of the bands to stop them from creeping.
PP.
 
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