# mosin nagant



## kota bear (Jan 4, 2008)

i just bought a mosin nagant m38 carbine today. its chambered for the 7.62x54r round. i paid $100 bucks for it and i have to say I LOVE IT!!! i was a little hesitant but i thought, oh well its 100 bucks to plink with if nothing else. i bought two boxes of shells and shot them all today. the rifle i got has all matching numbers and is in good shape. just can't get enough of it. anybody else have any experience with these? i know i've seen them on the shelf everywhere but never owned one before. i really don't regret it at all so far. let me know what you think.


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## whitehorse (Jan 28, 2008)

from my experience, ya get what ya pay for. My friend owns it and put a lighter trigger pull on it, glass bedded, and free floated, only to find out that he was grouping 5" at 200 yards... something was wrong, gun or shooter, i'm not sure, I wasn't ever behind the gun. I have been thinkin of getting it and using it for open sites for night coyote hunting... sure it's big, but that military ammo is cheap and won't hurt the pelt too bad (i think?) I love the gun, just wouldn't trust it's accuracy from what i've seen!


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## Sasha and Abby (May 11, 2004)

They are workhorse guns. Most were never cleaned very well. That said, I would take some WipeOut to the bore and try shooting it again.


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## kota bear (Jan 4, 2008)

ok, i've shot 200 rounds through my nagant in the past few days, and i'm still sticking with my original post. I LOVE IT!!! this is such a sweet little gun. can't believe it was only 100 bucks. its by no means a tack driver, but be danged if it doesn't hit where its pointing. any other stories? good or bad? let me know, i'm really interested. also good luck to all on the big 3!!


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## HOTWING (Jul 3, 2007)

I had one. I had the barrel cut down to 16 and a half inches and recrowned. Also put a scout scope mount on it. The kind that replaces the rear sight. That along witrh a tasco long eye relife 4X scope. With S&B mhpbt ammo i was shooting under half inch groups with it at a hundred yards. Yeah, there an ugly gun, but you have to remember that they were used as sniper rifles durining WW2.


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## whitehorse (Jan 28, 2008)

yea, my buddy is by no means lookin to be a tack-drivin sniper rifle, even though he put money into it, he doesn't put the work into cleaning it out (just basic cleans to keep the corrosive ammo from damaging it. He put the synthetic stock and the scope mount... I would suggest this, becuase it is cheap, and makes the gun look a lot better!.. he might have been better off just using the 300$ he put into it, and getting a cheaper bolt, but he loves it (I do too, other than how it seems to perform)


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## hogcaller (Dec 13, 2007)

I bought one last summer for $89. It was the m44 model. I put a 3-9 long eye relief scope on it and it shot very accurately. With a scope it makes one heck of a deer or hog rifle. The 7.62X54 is about the same equivelant as a 30-06. I only had one problem with the rifle. The safety wasn't good enough for me. I didn't like the way you had to pull it out and twist it. It made me very uncomfortable because one wrong move and the gun could go off. If you want to watch a cool movie that features the mosin nagant then you need to watch "Enemy at the Gate". Have fun with your new puchase....but, be careful!


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## headshot (Oct 26, 2006)

I have one. I don't use it for big game but I don't see any reason it won't work. I shoot surplus ammo with mine at gophers. When the dumb baby gophers come out the nagant is my go to rifle. :sniper:


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## omegax (Oct 25, 2006)

I love Mosins, but there are some definite pit-falls that have a lot of people hating theirs:

One thing to keep an eye out for on a Mosin is the "sticky-bolt" basically, they'll get cosmoline in the chamber and when you fire it, the cosmo will heat up and form a glue to the casing. Sometimes you have to smack the bolt open with the palm of your hand. This can usually be fixed with a really good chamber cleaning. I did this to 2 of my 3 and have never had another problem. I chucked a piece of cleaning rod into a cordless drill, and put a 28-gauge bore swab on it, and drowned it in solvent and gave it a spin (being careful not to get it too far in and contact the riflings AT ALL).

The triggers can stink, but there are ways to make them a little lighter without altering the rifle substantially.

2 out of 3 of mine shoot high. If I really wanted to fix it, I could take the front sight off, pull out the pin, and replace it with something taller.

It doesn't apply to the M38, which doesn't have a bayonet, but some people have said that on the 91/30 and M44 the point of impact changes by up to 6 inches at 100 yards without the bayonet. They were originally sighted in with the bayo on.

If you're looking at stripper clips for them, I've never heard good things about steel re-productions, but there are people who make pretty nice brass ones. I have 20 of them myself, and they work pretty well.

Also, most M38s were counter-bored, so don't count on being able to check how tight the muzzle is. Mine would swallow a round all the way to the shoulder, but behind the area where it was bored-back, the rifling is darn nice.

I would probably hunt with my M38 if I didn't dislike the safety so much. I'd probably get used to it, but I have much better tools for the job.


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## People (Jan 17, 2005)

The safty is a total joke. I find it much easier to keep the chamber empty untill I am ready to shoot. Mine is the old 91/30 made in 1939. I really like mine. The best thing you can do is stock up on ammo. When I bought mine the gun was $32.95 (you had to buy 2 to get that price) and ammo was a nickle a shot. Now it is out of line I have resorted to reloading for it.


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