A good day shooting cheap, plentiful, affordable 303 British

I should mention that I have two other Mohawk/ SKT-type rifles that I acquired - a while back - and still haven't sorted-out, or fired. As such, both are in the state that they were in when I got them.

One (a Mohawk) has its gas setting at 2 (the biggest) - which allows 6 TIMES the amount of gas, compared to the smallest setting! If I was stupid enough to shoot the gun in that setting, I am sure that the extraction would be violent and cases would probably be ripped apart and thrown a mile away. That hasn't ever happened to me, but I know for sure that would be the result of that setting.

The other gun I have but haven't yet sorted-out (a rare SKT) was received with the adjustment nut between two settings - so that no gas at all would probably get through.

I'm sure both guns are that way because some bubby loser - who didn't know the gun - diddled with the settings. When you hear a bubba guy say "Mohawks are a POS - my buddy had one that ripped the heads off cases" or "...my buddy had one that didn't cycle at all" just know the real problem with the Mohawk - and the SVT-40 - is that neither are idiot proof - and people who don't own the proper 5-sided gas adjustment tool - or who don't understand how to set-up and run the gun shouldn't own these firearms.

steelgray said:
The 555 Mohawk and the SVT 40 – on which it's based – both suffer from the same problem. The gas system provides an insane a mount of adjustability and so can be set in a totally wrong setting by a stupid operator.

Guns like the SKS, or the M14 have no gas adjustments at all because they don’t need them. There has only ever been a narrow range of ammo specs for the cartridges they use. However, 7.62X54R is an archaic cartridge and Russian/ Soviet inventories in WW2 could still have included some original 220 grain ball (going and 2,000 fps) loaded with really early smokeless powders – from the 1890s – and well as sub standard loadings from other times, right up to more modern 149 gr. steel case steel core ammo, loaded to nearly 3,000 fps.

Federov Tokarav probably thought that he needed to give the SVT-40 guns enough adjustment to deal with such extreme variations with the ammo supplied and used AND also probably thought that providing extreme adjustment settings could be good - to allow the gun to temporarily be set to a more extreme opening – to compensate for a gas system that might have become almost completely blocked, in some battlefield situation.

HOWEVER, the difference between the gas opening from its smallest to biggest setting isn’t just the normal 20% – or whatever. Instead, the difference between the smallest and largest gas setting on both the SVT-40 and the Mohawk (that is setting 1.1 versus 2) is a difference of SIX TIMES the area of the gas port opening! This is because the area of a circle (or of a gas port opening) increases by the square of the radius of the opening (“A=πr2”).

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Also, one assumes that the Mohawk gets a little more gas pressure at the gas block – because the people who re engineered SVT-40s to make Mohawks moved the gas port a bit closer to the chamber – in the way that one sees on any modern gun (as shown in a comparison between an M1 Garand and an M-14).

This means that – especially with the Mohawk, using standard 303 British loadings – it would be insane to use one of the really big gas openings to run the gun. However, I can tell you that neither the SVT-40, nor the Mohawk and sufficiently idiot proof. If you use a gas setting above 1.3 or so with either gun you will HOPELESSLY over-gas the gun. In this condition, if you are using 303 British ammo with that cartridge’s known brass weaknesses, you will rip off case heads, etc.

I have sorted out two Mohawks so far and corrected setting left by previous owners. Both of these guns now run perfectly with zero drama once the gas setting was corrected to 1.3; whereas one of the guns was obtained with the gas system WRONGLY set to 1.7 and frozen, in that setting, by rust.

Again, the gas system on both the SVT 40 and the Mohawks are not at all idiot proof. On the contrary, to clean the gun properly you have to take-out the five-sided gas adjustment screw and if you put it back wrong the gun is going to get either WAY too much or too little gas. And those gas setting markings are almost unreadable, even when one is indoors and in proper light. How could some unskilled/ undertrained Russian peasant conscript clean and properly reset the gas system of one of these guns in a fox hole in the winter?

The Russians were wise to discontinue the SVT 40 in the early part of the war because they lost many of these guns to the Finns in the winter war and didn't have the manufacturing capability to produce replacement SVT-40s in the necessary numbers. BUT also, I suppose that – by this time – they realized that the SVT-40 was too complicated a gun to give to the hoards of unskilled peasant soldiers who were being called into action. DITTO the Mohawk was WAY too demanding a gun to have been sold to and used by a North American bubba-type loser who may have diddled with the gas system, shot the gun once or twice with some corrosive surplus ammo and then left it to rot in a cupboard, uncleaned.

However, buy a Mohawk that hasn’t been totally misused by a previous owner, shoot it using clean, 303 British that is in-spec and leave the gas system at 1.2 or 1.3 and you will have a nice 100% reliable, drama-free gun. You shouldn’t own a Mohawk or an SVT-40 unless you own and know how to use ESSENTIAL gas adjustment tool. You literally can’t clean a Mohawk or adjust its gas system if you don’t own and use one of these.
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Also without loosening the gas piston most gas adjusters are seized in place, best is to take the works apart and give it a thorough cleaning, the Germans sure knew how to look after their captured SVT 40's, they even printed a manual for them.
Of course during the war there was only corrosive ammo, and the rifles were too complex for the average Russian soldier to maintain, nowadays we have reloadable brass, so that's what I have been using for years, gas setting at 1.2, functions flawless and easy on the brass.
 
Nice to hear from someone who obviously knows his stuff!.

I think that the SVT could have been SO much more successful - if it was easier to clean and it had no adjustable gas system to be potentially disrupted during normal cleaning.

The SKS got this right by simplifying the gas system and eliminating any possibility of (mis)adjusting the system's setting. The problem for "Fed" Tokarev was that the SVT-40 was intended to be able to shoot any ammo then in the then diverse Russian inventory. The SKS only had to shoot one standard round ... period.

One assumes that, during military trials, Fed's gun had to be able to shoot whatever surprise lot of ammo he was given - at the demo - and if it hadn't succeeded, in testing, he might have suffered the same Stalin-era treatment as a whole host of unsuccessful designers - who's name have been lost to history.

The SVT-40 was a fantastic design, given the circumstances that it was designed under. If the Soviet Union had started production earlier, engaged in better training and had avoided losing a whole bunch of SVTs in the Winter War, the the SVT-40 could have been the best full-powered battle rifle of WW2.

Even as things work out, I think that the SVT-40 is WAY better firearm than the Garand - but only in the hands of a properly-trained operator

M1-Garand said:
Also without loosening the gas piston most gas adjusters are seized in place, best is to take the works apart and give it a thorough cleaning, the Germans sure knew how to look after their captured SVT 40's, they even printed a manual for them.
Of course during the war there was only corrosive ammo, and the rifles were too complex for the average Russian soldier to maintain, nowadays we have reloadable brass, so that's what I have been using for years, gas setting at 1.2, functions flawless and easy on the brass.
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The SVT has a lot of parts too. Tons of springs, guides and little parts. Imagine poor Ivan trying to take it all apart out in the snow with his frozen fingers. One little spring sproings out into the snow...

I tried every mount there was on my SVT's...they all moved. And you have to remove them to clean it.
 
The Germans were so impressed with the gas system that they used it in the Gew43, but they left the gas adjustment out, it was way over gassed but could use any kind of ammo even under the worst conditions at the eastern front.
They even used the same diameter piston and gas cylinder.
The G43 was the development of the G41 that used the Bang system at the muzzle, just like the gas trap Garand not very reliable and nose heavy..
 
steelgray said:
I also don't care for conventional cast boolits. I am as much of a DIY guy as anyone, but I hate the face full of stinky blue smoke that one gets every time you touch of a lead boolit at any decent velocity. I put powder coated cast in a different category. They shoot fine for me and I don't get that nasty blast of stinky blue smoke, when I touch off those rounds.

For now at least I'm inclined to stock up on still-cheap 7.62x54r surplus and do the trick of recycling the powder and projectile into 303 British.
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Powder coating your bullets eliminates any leading issues when firing AND cleaning, and you can drive a 180 grain cast way past 2,000 FPS with them with no worries.
Cat
 
I'm familiar with powder coating and have coated and shot many thousands of these. I hope I never shoot another bare lube lead bullet again. I don't even like being in the same shooting hut with "people" who shoot these.

iron cat said:
Powder coating your bullets eliminates any leading issues when firing AND cleaning, and you can drive a 180 grain cast way past 2,000 FPS with them with no worries.
Cat
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steelgray said:
I'm familiar with powder coating and have coated and shot many thousands of these. I hope I never shoot another bare lube lead bullet again. I don't even like being in the same shooting hut with "people" who shoot these.
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If that is the case I don't understand why you are scavenging 7.62X54r cartridges:confused:
Seems like a lot of work for very little gain.....
Cat
 
The distinction is simple. Casting and powder coating .311 projectiles is a pile of work and - though you spare yourself the ordeal of getting a face full of stinky toxic blue smoke every time you fire a round (as with lubed cast bullets) - it is a pile of work - that most people aren't equipped for. Further, at best, it yields really so-so results. I know, I have done thousands of these.

Taking apart 54R and reusing the projectiles and powder in a 303 British case (reducing the powder charge by 6-7 grains) is "easy peasy" and only requires one extra step that takes seconds (i.e., taking the donor rounds apart with a kinetic bullet puller or better yet a cheap and readily available RCBS collet bullet puller). Last time I did this I made a batch of 100 perfect 303 British rounds from a bag of donor 54R rounds that cost me 40 bucks (and I ended up with some extra powder, for further reloading).

And yes, the donor ammo was corrosive, whereas the resultant 303 British rounds are non-corrosive.

I only used powder coated projectiles in my rifle caliber sub-sonics and 38 and 357 loads - and even there - only because I came into thousands of cast bullets CHEAP from the estate of one of you casting fans.

Casting and /or casting and powder coating is its own hobby - perfect for people with WAY too much free time on their hands. I know some people really get into it - kind of like building a ship in a bottle.

iron cat said:
If that is the case I don't understand why you are scavenging 7.62X54r cartridges:confused:
Seems like a lot of work for very little gain.....
Cat
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This might be an interesting option for people who just want to do short range plinking with their L-E without the hassle of casting. These go for 21 bucks per hundred and are restricted to 2000 FPS and less.

 
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