Picked up a 1933 Izhevsk 91/30 from Tradex. Barrel has moderate wear, but otherwise good. Has Ukraine refurbish stamp on it. Can't trace some of the cartouche symbols - re: large "2"stamped into wood of buttstock, just ahead of the butt plate. Gun also has tiny "H" symbols on many of the wooded parts - would this maybe be the inspector at the factory when the gun was made?
Cosmo wasn't bad - naptha and hot water got rid of it all easily.
Bought some FMJ MSF in 185 grain and went "pounding". Wow- what a beast. I couldn't get over the heat off the barrel after even five rounds.I was done after 40 shells. Reminded me of shooting high brass 3"turkey loads out of a light shotgun. At 75 yds, gun shot about 9"high, and a foot to the right (was expecting this after first doing some reading about the 300m sight-in and the bayonet deal. The groups were awful - maybe 12" groups. Wasn't expecting it to be this bad. Went home and found the California Mosin club site. Did not want to alter anything original on the gun, but saw there were a few things you could do to help improve accuracy. Cut and drilled an old 2.5mm thick brass hinge, and inserted it into the recoil lug well. Then cut two pieces of .010"brass shim stock, and bedded the back bolt on the action. Inserted a tiny brass washer under the trigger sears bolt, and used 1.5mm cork to shim the upper and lower forestock wood pieces. I stripped some 18ga wire and put a piece on the short front post sight. Saw that the sear edge was ragged, so buffed it straight with a felt wheel on the bench grinder, rubbed with Lee Valleye chromium dioxide honing paste.
Holy crap! A new gun - even with the crude front post job, I can get 2-3"groupings at 75yds. Used a brass drift and tapped the front site over, so windage is dead on. I like how this keeps the gun original - you can pull all these modifications off in less than 1 minute.
I think I'm going to cough-up $38 and order the custom front sight from that dude in the states (you can tap off your original hood and save it). New hood comes with a longer adjustable pin that is much narrower than the original, plus it comes in two fiber optic colours. I can see me popping a deer with this thing when I get the better sight.
Oh yah - one more thing. My gun had about 30 human hairs rammed-in behind the buttstock plate! Wonder if some poor German had been head-spanked with this thing.
Dave
Cosmo wasn't bad - naptha and hot water got rid of it all easily.
Bought some FMJ MSF in 185 grain and went "pounding". Wow- what a beast. I couldn't get over the heat off the barrel after even five rounds.I was done after 40 shells. Reminded me of shooting high brass 3"turkey loads out of a light shotgun. At 75 yds, gun shot about 9"high, and a foot to the right (was expecting this after first doing some reading about the 300m sight-in and the bayonet deal. The groups were awful - maybe 12" groups. Wasn't expecting it to be this bad. Went home and found the California Mosin club site. Did not want to alter anything original on the gun, but saw there were a few things you could do to help improve accuracy. Cut and drilled an old 2.5mm thick brass hinge, and inserted it into the recoil lug well. Then cut two pieces of .010"brass shim stock, and bedded the back bolt on the action. Inserted a tiny brass washer under the trigger sears bolt, and used 1.5mm cork to shim the upper and lower forestock wood pieces. I stripped some 18ga wire and put a piece on the short front post sight. Saw that the sear edge was ragged, so buffed it straight with a felt wheel on the bench grinder, rubbed with Lee Valleye chromium dioxide honing paste.
Holy crap! A new gun - even with the crude front post job, I can get 2-3"groupings at 75yds. Used a brass drift and tapped the front site over, so windage is dead on. I like how this keeps the gun original - you can pull all these modifications off in less than 1 minute.
I think I'm going to cough-up $38 and order the custom front sight from that dude in the states (you can tap off your original hood and save it). New hood comes with a longer adjustable pin that is much narrower than the original, plus it comes in two fiber optic colours. I can see me popping a deer with this thing when I get the better sight.
Oh yah - one more thing. My gun had about 30 human hairs rammed-in behind the buttstock plate! Wonder if some poor German had been head-spanked with this thing.
Dave
