is a hex receiver on a Moisin better?
- Thread starter pizdets17
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I had a 1906 Tula (Finn rework, counterbored barrel) out to the range about 3 hours ago. Target was only at 50 yards and the bullets were all over it, but that is because I was trying to compensate for what it was doing. Old rifle just put them where I aimed and actually did it with some precision!
I think this one will be a handloader's rifle from now on (I have a box of brass now) and I expect it to come in about 1.5 MOA. The Tsar would indeed be proud!
BTW, the so-called 'hex' receiver is actually OCTAGONAL: 8 sides.
As far as 'better or not' is concerned, I would think that the more iron in the critter the better, and there is more iron in the octagonal ones. And the straight lines of the octagonal receiver should resist twisting more. Big discussion raging for months in 'PRECISION SHOOTER' regarding slabside versus round receivers.
Besides, the octagonal ones are much prettier!
I think this one will be a handloader's rifle from now on (I have a box of brass now) and I expect it to come in about 1.5 MOA. The Tsar would indeed be proud!
BTW, the so-called 'hex' receiver is actually OCTAGONAL: 8 sides.
As far as 'better or not' is concerned, I would think that the more iron in the critter the better, and there is more iron in the octagonal ones. And the straight lines of the octagonal receiver should resist twisting more. Big discussion raging for months in 'PRECISION SHOOTER' regarding slabside versus round receivers.
Besides, the octagonal ones are much prettier!
One would certainly THINK there would be no differences, but the Finns generally have a pretty good idea about what they can get out of a rifle... and they are still using old-fashioned octagonal receivers on their sniping rifles. It certainly is not because they haven't got a new rifle since 1917, either: Russia has lost a pile of rifles every time they have gone into Finland.... and the round-receiver rifles were the ones the Finns sold off first.
When you start talking about real precision in rifles, you want the most solid action you can get your hands on. This is why top target rifles on Mauser actions sometimes have the charging-slot welded solid again, to give a stiffer left-hand receiver rail. The heavy, stiff old octagonal receivers of the early Moisin-Nagants could well be performing a similar function.
The way to find out would be to build two absolutely identical rifles with differing receivers, then shoot them until they are worn out, keeping track of every single shot along the way. I certainly have never done this, but I do rather think that the Finns might have. They must have SOME reason for their preference of the old-style receiver and it can't all be esthetics: when the chips are down, the rifle which is the best is the one that kills your enemies, not the prettiest one. There are no people in the world who know this better than the Finns.
"Ah, the Romans were wusses, Sid," said Aimo, "They never came up against the Finns. Only the Finns can rule the Finns; nobody else ever lives long enough." -- Aimo the Wizard in "The Little Red Hawk".
When you start talking about real precision in rifles, you want the most solid action you can get your hands on. This is why top target rifles on Mauser actions sometimes have the charging-slot welded solid again, to give a stiffer left-hand receiver rail. The heavy, stiff old octagonal receivers of the early Moisin-Nagants could well be performing a similar function.
The way to find out would be to build two absolutely identical rifles with differing receivers, then shoot them until they are worn out, keeping track of every single shot along the way. I certainly have never done this, but I do rather think that the Finns might have. They must have SOME reason for their preference of the old-style receiver and it can't all be esthetics: when the chips are down, the rifle which is the best is the one that kills your enemies, not the prettiest one. There are no people in the world who know this better than the Finns.
"Ah, the Romans were wusses, Sid," said Aimo, "They never came up against the Finns. Only the Finns can rule the Finns; nobody else ever lives long enough." -- Aimo the Wizard in "The Little Red Hawk".
better receivers
My 1943 Tikka Sniper rifle has a "hex" receiver. It shoots MOA out to 500 yards. The Finns never made receivers for the Mosin-Nagant rifle, but built and rebuilt their rifles from captured or issued receivers.
Most of the Russian sniper rifles were round receivers. This is because the round receiver Mosin-Nagant was the 91-30 model, and in production at the time of WWII.
It would take a lot of testing to find out which one is more accurate. Also, more accurate with WHAT? You can tailor your reloads to give more accuracy in a particular rifle, and get Minute of Angle groups, or Minute of Moose groups with the same rifle, depending upon what you use for components.
This may be a bit of a speculation on my part, but my 1943 Tikka sniper rifle has the "hex" receiver. Finland had just fought a war with the Russians, and had a lot of captured rifles to choose from that they could have used. A good portion of these captured rifles would have been the newer 91-30 model with the round receiver, but the Finns used the "hex" receiver for this particular sniper rifle. Something to think about!
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My 1943 Tikka Sniper rifle has a "hex" receiver. It shoots MOA out to 500 yards. The Finns never made receivers for the Mosin-Nagant rifle, but built and rebuilt their rifles from captured or issued receivers.
Most of the Russian sniper rifles were round receivers. This is because the round receiver Mosin-Nagant was the 91-30 model, and in production at the time of WWII.
It would take a lot of testing to find out which one is more accurate. Also, more accurate with WHAT? You can tailor your reloads to give more accuracy in a particular rifle, and get Minute of Angle groups, or Minute of Moose groups with the same rifle, depending upon what you use for components.
This may be a bit of a speculation on my part, but my 1943 Tikka sniper rifle has the "hex" receiver. Finland had just fought a war with the Russians, and had a lot of captured rifles to choose from that they could have used. A good portion of these captured rifles would have been the newer 91-30 model with the round receiver, but the Finns used the "hex" receiver for this particular sniper rifle. Something to think about!
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Check out Lee Precision equipment at Lee factory Sales.
You can set yourself up with a very nice basic reloading setup for the price of 100 rounds of ammo.
The ammo you turn out by yourself will be just as good as factory, possibly better.
And you NEED a brass supply, so go bang off a few boxes just to get started. It's fun, anyway!
Enjoy!
You can set yourself up with a very nice basic reloading setup for the price of 100 rounds of ammo.
The ammo you turn out by yourself will be just as good as factory, possibly better.
And you NEED a brass supply, so go bang off a few boxes just to get started. It's fun, anyway!
Enjoy!
they should be identical
altough if i had the choice i would buy the "hex" just because i would assume that the finish on the early models would be a bit better than the round receivers that mostly wartime production (at least that's the impression i have but i could be wrong)
altough if i had the choice i would buy the "hex" just because i would assume that the finish on the early models would be a bit better than the round receivers that mostly wartime production (at least that's the impression i have but i could be wrong)
First of all Pizdec it is not the hex receiver that you should be looking at. It is the barrel. I have both for sale hex and non hex Mosin. We have mosin scopes and mosin bolt conversion to make it a sniper rifle that looks like original, but the first thing that people ask when they want to convert one to sniper " What is the condition of the barrel" . You should be asking the same.
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I once had read to me, from an old Russian book, that the oct reciever was easier to seat a barrel into and if needed adjust for manufacturing differences between factories. There is a bit more metal on the oct reviever, so I would think the idea is that to adjust for a micrometer difference here or there, some extra metal could be lost without any kind of compromise to stability. Also, a flat side is easier to stamp with markings. Just my two cents.
It's only the first box that costs a buck a pop; after that, it's whatever you like.
You can run hunting loads at 60 cents, Match loads at 65 or you can run cast-bullet practise ammo at about 25 cents or plinkers down about 15.
All you have to do is put your own stuff together. Basically, all the components (except the brass) interchange with .303, so the only problem is determining a powder charge for each type of ammo you want. Tooling is not expensive but is available.
You guys are lucky that you're trying this NOW. There was almost none of this stuff (ammo OR tooling) available a few years ago.
Do it right and we can answer the OP's question. FWIW, you have my opinion already: for purposes of accuracy, I think the octagonal receiver is better.
You can run hunting loads at 60 cents, Match loads at 65 or you can run cast-bullet practise ammo at about 25 cents or plinkers down about 15.
All you have to do is put your own stuff together. Basically, all the components (except the brass) interchange with .303, so the only problem is determining a powder charge for each type of ammo you want. Tooling is not expensive but is available.
You guys are lucky that you're trying this NOW. There was almost none of this stuff (ammo OR tooling) available a few years ago.
Do it right and we can answer the OP's question. FWIW, you have my opinion already: for purposes of accuracy, I think the octagonal receiver is better.
Less liable to twisting during the actual firing. This is exactly why the really expensive rifles have spiral-fluted barrels: to keep the thing from twisting while it is firing a round.
There are a few things that we can learn from the bench-rest guys; they do have a lot of experience with their bullethole, even if they only have the one.
Same thing with welding up the thumb-relief slot in the left-hand Mauser receiver rail. It makes the rifle a lot more accurate by reducing the amount of twist of the ACTION; then all you have to do is worry about barrel twist, and you can minimise that easily just with a short bull barrel. From there, you can go on to octagonal barrels (the oldtimers were right here: they are stiffer, shoot better), fluted barrels, spiral flutes, reverse spiral flutes.... and each time your rifle can get a little more accurate.
I just think that the Finns have been exploiting this for years and years, just haven't bothered to tell the rest of us about it. To be fair, though, they HAVE been showing us.
There are a few things that we can learn from the bench-rest guys; they do have a lot of experience with their bullethole, even if they only have the one.
Same thing with welding up the thumb-relief slot in the left-hand Mauser receiver rail. It makes the rifle a lot more accurate by reducing the amount of twist of the ACTION; then all you have to do is worry about barrel twist, and you can minimise that easily just with a short bull barrel. From there, you can go on to octagonal barrels (the oldtimers were right here: they are stiffer, shoot better), fluted barrels, spiral flutes, reverse spiral flutes.... and each time your rifle can get a little more accurate.
I just think that the Finns have been exploiting this for years and years, just haven't bothered to tell the rest of us about it. To be fair, though, they HAVE been showing us.
A bit more on twist. I have a Mark III Snider Cavalry Carbine: very light. And it blasts out a 480-grain bullet ahead of 65 grains of powder residue. Rifling on this little brute is left-hand and that big old bullet is SLOW: you can actually watch it head on downrange. But here is the point. The little critter has a pronounced TWIST to the RIGHT when it is fired: Newton's Third Law in action.
Hey, friends, don't take my word for this. Hustle over to Black Powder and talk to some of the guys there who own Snider and Martin'-Enery Carbines. We can learn from them, too.
But that TWIST, in most rifles, affects the action also, and, the more open the action, the more effect. This is part of the reason that Carcanos, for one example, are so damn accurate: the bottom of the action is much more solid than most other rifles. Take a look at the most expensive actions for precision shooting: milled and turned out of solid blocks of steel, just a little ejection/loading slot, single-shots only.
The standard late-model Moisin-Nagant has a LOT going for it along this line, but I do believe that the older octagonal action has MORE of the same.
Just my opinion. I don't have the money to prove it, either way. But I do think that those wily Finns have been onto this for a LONG time.
Hey, friends, don't take my word for this. Hustle over to Black Powder and talk to some of the guys there who own Snider and Martin'-Enery Carbines. We can learn from them, too.
But that TWIST, in most rifles, affects the action also, and, the more open the action, the more effect. This is part of the reason that Carcanos, for one example, are so damn accurate: the bottom of the action is much more solid than most other rifles. Take a look at the most expensive actions for precision shooting: milled and turned out of solid blocks of steel, just a little ejection/loading slot, single-shots only.
The standard late-model Moisin-Nagant has a LOT going for it along this line, but I do believe that the older octagonal action has MORE of the same.
Just my opinion. I don't have the money to prove it, either way. But I do think that those wily Finns have been onto this for a LONG time.
When the Grand Duchy of Finland gained their independence from Russia in January of 1918; they inherited the Imperial armories. The round receiver was not fully implemented by the Russians until 1935. After WWI, the Finnish government bought up hundreds of thousands of captured Russian arms from many countries and 'Finned' them for service. The Finnish army never being larger than 600,000 was well armed with plenty of spares. The Finns started using round receivers when they aquired them during the Winter War and the Continuation War (and purchasing them from German captured stocks during WWII). I have a 'Finned' round receiver '39 Tula, that was probably attained during the Winter or Continuation War(s).
http://7.62x54r.net/MosinID/MosinReceiver.htm
