Are sporterized Mosin worth it for hunting ?

Suther said:
As someone who started with a sporter enfield and then moved to a Savage Axis, I have to disagree. The Savage is much better to run optics on, its far lighter (my rifle with a full mag, sling, 1 piece rail, optic, rings is 8lbs 3.5oz) and the trigger is easier to make decent (as in stock form, both suck for their own reasons). One problem I did have was I couldn't move the scope that came with the rifle far enough back for me, but a 1-piece rail fixed that issue. It also shoots sub-MOA with handloads.

Long story short, scoping either a Mosin or an Enfield doesn't work well with their military stocks, which are designed for use with iron sights. They tend to have very poor cheek welds with an optic due to that. Some people are good with iron sights, Others are good without a decent cheek weld, I am neither of those things though so for me, going to a Savage Axis was a notable step up.
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Agree with you on the pros with the savage, it’s just more modern of a rifle. That said I’d still take my sported LB no.4 or a mosin that shot well with commercial hunting rounds, that is totally based on personal preference and not which is a better rifle for hunting. I love hiking around the bush with a piece of Canadian history, filling the freezer with it last year was such a nostalgic thing for me.

I have a rail and optic on my Enfield and I found it dead easy to mount and while it’s not a true cheek weld it works well for me, but what works for me won’t work for all. I also don’t mind irons out to 100y so hunting with a mosin would be fine provided is was accurately shooting, one of these days I’d like to still hunt with my scoped svt40. Talk about heavy, I would hate to carry it through the bush for long periods of time, not so bad without the rail and scope but with it all...
 
There are so many very good entry rifles that are designed as sporting arms that it would make no sense at all to use a bubba milsurp instead. The list of reasons to go with a modern rifle would be quite long and valid.
 
It's been said many times, but if the hunting you intend to do involves a scope. Nope.

If the hunting you intend to do involves open sites and circumstances that involve banging a rifle around a bunch, where you could fairly easily drop it in the ocean or somewhere it couldn't be recovered, Yup.
 
I have a friend in SA who bought one in the 1990's when he was a student on a budget, and then gradually sporterized it. It has killed dozens of big game animals. He has a scope base that attaches with three screws on the receiver ring and it is solid. I used a hand loaded 215gr bullet and it killed this blue wildebeest without issue.

Given that one can buy a used Husky for $350 the MN wouldn't be my first choice but if you have one they certainly can work well.

CAwRYwA.jpg
 
Suther said:
If you want to hunt with a Mosin, it's certainly doable. You can buy a mount, bend the bolt handle, change the stock, chop the barrel, get a timney trigger, and make a decent hunting rifle.

However, It'll be a bit on the heavy side and it'll end up costing a lot more than just buying an axis or rem 783 ect.

Again, if you want to hunt with a Mosin, it's certainly doable. If you just want to hunt for a minimum cost, there are better options though.

Example :
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Thanks for the shout out buddy, since that image was taken I finally picked a bipod for the Mosin and installed a Timney Trigger on top of it to really give me the most out of it.

This setup with a full 10 round magazine weights in at 10.2lbs and as philhut said it is good for ANY medium/big game you may encounter.

To add to the post I bring both a Mosin & a Savage Axis when I am out hunting, I'm extremely confident with my .223 Axis to take a deer humanely within 150 yards no problem. ;)

7v8Bpvl.jpg

1943 Mosin Nagant 91/30.
Barrel cut and crowned at 19".
Archangel Target Chassis
TrueShot see through scope mount.
Nikon Buckmaster II 4-12x40 With BDC Reticle.
Bent bolt.
Timney Trigger.
Caldwell 9-13" Bipod.

Only thing done to the Axis was clipping one coil on the trigger spring to reduce the weight, spray bombed it olive green with krylon, cheap bipod and I replaced the Bushnell 3-9 with a Redfield Revolution 3-9 many years ago.

I used the Mosin last year to harvest a White Tail deer , 215 yards away with MFS 203gr SP got a nice lung shot and the deer ran 40 yards at the most before going down for good....the barrel was still full 91/30 length at that time.

What rifle you choose matters not if you cannot shoot it well with the ammunition you have picked.
 
SuperCub said:
There are so many very good entry rifles that are designed as sporting arms that it would make no sense at all to use a bubba milsurp instead. The list of reasons to go with a modern rifle would be quite long and valid.
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There are but that’s besides the point, if you have a mosin already and it shoots well with hunting ammo and you like the rifle it’s more than capable of taking large game with it. If I find some sp ammo my wartime round receiver likes I’d easily hunt with it out to 150yd with irons, I wouldn’t bubba it. Like the Enfield there’s a couple no smith mounts for the mosin that work well, most involve a scout scope but they bolt up and unbolt with out permanent modifications. Give me 10-15 min and my no.4 is back to irons only, one screw and a bolt.

I’ve seen enough pic of deer down from fellow cgn members using sks and mosins or sported LE’s that I tend to believe that they can hold their own if people have the desire to hunt with them. I choose to hunt with milsurps because I want to, not because I have no other choice or can’t afford anything else. Different strokes baby!
 
Honestly, you guys are comparing a Savage Axis, one of the poorest quality guns ever made, to a Mosin Nagant, which is a century old or better war SURPLUS rifle. Put a new Mosin next to a new Axis, run them through a war, then warehouse them for five or six or seven decades; after that sell them for hunting rifles and you'll see which is the better rifle. 30-06, .303, 7.62x54r are more or less ballistically identical for 95% of the hunting population so it doesn't even factor in unless you're a shill or a hardcore reloader.

The Axis is the Dodge Neon of the hunting world: it works, kinda, if you're not asking for much. The Mosin is the old Mercedes diesel: ran in 1970, running in 2018; not cool, just effective.

For all the talk about rifle weight, come on. Really? Take a leak, lose a pound. Take a greasy three coiler, lose three. There's four pounds cut off your hunting weight. An Axis is light because it's built from air and pop bottles. A Mosin is heavy because it's built from trees and steel.

Rant over. :)
 
I have hunted black bear and deer successfully with a non-sporterized MN with iron sights and a home-made MN scout rifle with a LER scope, but then a buddy gave me some nice vintage sporting rifles and I sold my Mosins.
 
Dogfish858 said:
Honestly, you guys are comparing a Savage Axis, one of the poorest quality guns ever made, to a Mosin Nagant, which is a century old or better war SURPLUS rifle. Put a new Mosin next to a new Axis, run them through a war, then warehouse them for five or six or seven decades; after that sell them for hunting rifles and you'll see which is the better rifle. 30-06, .303, 7.62x54r are more or less ballistically identical for 95% of the hunting population so it doesn't even factor in unless you're a shill or a hardcore reloader.

The Axis is the Dodge Neon of the hunting world: it works, kinda, if you're not asking for much. The Mosin is the old Mercedes diesel: ran in 1970, running in 2018; not cool, just effective.

For all the talk about rifle weight, come on. Really? Take a leak, lose a pound. Take a greasy three coiler, lose three. There's four pounds cut off your hunting weight. An Axis is light because it's built from air and pop bottles. A Mosin is heavy because it's built from trees and steel.

Rant over. :)
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What on earth does going through a war have to do with sporting rifles? Whether or not a gun could be mass produced for cheap and be simple enough for a conscripted peasant to operate are not concerns for a hunter...

An axis has a better trigger(which is saying something as the axis trigger sucks by sporting rifle standards), is available in more common cartridges (good luck finding 7.62x54r hunting ammo if you forget/lose yours. Some places might have some but anywhere selling ammo will have 308, 30-06 or 270), and is easily scoped.

The stock on an axis sucks but the original Mosin stock is not much better. Yeah, it's wood, but that's the only thing it's got going for it. Length of pull is too short, comb height is terrible for a scope, and it's heavy.

As for it working, kinda, how does an axis not work? I've seen over a thousand rounds go down range through 3 different axises (axi?) and they've gone bang every time with factory ammo. I did have some issues with reloads, as my rifle doesn't reliably ignite CCI primers (which are known to be harder than most) but I switched to Federal primers and they work great. To me that sounds like the sort of comment someone with no real experience with an axis would say, as they are very reliable, functional guns. Ugly? Sure. Cheap? You bet. Unreliable? Not even close...
 
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