I swept it back like that simply to put it a little closer to the trigger. But I was not aware that it added to the Muzzle velocity!! A happy coincidence!
But I did not do it to make it more "tacticool". It was just for the sake of ease of operation. And as for ease of cycling, if your Mosin is hard to cycle, you have problems that are best addressed by means other than a foot long bolt handle. The rifle is a 1953 Hungarian M44 "parts gun" that I picked up for cheap. No bolt, messed up stock, and a few other missing odds and ends. But a great bore, and that is what I was looking for. The bolt is from an izhevsk of unknown origin. And it cycled
very hard. Took a lot of slapping. I did some cleaning, polishing, and tuning, and now it cycles very easily. I have a bit of an extractor issue (lets go of the casing too quickly on extraction, and therefore does not eject the shell every time) but I want to have a few extra extractors around before I mess with it too much, because I know they like to break.
As for "tacticool", I don't know if the cartridge casing knob qualifies for that. I thought it was an interesting idea, and I even thought it was original! But I have since seen that others have done the same thing. lol. The nickel plating was just cuz I can.
