Mosin Nagant... yay or nay?
04-26-2010, 08:12 AM
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Mosin Nagant... yay or nay?
They seem to be available fairly cheap and the ammo appears to be fairly inexpensive as well. Worth the time? Any other surplus rifles to consider? Any worthwhile differences between the different versions/receivers? Best place to buy?
04-26-2010, 11:24 AM
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I had a MN M91-30. It was a good rifle, although a little more complicated action than a typical bolt action rifle.
Century Arms sells a ton of surplus rifles, but they're reconditioned, stamped, and resold, so their value as collectibles goes way down. Functionally there is no difference.
Some sellers have sniper packages, you HAVE to make sure they're original though, some sellers just put a scope on a M91-30 and call it a sniper package but it's not and the difference in value is great.
The M38, M44, and M91-30 are the ones I see most commonly. The M91-30 is pretty unwieldy, but honestly with that rifle it was half the fun to show up somewhere with a 5 foot long all wooden rifle.
If you get one, it will either be packed in cosmoline or it will have been packed in cosmoline and someone already cleaned it up. Cosmoline is very tough to get off of a weapon. I had to disassemble the bolt itself, and bits of molten cosmoline still flew out of the bolt when I fired it for the first hundred rounds or so. The steel is not a nice modern alloy so if you bake the parts you're likely to cause the steel to lose a lot of carbon if you're not careful to heat it to just barely hot enough to melt the cosmoline. You can't just heat it up like crazy without damaging the weapon somewhat.
All surplus 7.62x54r ammunition is corrosive. Some says it's not, but unless you find a true high end hunting cartridge for it, you're really taking a gamble. There is nothing wrong with firing corrosive cartridges whatsoever, you just HAVE to clean it properly every time you get home from firing it. You'll need to get a solvent that is for corrosive ammunition, or even leaving one speck of residue will eat away at the bore.
Century Arms sells a ton of surplus rifles, but they're reconditioned, stamped, and resold, so their value as collectibles goes way down. Functionally there is no difference.
Some sellers have sniper packages, you HAVE to make sure they're original though, some sellers just put a scope on a M91-30 and call it a sniper package but it's not and the difference in value is great.
The M38, M44, and M91-30 are the ones I see most commonly. The M91-30 is pretty unwieldy, but honestly with that rifle it was half the fun to show up somewhere with a 5 foot long all wooden rifle.
If you get one, it will either be packed in cosmoline or it will have been packed in cosmoline and someone already cleaned it up. Cosmoline is very tough to get off of a weapon. I had to disassemble the bolt itself, and bits of molten cosmoline still flew out of the bolt when I fired it for the first hundred rounds or so. The steel is not a nice modern alloy so if you bake the parts you're likely to cause the steel to lose a lot of carbon if you're not careful to heat it to just barely hot enough to melt the cosmoline. You can't just heat it up like crazy without damaging the weapon somewhat.
All surplus 7.62x54r ammunition is corrosive. Some says it's not, but unless you find a true high end hunting cartridge for it, you're really taking a gamble. There is nothing wrong with firing corrosive cartridges whatsoever, you just HAVE to clean it properly every time you get home from firing it. You'll need to get a solvent that is for corrosive ammunition, or even leaving one speck of residue will eat away at the bore.
04-26-2010, 02:38 PM
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Mosin nagant YAY! They are some of my favorite guns to shoot. You can go to gun shows and buy the 7.62.54r surplus tins for like 65 dollars for a box of 780 and i usually only get about 2 or 3 no firing rounds out of it. They are nice because they have a big bang and are just a fun rifle. I like the M38 and the M44 both carbines and have a nice mussle blast that scare everyone around, especially if you can get a mussle break, which you may want if you plan on shooting more that like 15 rounds. You shoulder tends to hurt shortly after. Another fun cheap gun is a 8 millimeter Moser. Yet the ammo is easliy twice as much! Also a fun gun is the m91-30 and you can get the Pe kit, which brings a nice scoop and makes it into the sniper rifle it is!
OH AND TO BUY GO TO BIG5 SPORTING GOODS! YOU CAN FIND THEM LESS THAN 100 BUCKS ALL THE TIME. BUT BE PREPARED TO BREAK IT DOWN AND CLEAN IT FOR HOURS, THEY COME PACKED IN COSMOLINE MOST OF THE TIME!
OH AND TO BUY GO TO BIG5 SPORTING GOODS! YOU CAN FIND THEM LESS THAN 100 BUCKS ALL THE TIME. BUT BE PREPARED TO BREAK IT DOWN AND CLEAN IT FOR HOURS, THEY COME PACKED IN COSMOLINE MOST OF THE TIME!
04-27-2010, 12:50 PM
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I keep all six of mine in a safe, and i only ever shoot with three of them but, never had a problem with rust, just every time you go shooting, clean them, especially the bore sense they use corrosive ammo, which there are tricks to cleaning the bores. Plus when your done just take a paper towel and a like gun oil, then rub the metal down, this will keep it rust free for its storage time!!!!!!!