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The Mosin-Nagant

Discussion in 'Small Arms and Edged Weapons' started by Centurion, Apr 10, 2013.

  1. Centurion

    Centurion New Member

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    The Mosin Nagant was the main weapon of the Red Army, in the Second World War. It was based partly on a design from a Belgian named Leon Nagant, and partly on a design from Captain Sergei Ivanovich Mosin, hence the name Mosin-Nagant. It has some parts in common with the Mauser, in the firing mechanism (if anybody knows what they are feel free to post them).
    It was often crudely built and this led to problems with accuracy. It was equipped with a slide/elevator rear site that allowed it to to be fired in an indirect fire mode somewhat like an artillery piece. The button like piece on the end of the firing bolt could be pulled back (with some difficulty), and this turn the safety on. The handle on the side went straight out, as do most military bolt-action weapons, and is difficult to be used by a newer shooter while in a firing position. It kicks quite a bit when fired, although I can think of many weapons that kick a lot more. After shooting about 5 rounds my shoulder hurt quite a bit. Just think about being in a firefight and firing round after round, conscripts must have really been hurting at the end of the day.

    Thanks for reading, some of these are based on my own experience in shooting the weapon, I in fact own one from 1942. It is form the Izhevsk plant, which was pretty far east, and ever threatened by the Nazis, unlike the Tula plant, just south of Moscow, which was shut down during Operation Typhoon as the German war machine roared closer.
     
  2. Victor Gomez

    Victor Gomez Ace

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    Welcome, Centurion, I have a M-N in the family and we enjoy shooting it as it is very accurate.....at first we did not like it(shooting old discount ammo) as we were not placing our rounds on target then we tried some new manufacture ammo to find it was truly a tack driver in accuracy. It was not any different to shoot than other bolts as far as the kick....we often purchase a pad here for our bolt actions making them quite comfortable to shoot.....rather then acquire a sore shoulder.
     
  3. Centurion

    Centurion New Member

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    Its real fun to shoot that's for sure, the first box of Ammo was from Tula ammo, and it was in fact produced in Russia (very exciting). It was in a steel case, meaning that it couldn't have another round put in like can be done with brass casings and it also had Berdan primer. Berdan by the way was the company that produced guns for the Russians before the Mosin, but it was apperantly pretty complex to make. The gun even has the old Soviet crest with hammer and sickel, although its pretty worn.
     
  4. KodiakBeer

    KodiakBeer Member

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    In general, the older "hex receiver" models are often the best shooters. Most of the round receiver rifles were produced in a hurry just before and during the war and quality sometimes suffered. Of course, it all depends on the bore - a shiny bore with crisp rifling in any version is generally a good shooter.

    Mine are both hex receiver models produced in 1926 and 1927, respectively. They both shoot phenomenally well. I have a white rock about 3 feet in diameter sticking out of a canyon wall at just over 400 yards near my house that I use for a lot of long range shooting and zeroing. Both of these rifles will raise white dust from that rock with cheap Brown Bear ammo, and they'll do it with the correct 400 meter setting. It's hard to ask for more than that.

    As for recoil... I don't find the recoil very bad. Remember, a soldier then was probably wearing a wool tunic over several other layers of clothing. In effect, he wore his recoil pad rather than having it on his rifle. The other thing, as with any rifle, is that a soldier was usually shooting in a standing or kneeling position rather than from a fixed bench at a rifle range. When you shoot a rifle standing on your hind legs, the movement of your upper body negates much of the recoil.
     
  5. George Patton

    George Patton Canadian Refugee

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    I have an all-matching (including the scope) Tula 1943 sniper. Its fun to shoot, and extremely accurate.

    As for the recoil, it isn't bad. Try shooting a M38 or M44 carbine if you want to feel what bad recoil is!
     
  6. Centurion

    Centurion New Member

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    Mine is a round reciever, sooo... yeah not quite as good, but still accurate. I'm not very good at shooting and find that you being able to hit something at 400 meters impressive, just how many yards is that?
     
  7. KodiakBeer

    KodiakBeer Member

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    The rock is actually at 410 - 420 yards as variously measured by a cheap range finder. I don't mean to imply that I can hit it every time, just that on a good day with no wind or low wind I can squeeze one off and raise dust from that rock (from a rest) maybe two out of three shots. There's actually a cottonwood tree with a dead snag at shoulder height that my son and I use to zero rifles against that rock. On most days there's a wind from one direction or another, so we have to walk the shots in.

    Once you have the rifle zeroed and the wind doped, you actually know whether you hit or not before the muzzle falls back from recoil. You just "know" that the front sight was just in the right spot when the rifle went off. And when the muzzle comes down there's white dust hanging over the rock.

    The Mosin's are actually better shooters than the Garand at those ranges. The Garand has a very wide and blunt front sight that makes precise shots difficult. I think that wide sight on the Garand was designed for low light, so it's probably a better combat rifle in most situations.

    The best long range shooter I have is actually an old G1 FAL. The sights on it are like match sights. Actually, they're like AR15 sights - maybe Stoner stole that design from FN? The front sight is a nice square edged profile that you can replace with wider or narrower posts for different types of shooting.

    Anyway, shooting at long ranges with iron sights isn't as difficult as you'd think. Once a rifle is zeroed, the only real obstacle is wind, but you can figure out a steady wind and adjust. If it's gusty, you just have to shoot in between gusts and hope for the best.

    The Mosin and all the rifles of that era were designed for long range shooting in static warfare. They'll do the job - hit a man sized target at 500 yards or so.
     
  8. Centurion

    Centurion New Member

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    I found that the elevator sight to adjust for distance and gravity interesting. I was told it was put there to allow the gun to act as a miniature artillery piece, almost doing indirect fire. I assume that if you had enough troops doing it at the same time it would be effective. I suppose a whole squad (3-5 men) could pin down an mg or a known sniper postion, while another squad mosid into postion to take the mg/sniper out.
     
  9. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    I think I've read of the French doing it in the Franco Prussian war. Either at the company or Battalion level they would fire vollies to produce a "beaten" zone down range often out of sight. MG's were used to do similar things in WWI and I think it's been stated that at least in some countries it's still taught by the miiltary.
     
  10. KodiakBeer

    KodiakBeer Member

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    Studies after WWII by several nations found that long range rifle fire was totally ineffective. By "long range" I mean beyond 500 yards or so. There was a complete rethinking of the role of the rifleman in combat, which is why the world saw a whole new class of battle rifles emerge.

    The most cogent argument is simply that one can not see an enemy beyond 400 or 500 yards in any but the most unusual circumstances, so why design a rifle for long range fighting?
     
  11. KodiakBeer

    KodiakBeer Member

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    I think the light mortar replaced the tactical niche of the "beaten zone" by WWII down to the platoon level. Really, all of that thinking became outmoded by the use of radios. If you can call in artillery or even air strikes, there's little point in firing rifles into the blue.
     
  12. Centurion

    Centurion New Member

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    The Russians though did not have very good radios in the early days of the war, their armor clearly demonstrates this as none of them had radios until about mid war, so if a rifle unit had no way to call in an artillery strike, or one was not available, this would be a sort of a recourse for them. Just my opinion.
     
  13. George Patton

    George Patton Canadian Refugee

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    To my knowledge, the high sight elevations date from the late 1800s/early 1900s, when infantry tended to attack en-masse. If there's 5000 men a kilometer ahead of you, as long as the elevation is right, changes are you will hit something. Back in 1914, some strategists advocated using the machine gun in a purely 'artillery' role, firing at high angles to rain bullets down like the old longbows of the middle ages. Of course, when tactics changed away from en-mass maneuvers, the long-range sights (a rather dumb idea to begin with) was relegated to history's dustbin.

    As for the long-range sights being on WWII rifles, its more of a matter of 'if its ain't broke, don't fix it'. While the presence of the sights on the rifle didn't do anything good, they also didn't hurt. Most of the 'newer' rifles (ie: Garand, K98) ditched the sight ladders.

    From my experience, the 'worst' rifle for these is the Arisaka Type 38. The rear sight ladder goes all the way up to 2400 yards (2.2 km)! It goes without stating that you couldn't even see a target the size of a man at that distance (even a vehicle would be difficult to spot), and the front sight blade would block everything remote close to your target. The original Mosin Nagant M1891 (not the M1891/30 model) is a close second, with the sight ladder going up to 2700 Arshins (1.9km).
     
  14. KodiakBeer

    KodiakBeer Member

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    Technically, the sights on a Mosin are tangent sights. They slide along a curved steel base to adjust the elevation.

    A ladder sight is where the whole thing flips up to 90 degrees and the sight is raised and lower along the ladder. Ladder sights went out of use with the black powder cartridge since they no longer needed such radical elevation changes for long range shooting.
     
  15. George Patton

    George Patton Canadian Refugee

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    My Finnish M91 has a ladder sight. Yes, the rear sight is commonly used as a tangent sight, but you can also flip it up 90 degrees to use it as a ladder sight. The M91/30 dropped this feature, retaining only a simplified tangent sight.

    Have a look at this page on 7.62x54r.net. The Mosins are fascinating rifles, and currently are very easy on your wallet!

    http://62x54r.net/MosinID/MosinFeatures02.htm
     
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  16. KodiakBeer

    KodiakBeer Member

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  17. Karjala

    Karjala Don Quijote

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    Here's more info of the Finnish Mosin-Nagant developments and lots of other stuff too.

    http://www.jaegerplatoon.net/MAIN.html

    BTW - the most famous of them was called the "Pystykorva" (the Finnish Spitz), which got it's name because the "wings" of the front sight reminded of the ears of the popular Finnish dog race, "Pystykorva", which literally translates as the "upright ear(s)".

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Spitz

    [​IMG]
     
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  18. KodiakBeer

    KodiakBeer Member

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    The Finn rifles have the reputation of being the most accurate of all the MN variants. I'd like to get my hands on a nice example.
     
  19. George Patton

    George Patton Canadian Refugee

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    Thanks for that website. Looks like some good information there.

    I picked up my first Finn at the beginning of April. They're beautiful rifles -- far above any of the Soviet stuff you can buy now. To name just a few improvements; the parts are fitted properly and with care (no rattling when you carry the rifle), a nice crisp and smooth trigger (the two-stage Finn triggers are far above the Soviet ones, including my 1943 Tula sniper), and the barrel is bedded for improved accuracy. You can tell just by handling it how much effort the Finns put into each rifle -- a great contrast to some of the wartime Soviet M91/30s with very low quality metalwork.

    My Finn is one of the rare VKT 'B-Barrel' M91s. The 'B Barrels' were made in Liege, Belgium in 1942 and shipped to Finland to be assembled into new M91s. There's some debate over when these were assembled (some saying 1945, others say between the Winter and Continuation Wars). The Finns mated these nice, well-made barrels with captured Soviet receivers, and fitted them with their own two-piece stock sets. There's a lot of history in one of these. On my rifle, my bolt is made of parts from Tula, Izhevsk and Sestroryvesk arsenals, the magazine and trigger guard is pre-1928 Tula production, and the barrel bands are very early Tula production (probably around 1910). The rifle also has a round receiver. This is extremely rare, as the great majority of Finnish M91s were built using the Hex receiver. The round receiver was introduced in the 1930s, and was used almost exclusively used on the Finnish M91/30 rebuilds. I did some research, and could find less than 5 examples of a round receiver 'B-Barrel' Finnish M91. According to the administrator of one of the Soviet rifle forums, he knows of 'less than 10' in existence -- not bad for a gun show rifle I picked up for 350 bucks.

    Here's an interesting chart documenting the 'rarity' of Mosin Nagants. A VKT/B barrel M91 is rated as a "8", while a round receiver M91 is rated as a "9". No idea what happens when you put them together, but that is what mine would fall under:

    http://7.62x54r.net/MosinID/MosinRarity.htm

    I haven't had a chance to shoot this yet, but I have very high expectations.
     
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  20. KodiakBeer

    KodiakBeer Member

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    I hope you'll give us a report when you shoot it.

    In terms of real world accuracy the trigger is almost as important as the bore. In effect, a perfect rifle with a sloppy trigger is only capable of great accuracy from the bench. Once you stand up on your hind legs that poor trigger robs you of much of the rifles capability. I've not shot a Finn rifle, but have heard that they have great triggers as well as general good fitting.
     

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