Hey y'all. I am freshly graduated from college and studying for my lisecense exam. I bought a Mosin Nagant 91/30 6 years ago for 100 dollars. I noticed that the rifle only shot on target with the bayonet on. Furthermore, with the bayonet, the rifle can achieve 3-4 MOA at 100 yards. I wish to remove the bayonet. So I did. I want to do a complete overhaul on the rifle because a worthwhile rifle on the market would cost 600 dollars plus. I want to tweak this gun a little so I have something comparable to a Marlin 336 before Freedom Group bought them and turned them to shit. I purchased a Mojo rear sight, a M39 trigger spring and accuracy shim kit from Smith Sights, and Allen action screws and precut pillar beds from Rock Solid Industries. However, I did not see that you would have to drill new holes for these pillar beds. Does anybody know where I could get a drill press go drill a new hole into my original Mosin stock. I want to keep the original stock. Keep in mind to I want to keep this project as much do it myself as possible. I don't want to spend 500 dollars on a 100 dollar rifle. Furthermore, I wouldn't mind glass bedding the rifle but have absolutely no experience with this. Your thoughts? Any help is greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Mosin Help
- Thread starter Jibjab260
- Start date
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yellowsled
Retired C&R Addict
Shoulda left it alone. Just sayin.....
Red1917
Active Member
Agreed. You can drift the front sight with the bayonet off to shoot those size groups or smaller consistently even with milsurp ammo, if you're looking for a project gun a mosin isn't a bad choice but it should perform adequately as is. Like you I am a recent college grad and shoot my as issued 91/30 in matches and it will shoot just fine. I'd suggest shooting it some more and seeing how it performs without making any major modifications. Not trying to discourage your project just trying to relay my personal experience. Whatever you decide good luck, no personal experience with modifying Mosins so I can't say for sure on that front.
Doco Overboard
Ultimate Member
The recoil shoulder is supported by a cross-bolt reinforce through the stock. Removing it will more than likely cause other problems that are undesirable. Mosins are crude at best but are very reliable. If its French, US or Finnish made your ruining a well manufactured rifle. Anything else I wouldn't worry about it but you may be going the wrong way in search of accuracy. Trying different types of ammo is easier and will allow the rifle to remain intact or find another that's already been altered to experiment with and have fun. Once a ton of them were refurbished, factory regulation went out the window so your bayo is probably just helping to settle in poor fore end pressure.
Not leaving it alone. Stuff has already been bought. I've already purchased all the components I've listed. Keep in mind, I'm not in search of a 1 MOA rifle but I'd certainly like to get a nice large caliber center fire rifle that I can learn the basic of rifle shooting with. For 100 to 200 extra that the components cost and my own labor, it's not that big of a deal to me.
Doco Overboard
Ultimate Member
I would then cut the barrel to 22" add a Williams rear sight with a ramped front one, and then refit the military stock or find a aftermarket one that would respond to your pillar bedding. Hunt gun show junk bins to find a safety that can be fitted through the stock to block the trigger.
My plan is not to do any sort of major gunsmithing to this rifle. The only real gunsmithing I intended to do was to create a 5/16" hole where the two action screw are and insert pillar bedding from Rock Solid Industries into them. I may decide to glass bed the action in the future, but for right now I simply want to install these pillar beds and the other component I purchased ( as seen in my first post).
Doco Overboard
Ultimate Member
I would just figure out what needs to be done to get it into 4" without the bayonet attached. You already have what your looking for in a large caliber rifle that you can learn marksmanship with. Send that stuff back and buy ammo.
Sticky bolt syndrome has little to nothing to do with chamber polishing and EVERYTHING to do with improper cleaning and caked on cosmoline. How many times did you dunk the entire barrel action into boiling hot, soapy water and leaving it there for a good duration when initially cleaning the rifle after purchase? If the answer is anything other than "Several" you simply need to go back and clean the sucker thoroughly and you won't have bolt stick issues. Scrub the everloving hell out of the locking lug recesses and chamber with a brass brush (AR-15 chamber brushes actually work well for this) and you'll likely fix the issue unless headspace is shot and you're bulging cases.
Polishing the barrel won't do much for accuracy. IMHO (FWIW) it'll likely hurt it since you'll be wearing down the lands even more giving the round less to engage in its travel to the business end.
The reason you shoot fine with the bayonet on, and it goes wonky with it off, is that these were sighted in at the factory with the bayonet on after Stalin issued the order that bayonets should be fixed at all times. The bayonet being attached throws off the harmonics of the barrel so when you take it off, the compensation that was made at the factory/arsenal when sighting in is thrown off. Drifting the front sight should remedy the vast majority of this issue. It's cheap and easy to do with the right tool
May we ask for some photos of this Mosin and its markings before you go hacking away at it just to make sure you aren't cutting into an uncommon or rare piece?
hard to say w/o seeing it but keep in mind that MANY mosins have a very loose bore. Also, many have been shot to hell. I have seen MANY Bubba'd Mosins as shows where they tried to turn it into a modern sniper rifle only to fail. miserably. I have purchased about a dozen Mosins over the years. and 1 was worthy of being an accurate shooter cause it had a mint bore.
2nd place to that, was one with at least sharp rifling but frosty grooves. I can not stress enough that you need a tight fit between the reciever and the stock. I shimmed the reciever really well and also did the oil canvas wrap on it. with your young eyes, I think the MOJO site may not get you much but good luck.
once you drill that thing, you pull about $50-$100 off the value.
2nd place to that, was one with at least sharp rifling but frosty grooves. I can not stress enough that you need a tight fit between the reciever and the stock. I shimmed the reciever really well and also did the oil canvas wrap on it. with your young eyes, I think the MOJO site may not get you much but good luck.
once you drill that thing, you pull about $50-$100 off the value.
After speaking with a gunsmith, he informed me that the pillar beds would require too much time and money on this gun. This a 1942 Ivhesk 91/30. Run of the mill 91/30. I'm simply going to install the shim kit from Smith sights and the cork pieces from Smith sights. The only reason I ordered the Mojo is because I have shot a friends with a Mojo sights and I find the aperture much easier to aim.
Looking at the smith sites website, looks like he has done some revisions possibly since I have spend my time on Mosin accurizing.
http://www.smith-sights.com/hvmag.php
The Recoil Lug face shim is the important one that I recall he did not have in his kit. I used several thin brass shims or cut soda cans because one size did not fit all.
Each stock has different amount of play that the other. I would keep adding shims until it was harder and harder to shove down the action into the wood.
So long as you are not cutting any metal, you are good. Plus a Mojo should be removable and you can put things back w/o messing up the value of the mosin if you sell.
http://www.smith-sights.com/hvmag.php
The Recoil Lug face shim is the important one that I recall he did not have in his kit. I used several thin brass shims or cut soda cans because one size did not fit all.
Each stock has different amount of play that the other. I would keep adding shims until it was harder and harder to shove down the action into the wood.
So long as you are not cutting any metal, you are good. Plus a Mojo should be removable and you can put things back w/o messing up the value of the mosin if you sell.
Also, I have placed the action in newspaper, placed these inside of a tied up black garbage bag, and placed this inside of the trunk of my car for the past three days only when it is hot out. Everyday I would remove the barrel, rub hot water through it and clean the barrel with rags and a bore snake. I'm pretty sure all the cosmoline is gone out of the barrel. The bolt incompletely stripped and let it bathe in mineral spirits for 48 hours. I scrubbed each part of the bolt with hot water and placed it back inside the mineral spirits and repeated the process again. The bolt is clean of cosmoline.
Doco Overboard
Ultimate Member
Like I stated before, mosins are crude at best but are reliable. Usually gunsmithing them is an amateur project to tackle because they do not respond well to modifications. Most aftermarket mods usually remove factory safety features or will decrease the potential for accuracy especially when a problem or cause has not been properly diagnosed.
Its not much expense to get them shooting "better" the Smith sights kit is about all I would ever recommend anyone to spend. If you have not put the mojo sight on and you are looking to bail on it, recover some costs by selling on ebay. Its cheap to ship.
Shooting it first to see the grouping from a bench and bags at 50 yards is the way to go. Then do the smith sights. Drifting the front sight with a brass punch is usually not that hard. If its seized or staked, you may have to use a drifting tool. Even at 50 yards, you can see where it groups w/o drifting front sight.
Then do the smith sights work.
Single load to slow things down and let rifle cool between shots. Say a couple minutes. These Mosins string pretty easily, even after you have accurized them.
One trick is to use shrink tubing to elongate the front sight post cause they shoot high @ 50 & 100 yards.
Good luck.
Shooting it first to see the grouping from a bench and bags at 50 yards is the way to go. Then do the smith sights. Drifting the front sight with a brass punch is usually not that hard. If its seized or staked, you may have to use a drifting tool. Even at 50 yards, you can see where it groups w/o drifting front sight.
Then do the smith sights work.
Single load to slow things down and let rifle cool between shots. Say a couple minutes. These Mosins string pretty easily, even after you have accurized them.
One trick is to use shrink tubing to elongate the front sight post cause they shoot high @ 50 & 100 yards.
Good luck.
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