GuitarmanNick
Ultimate Member
I acquired a very nice Mosin-Nagant M-44 in a trade with a member here some months back. It is a 1955 Izhevsk and despite my best efforts, the barrel was shiny but the grooves were not.
I took it up to Hap Baker on Saturday. After running 58 rounds through it , I confirmed that it will not shoot straight unless the bayonet is deployed. Otherwise it shoots off to the left.
It was shooting consistently higher that it should be with surplus ammo. At 100 yards, it was almost 12" high and should have been more like 2" with the rear sight set @ 200. Research indicates that many have the same problem with these guns.
Even with the poor showing on my targets, I still had a blast, got some compliments on my little piece of history and even let a young Marine fire it. He said he had only fired an M-14 before and was thrilled when I told him to take a shot. I must admit that I just wanted to see the concussion inside of the box they make you place your muzzle into before firing. When he fired, it seemed to make the whole table jump. It was awesome. The look on his face was priceless, too. I made sure to give him my new recoil pad(which worked wonderfully), warned him that it has a 3lb. pull and no creep!
This also confirmed that the gun was shooting high for another shooter. He hit in the same area that I had been.
Well, I came home and cleaned it up and was pleasantly surprised when I looked down the barrel. It is now bright and shiny! Woohoo! I had read that sometimes shooting an old gun will clean the grooves out. It appears to have done just that so now that barrel truly looks as nice as the rest of the gun.
Moving forward, I have admitted to myself that I am now addicted and must get more Mosin food very soon! First, I plan to invest in a set of Mojo sights. I really hate changing anything on the rifle but I will carefully store the original sights in case I decide to sell it later and include them. I prefer to keep my guns as original as possible, but I also am OCD about wanting to hit where I am aiming so that will win out in this case. It is just too far off to try to compensate. I have seen some suggest slipping something over the front sight post to extend it but such fixes are not tough enough to meet my standards and are almost all short term repairs at best.
I will surely reload for it so a couple of hundred rounds of some Boxer primed brass cased rounds and a set of dies will also be added to my list. Another bullet size to hunt down and stock, too. Gotta look into which powders work best,... I love this stuff!
Now, this is not to say that I won't grab a couple of spam cans if the price is right. So far, the only surplus ammunition that I have had any issues with is some Hungarian brass Mosin food where a few rounds are slightly corroded. I am sure that it had been out of the can for years before I acquired it although most of the paper wrapping was in tact. It still feeds, goes BOOM, and ejects fine, it just isn't pretty.
All things considered, I love this M-44 and it shoots tight groups. Once I get it fixed up and hitting at the correct elevation, I will begin the hunt for some of it's cousins!
I took it up to Hap Baker on Saturday. After running 58 rounds through it , I confirmed that it will not shoot straight unless the bayonet is deployed. Otherwise it shoots off to the left.
It was shooting consistently higher that it should be with surplus ammo. At 100 yards, it was almost 12" high and should have been more like 2" with the rear sight set @ 200. Research indicates that many have the same problem with these guns.
Even with the poor showing on my targets, I still had a blast, got some compliments on my little piece of history and even let a young Marine fire it. He said he had only fired an M-14 before and was thrilled when I told him to take a shot. I must admit that I just wanted to see the concussion inside of the box they make you place your muzzle into before firing. When he fired, it seemed to make the whole table jump. It was awesome. The look on his face was priceless, too. I made sure to give him my new recoil pad(which worked wonderfully), warned him that it has a 3lb. pull and no creep!
This also confirmed that the gun was shooting high for another shooter. He hit in the same area that I had been.
Well, I came home and cleaned it up and was pleasantly surprised when I looked down the barrel. It is now bright and shiny! Woohoo! I had read that sometimes shooting an old gun will clean the grooves out. It appears to have done just that so now that barrel truly looks as nice as the rest of the gun.
Moving forward, I have admitted to myself that I am now addicted and must get more Mosin food very soon! First, I plan to invest in a set of Mojo sights. I really hate changing anything on the rifle but I will carefully store the original sights in case I decide to sell it later and include them. I prefer to keep my guns as original as possible, but I also am OCD about wanting to hit where I am aiming so that will win out in this case. It is just too far off to try to compensate. I have seen some suggest slipping something over the front sight post to extend it but such fixes are not tough enough to meet my standards and are almost all short term repairs at best.
I will surely reload for it so a couple of hundred rounds of some Boxer primed brass cased rounds and a set of dies will also be added to my list. Another bullet size to hunt down and stock, too. Gotta look into which powders work best,... I love this stuff!
Now, this is not to say that I won't grab a couple of spam cans if the price is right. So far, the only surplus ammunition that I have had any issues with is some Hungarian brass Mosin food where a few rounds are slightly corroded. I am sure that it had been out of the can for years before I acquired it although most of the paper wrapping was in tact. It still feeds, goes BOOM, and ejects fine, it just isn't pretty.
All things considered, I love this M-44 and it shoots tight groups. Once I get it fixed up and hitting at the correct elevation, I will begin the hunt for some of it's cousins!
