I went out to the gun club for my first official range shooting experience. All my other shooting has taken place at a buds farm, shooting off a patio table. I usually find most milsurps shoot 2-4" high at the 50 or so yards we shot at on the farm. At the club shooting off on of the wood rests they have there most of them were shooting 12-15" high, one 24-30"(sight problem, some one cut a post on a mosin) & just to make things interesting one shot 12" low(ever seen a mosin shoot low?). The wood rest seemed pretty low for me, would that effect my cheek weld/sight picture. I shot standing at steel plates & they did not seem to shoot as high. I know most milsurps shoot high, but 12" seems a bit much. I was shooting at 100yards, milsurp or milsurp-like reloads. Rifles were two carcanos(yes i tried burying the front sight in the v) 120 rnds, m95 carbine & rifle 40 rnds each, 3 mosins, finn 91/30(sight problem, bought it at epps 1/2hour before), m28(no bore, but still got the best groups), m44(shot low?). Any help would be graetly appreciated, thanks1
I need help with my milsurp shooting
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If you are reloading use of different bullet weights will often help bring those bullet holes to where you want them to be. It is most important that your bullet match bore dia. Here for the mosins and enfields your options are limited.Some of the surplus ammo can be remarkably accurate always give it a try. On the mosins you can change the font post hight. If the bores are bad I would not put to much effort into it.. It is usually a waste of time but there is always exceptions. Most times at 100 meters as you have seen elevation is usually the issue. The guns are built that way so if you can not make needed changes to rear sight then a front sight blade or post change is required or live with it. ENJOY.
Many milsurps are sighted for a 6 o'clock hold, not a center of mass point of aim. This can account for some of the difference. Also, what ammo were you using? Commercial blends rarely duplicate milspec bullet trajectories. These things really shine when handloaded for.
As for the shooting benches, most are designed to be used with a rifle rest of some type which raises the effective height of the bench.
Lastly, for the Mosin, if it's a recent russian refurb then no-one cut the front sight post. The sight post is low because the recent batch of Russian refurb guns is sighted for the heavyier 174gr ball ammo and most stuff on the market is the lighter 147gr ammo so it shoots way high. In the 1960's when these were rebuilt, the AK was std. issue. The only 54R being still made was machine gun ammo (174gr) and Dragunov sniper ammo (too expensive to run through a mosin).
As for the shooting benches, most are designed to be used with a rifle rest of some type which raises the effective height of the bench.
Lastly, for the Mosin, if it's a recent russian refurb then no-one cut the front sight post. The sight post is low because the recent batch of Russian refurb guns is sighted for the heavyier 174gr ball ammo and most stuff on the market is the lighter 147gr ammo so it shoots way high. In the 1960's when these were rebuilt, the AK was std. issue. The only 54R being still made was machine gun ammo (174gr) and Dragunov sniper ammo (too expensive to run through a mosin).
With the mosin I tried 2 150gr loads(czeck & hugarian) & 180gr hungarian. I also tried some lower power hand loads & while lower it was still way high. I used a 6 oclock hold but it was a good 12" below the center of the target. It was kind of tough to get a good group when you are that far below the bull. In the case of the gun with sight problems, its a finn 91/30 & the post is a lot smaller that any other mosin I have. I think the finns might have had a stacked sight arangemnet on that one & someone took the bottom piece out. Either way I am pretty sure the sight has been messed with as it was loose & the post is obiously way smaller than my other guns. The sight was made by the russians so I dont see why they would have made it smaller than the rest as every other gun has a post that is the same size. A spotting scope would have helped cut down on a lot of walking though. Any other ideas?
Well, you've heard the story of sighting in the Pole... The bullets simply evaporated, I have no idea how high it shot. Must be very high, like in your case. On the contrary, my Yugo SKS shoots too low, about 8" at 100 yards. Go figure... Yes, I've used Czech bimetal LPS silver tip from Epps in Mosin.
Are you shooting with or without the bayonet? From what I understand, most mosin nagants were sighted in for shooting with that monster bayo on.
"First of all, in all patterns prior to M1938 and except for Cossack rifles, all rifles were intended to be carried and shoot only with the bayonet attached. This caused the already long rifle to be almost as long as an average mans' height, awkward to maneuver and carry, especially in the woods and trenches. All rifles were zeroed in with the bayonet in place, so removal of the bayonet seriously affected the point of impact and effectively required the rifle to be re-zeroed."
Shooting without the bayo causes serious accuracy issues. Not sure if this is the case here.
"First of all, in all patterns prior to M1938 and except for Cossack rifles, all rifles were intended to be carried and shoot only with the bayonet attached. This caused the already long rifle to be almost as long as an average mans' height, awkward to maneuver and carry, especially in the woods and trenches. All rifles were zeroed in with the bayonet in place, so removal of the bayonet seriously affected the point of impact and effectively required the rifle to be re-zeroed."
Shooting without the bayo causes serious accuracy issues. Not sure if this is the case here.
I have noticed in the past that a low rest tends to make me shoot higher than normal, so perhaps a more comfortable arrangement would help you out a bit. Perhaps you could try shooting from the bench without the rifle barrel supported on the rests provided and see if it shoots closer to point of aim.
I don't know about the Carcano and haven't my Mosins in front of me, but I have noticed that some milsurps like the M-95 Mannlichers have their lowest setting at 500 paces/yards/arshins/meters... or whatever the standard measurement of the day happened to be. On my Chinese SKS, the sight has a 300 m setting as it's standard position, but thankfully has one and two hundred meter settings as well. I may stand corrected by someone else, but it seems as though many military arms had a standard sight setting that gave the maximum point blank range based upon aiming for centre of mass or the base of a human sized target.
I haven't fired my Mosins or Mannlicher's yet, though I have been told by the previous owner of the latter that they shot about 18 inches high at 100m.
On a closing note, there is an article on surplusrifle.com, that talks about building up the front post of milsurp rifles with the idea of making them shoot dead on a one or two hundred meter ranges.
Regards,
Frank
I don't know about the Carcano and haven't my Mosins in front of me, but I have noticed that some milsurps like the M-95 Mannlichers have their lowest setting at 500 paces/yards/arshins/meters... or whatever the standard measurement of the day happened to be. On my Chinese SKS, the sight has a 300 m setting as it's standard position, but thankfully has one and two hundred meter settings as well. I may stand corrected by someone else, but it seems as though many military arms had a standard sight setting that gave the maximum point blank range based upon aiming for centre of mass or the base of a human sized target.
I haven't fired my Mosins or Mannlicher's yet, though I have been told by the previous owner of the latter that they shot about 18 inches high at 100m.
On a closing note, there is an article on surplusrifle.com, that talks about building up the front post of milsurp rifles with the idea of making them shoot dead on a one or two hundred meter ranges.
Regards,
Frank
lol...Oooooookay... I had to lower my aimpoint by 12" at 25 yards, compared to where the barrel was pointing. Then at 50 yards I lowered it a tad more, prolly 3". Shot with bayo extended from a bench but with no hard rest. Now dead straight. Bell 148gr SP.
PS: Kicks like a horse, my shoulder hurts. Czech light ball silver tip 147gr is a kitten.
PS: Kicks like a horse, my shoulder hurts. Czech light ball silver tip 147gr is a kitten.
I went to the range today & shot my k98, 1904 port mauser, remington mosin & guess what? Everything shot low! The only gun that was sighted dead on was my yugo sks. How do you like them apples? Everything was alot closer this time though, so a little hold over got the job done.
