My first rifle (M91/30)

T

TimeAttack

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Picked up the rifle today in the mail.
Took a couple quick pictures and started to take it down.
Spent my evening soaking the metal parts in mineral spirits and wiping down the stock.

Finished with the mineral, let the metal bits sit in hot water for a few minutes and wiped everything down and started cleaning with hoppes 9.

ran 5-10 patches through the barrel to remove any leftover junk.

Big thanks to westrifle for the quick service and great price. Fast shipping and from what I can tell a great rifle.

I've got pictures of the rifling below, very hard to capture with my camera but looking with my eye i can see very solid, very shiny lines with no pitting.
The pictures show what looks like slight pitting at the very beginning of the barrel, but hardly something to worry about.
What do you'all think?

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Looks like some throat erosion/pitting. You'll have copper deposits once you start shooting there to clean. How does the crown/muzzle area look more importantly? That will affect your accuracy more. Slug the bore and feel for loose/tight spots in the bore. The more uniform from breech to muzzle the better.
My first 91/30 Mosina was a 1942 Izhevsk also.
Other than that, the rifling looks good from the pics so just shoot and have fun. :)
 
I still remember the excitement of buying and cleaning my first milsurp. I still own it and it will be the last I ever sell.

Congrats - good choice, and thanks for the pics and description.
 
Thanks for the comments guys,
the crown/muzzle end looks great, no pitting at all, very shiny and sharp.

Ammo is on its way today and I just have to find a good way to get in the little inner areas of the wood stock/action area to clean out the cosmoline.

It should be ready to rock and roll this weekend.
I'll post up pictures of the targets when I get a chance to fire it.
 
I like that it was shipped with a "Fragile" sticker on a 70 year old rifle that survived WWII and who knows how many conflicts after that.
 
Got it cleaned up to a degree that I feel satisfied with.
Ammo arrives tomorrow so I will be testing it very soon...
Some glory shots:

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The brass endcaps are a nice touch. Don't be surprised if it shoots high and to the right. Most if them do out of the box. There's lots of info on front sight adjustment in some recent threads in this forum. Nice looking rifle.
 
Speaking of brass endcaps on the handguard. I've noticed many photos of Russian snipers with brass endcaps. Almost like they swapped other rifles for them. There could be no way they came as issued during war time production, eh?
 
Brass endcaps were standard on some rifles. They Russians had a few variations throughout the years. Although they look sharper, there is nothing superior about them.
 
Welcome to the fun. I'm just ordering my own crate of ammo from Westrifle to feed the beast. I'm thinking that I may go for one of the nice cherry early years models as well.
 
Chumlee Bumsnag said:
Don't be surprised if it shoots high and to the right.
Click to expand...

You called it...

First trip to the range tonite, first time shooting this rifle.

I had one snag where I was really having a hard time getting the bolt all the way over to the left, it would go 90% of the way and the last 10% was really stiff and I had to really pound it to get it over, and ejection was fine.

I tried another brand of ammo and it worked perfectly.

I've heard people talk about sticky bolts on these, but I'm not sure if that is the problem I'm having, the bolt is perfect, just the last bit of the lock over is really hard to get.

What is likely the problem is that the chamber isn't clean enough, probably has some cosmo buildup.

I fired about 5 rounds of my LVE and decided to switch to MFS 185 grain, I put 10 rounds of MFS through it and it functioned much better.

Shot of the two different kinds of ammo I used and a shot of the groups.
Target on the left was my first target @ 25 yards.
Target on the right was my second grouping @ 25 yards.

First time firing a rifle larger than .22 so keep that in mind as well.

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Take the bolt apart and clean it. You will not have any problem. Probably some cosmo build up. Once you clean it should be fine.

Cheers

Al
TimeAttack said:
You called it...

First trip to the range tonite, first time shooting this rifle.

I had one snag where I was really having a hard time getting the bolt all the way over to the left, it would go 90% of the way and the last 10% was really stiff and I had to really pound it to get it over, and ejection was fine.

I tried another brand of ammo and it worked perfectly.

I've heard people talk about sticky bolts on these, but I'm not sure if that is the problem I'm having, the bolt is perfect, just the last bit of the lock over is really hard to get.

What is likely the problem is that the chamber isn't clean enough, probably has some cosmo buildup.

I fired about 5 rounds of my LVE and decided to switch to MFS 185 grain, I put 10 rounds of MFS through it and it functioned much better.

Shot of the two different kinds of ammo I used and a shot of the groups.
Target on the left was my first target @ 25 yards.
Target on the right was my second grouping @ 25 yards.

First time firing a rifle larger than .22 so keep that in mind as well.

DSCF3589.JPG



DSCF3591.JPG
Click to expand...
 
She will shoot high and to the right @ 100yds. by the looks of those targets.
Some milsurp steel case ammo has thicker rims. I have to whack the bolt with the palm of my hand sometimes to get the odd case to close. My handloads never have to, work fine.
 
Ah well. Whacking it around to open the bolt won't hurt the thing. :) Mosin's are very robust. Clean it after you shoot corrosive and it'll probably outlast you. I know mine will. My first rifle was a '43 Ижевск, also from Westrifle. They had it shipped on the day I ordered it. Excellent service from those guys.
 
I took some time this past weekend to really get in the chamber and clean out every little spec of cosmoline. Did a full takedown on the bolt and cleaned each part very well, gave a couple areas a light polish and made sure it was spotless.
All back together, checked the striker pin tolerance and took it out to the range.

Functioned much better, much smoother. You have to use some force to fully #### the bolt after a round is fired but this is extremely common with the 91/30.

Some people take off a link of the firing pin spring to ease the tension but I'm gonna shoot like this and just get used to how the rifle operates.

Big thanks to west rifle, I hope to pick up another in the future and I've recommended west rifle to people I know and work with.

Can't wait until my shoulder heals to go out again with this thing! haha
 
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