Mosin Nagant Accuracy good enough?

Question

I just started getting into hunting this year and I purchased a 91/30 mosin (7.62-54 russian). After dumping about $400-$500 into it and customizing it as much as I could (some say i am just polishing a turd... lol), it now shoots roughly 4 inch groups at 100 yards with surplus ammo, off of a front sandbag rest with a 2x scope....
I am wondering if it is worth it to start handloading or should I just stick with manufactured hunting ammo that is about the same price? I wanna be accurate enough to shoot a deer out to about 200 yards (Pennsylvania mountains)

Answer 1

Only a couple of basic things that can be throwing you off: one is barrel wear/damage and the other is ammo quality. Fix both of those and you probably won't ever better the gun. If your barrel is shot loose, you can try loading larger diam bullets to fit your bore size....and if it's the muzzle/crown damaged, slice the barrel back to good rifling and recrown it. If it's ammo quality, good commercial ammo will fix your prob.



The #1 thing you need to do is to get your bore slugged....force a bead of lead up the bore til it pops out the muzzle to see your exact bore size. You'll need to handload your own ammo with that sized bullet for best accuracy. Commercial ammo can sometimes be found to match that bore size, too, but not always.



Crown, as said, just slice the barrel back a few inches to some good rifling and recrown it. Instant fix.



Ammo: firing milsurp ammo is ok most times but not always best for accuracy. Diff makers/factories made different quality ammo. From experience, silver/yellow Hungarian is as close to match ammo as you'll find in the MN. Anything less will be progressively worse. You can often buy milsurp and reload your own, though. Not fully reloading it, milsurp brass isn't often reloadable due to the primer type. Just select a hundred of your best condition cartridges/bullets, same maker/same stamps etc, and use a bullet puller to jerk the bullets. Dump all the powder into a large pile and then use a powder scale to weigh it and divide it by 100 to get the average. Load that EXACT amount back into each casing. Weigh the bullets next and pick out the exact same weight ones, put the lighters and heaviers to the side. Replace the good ones in the casings and recrimp them. The rest, replace/recrimp the bullets and toss them back into your blaster ammo box. You can even reload those averaged casings with aftermarket hunting bullets to match your slugged bore size.....just be sure to buy and use bullets that *exactly* match the weight of the ones you jerked out. If you don't have a good scale and a crimper, don't try this. Lee makes a handloader in 7.62x54r if you can find one. Try MidwayUSA.com. If anyone has it, they will.



And I have three MN's. Good guns. Congrats on yours. Too many newbies and "experts" think buying accuracy makes them a better marksman. It doesn't. You don't see Olympic shooters using lasers etc. Addon crap is like a crutch. It only makes you weaker as you become dependent on it.

Answer 2

I have an assortment of Mosin rifles and as a general rule most of them can hit the gong at 1000 yards; that is what the rifle was designed to be for from the git-go; not hitting a gong but rather for shooting at a thousand yard range as were all the old early 1900 military rifles, Mauser, Enfield, etc. As the face of warfare changed the weapons changed and evolved; and will continue to do so. Look around for somebody else in your area who has a Mosin and do some comparison shooting; you may just have a marginal issue Mosin. They are a well built and long lasting rifle; especially the Remington and Westinghouse and Tula models.

Answer 3

I'm with the group who would say you are polishing a turd,but it's your turd now so... handloading isn't going to get you much better results than what you are getting now.You have a rifle that isn't known for being that accurate,the barrel might be shot out enough to be problematic,the receiver might be the problem-it might just be the last 3 inches of the barrel-you just don't know,and then you probably have an odd scope attachment,that isn't conducive to better accuracy either.

For that same $500+initial $90 for the rifle you could have gotten a decent second tier hunting rifle;Cabela's was selling Remington 700 ADLs w/scopes for $400,stainless Weatherby Vanguards w/scopes for $550,and a Savage AXIS combo for $350.

Now,back to your dilemma,you HAVE to use hunting ammo,and it MIGHT shoot just a tad better,but you should limit your shots to inside 100 yards,simply because your cone of accuracy is going to grow worse with every yard of distance and if you can't hit a pie plate 5 for 5 at 150 yards then you really should use a different rifle. As mentioned by others,the goal is a clean kill,not wounding animals.

Don't beat your self up about the cost of your M-N,but realize no one is going to put any value on it but you-no matter how much you invest in it it is still a $90 rifle. I buy rifles as investment for my son to use,so spending a little extra over two generations is certainly worthwhile. Unfortunately your M-N isn't the same as a hunting rifle.

Answer 4

Maybe you can improve accuracy. There are mods you your self can do do the trigger, search trigger mods. You can bed the stock front bolt with j-b weld putty steel. Get a higher powered scope and better quality. timeny triggers are awesome. Are you shooting from a rest or bipod to get best groups? You should be getting better groups at 100 yards. Check out my web site. My mosin shoots 1 to 1 1/2 groups I have links to sites that sell quality accessories for the nagant and I just recently took my nagant elk hunting. My site is mosinnaganthunting.webs.com. Good luck the 7.62x54r is a cool round.

Answer 5

I would recommend trying Winchester Metric Brand 180 grain SP. Works great it my Mosins. I can get a 3" at 100 yards with my '39 91/30 Finn Upgrade. Also don't know what kind of sight set up you have. I tried the weaver mount that replaces the rear sight and it came very very lose after five shots even with loc tite. I recommend removing the rear sight completely. There will be a 3/8 dove tail underneath. This is a more solid set up. You can even keep the front sights on but I removed mine.

Answer 6

I would not use a 4 inch grouping gun at 200 yards you will be getting 8 inch groups. Add excitment, wind, etc you have a good chance of crippling a deer. Try some different ammo but i wouldnt keep pouring money into it when for 200 dollars you could get a more accurate gun like a used savage axis that will group better.

Answer 7

that's not right, my dragoon does 4" at 300 meters. with my run-of-the-mill 91/30 manages 2" at 100 meters.

what kind of Mosin is it? before you throw a bunch of money on it, perhaps you need to pay more attention to what rifle you got. Mosin's vary greatly in quality.



an older hex receiver is usually more accurate than a round receiver.

floated barrel makes for better consistency.

a well bedded action improved accuracy

a good bore (to start with) contributes to most of the accuracy. perhaps your rifle had a bad bore to start with.



also how's the scope mounted? "scout" mounts that go on the rear sight base are quite wobbly and causes alot of problems. receiver-mounted is more stable.



I haven't had any accuracy problems with USSR LPS, Czech light ball, and Bulgarian YT types of surplus ammo.

Answer 8

What a waste of 4-500 bucks

Answer 9

Every gun is accurate. It's the user who isn't accurate enough.

Answer 10

7.62-54 rimmed, not russian