Thinking about a Mosin

[brew45]

I like the idea of having something iconic like this rifle and the fact that ammo is relatively cheap is making me get an itch. What do you look for when buying this rifle? Explain "counterboring" a little better for me...

 

[Shadow8088]

Check the bore.. counterboring is generally done to "repair" damage done to the crown by poor maintenance... the essentially bore down the barrel until they're past the damage. I own 2, both counterbored...

 

[brew45]

does it affect accuracy? or durability?

 

[superjoe76]

If you are from the Fort Wayne area I just put one up for sale.

 

[fundy87]

i've been wanting to get my hands on a type 53 myself, so i'll be studying this thread

 

[cavskillz]

No reason not to have a mosin in the safe. Cheap and fun to shoot. Try and find one with a clean bore and matching numbers. Like I've heard before, they are addicting and you may end up with more than one.

 

[daspurlock]

Just bought my first one yesterday. The m44 only got to shoot 10 rounds out of it, but I love it. Picked it up for $150 and seems to be in great shape.

 

[TomJefferson]

does it affect accuracy? or durability?

My M44 is not counterbored and is still not extremely accurate due to being completly worn out. For this reason I usually break it out at the end of the day after shooting. I wait until about dusk for the the best (fireball) results.

Everybody needs at least one Mosin.

 

[steif]

counterbore

Hi,
Some purists and collectors look at counterboring as a bad thing, whatever floats their boat I guess.. I have never had a problem with it.

What happens from what I understand, when cleaning the rifle during the service life the steel cleaning rod just destroys the first bit of the crown and muzzle area and wears it out.
All the armorers did was to remove the first few inches of the rifling and I guess just made a new crown with fresh rifling several inches down the bore.

Basically a drill or reamer was run down the bore to clean up and get to some fresh non-worn out rifling. From what I have seen, this process makes the rifle as accurate as a newer rifle with a good crown. I have actually did this on one I had that was shooting 20" groups and it tightened the groups up a lot and now they are 6" groups. ( for a old worn out mosin not bad..lol.. )

So this process actually improves the rifle, but like I said some collectors turn their nose up at counterboring, but I looked at it as no worse than a armory repair or refurb. after all, some of these rifles are incredibly rare and it is amazing some have survived at all.

The depth of counterboring varies as well, I have had several with a inch and a half or so counterbored, and I had one that was counterbored a good six inches. that particular one shot 4 or 5 inch groups on a good day.

 

[Mgderf]

Most everything you want to know about Mosin-Nagants can be found here,

7.62x54r.net

 

[LANShark42]

Fun gun(s) to own! I have 3. Look for an M44 if you can find one. Otherwise, buy what you find and have fun with it.

 

[InRon]

I picked up a "shooters" grade at AIM. It was actually in pretty good shape a little surface rust on the barrel near the receiver. Sanded an reblued. My son and I were regularly hitting the A-ring on a silhouette at 200 yards. Very fun to shoot!