By Joe Berk
I’ve joked around a bit about my 1940 Tula Mosin-Nagant’s bore by writing that it looks like a sewer pipe. It turns out my description was closer than I realized. I recently purchased a Teslong borescope (watch for an upcoming review here on ExNotes), and I took a look at what things looked like inside the Mosin. Wow, was I ever shocked. That photo above is my Mosin, from the inside.
I shoot only jacketed bullets in the Mosin described above, and even with that funky bore it shoots them well. This rifle is surprisingly accurate. That’s amazing, particularly in light of the fact that the bore (while clean) is extremely pitted, and in some places, I couldn’t even see the rifling. Still, it cuts a relatively tight group at 100 yards, especially considering that I shoot it only with its native iron sights. On a good day, it will put five shots into a little over an inch before the barrel heats up, and then when it does heat up, it walks them up a line no wider than an inch due to the stock deflecting the barrel upwards.
I have another Mosin (a hex receiver 1935 Izhevsk) I use for cast bullets, and I thought it had a pristine barrel. I was wrong about that, too. The Teslong reveals all. It’s way better than the Tula’s bore, but it also bears more than a passing resemblance to a lunar landscape. But it, too, can cut a decent group at 100 yards. What makes that amazing (at least to me) is that it does so with the same old prehistoric iron sights and cast bullets.
When these rifles were new back in the 1930s and 1940s, primers were corrosive, and corrode the bore they did. And obviously the soldiers who carried them did little to clean them adequately. I’m not faulting them; those troops had other things on their minds and I’m just making an observation. I’ve been driving myself nuts using the new borescope when I clean my modern rifles trying to get every speck of copper and carbon out of the bore, and I’ve been living in anguish every time I see a machining defect or scratch in these firearms. As the Mosins show, I’ve been worrying for nothing. A bore that is in pretty rough condition can still be accurate.
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Sometimes its better to not look too closely.
I agree, Bob. Borescopes should come with a warning.
Hey Joe,
I bought my Mosin Nagant M91/30 quite a few years ago back when Big 5 had a run of them imported by Century Arms. It was a sweet deal – $99 including rifle, sling, bayonet, cleaning rod, ammo pouch, full gun oil can, and possibly some other stuff. Removing all the sticky cosmoline off the rifle with Hoppe’s revealed a stock having the most horrid coating of lacquer. It was thick and ugly! I discovered that the lacquer came off easily down to bare wood with brake cleaner spray. It just wiped right off. The underlying wood (don’t know what kind it is) didn’t look half bad and I just oil it and that’s still the way is today. The barrel is rough, but I don’t think quite as rough as yours. Maybe it only appears like that to me because I don’t own a bore scope. Looking down the tube almost makes me feel dizzy – I’ve never seen a rifle that had such pronounce, deep rifling and super fast twist rate before. But, like yours it shoots really straight for some odd reason that defies everything I think I know about rifle barrels.
Big 5 also had a bunch of steel core eastern block ammo for dirt cheap, so I bought a bunch of that corrosive stuff too with the Berdan primers that are non-reloadable, for me anyhow. That ammo shoos about 16 inches high at 100 yards with the rear ladder sight slammed all the way down. I suspect these old battle rifles were designed for engaging the enemy out past 400 yards or more.
Since then, I bought some Lee Precision dies and bullet molds and have had some very good “loading down” to 100 to 200 yards using Alliant 2400, which was as I understand it, an old rifle power evvelope by Hercules back in the ay.
Anyhow the Mosin Nagant is a pretty fun rifle, that I tend to forget about for a long time then break it out of the safe when I think about it.
As the 800-year-old knight in the Indiana Jones movie said: You chose wisely.
$89. Those were the days.
The prices on these Mosins is, as you know, much higher today. I am glad I bought when I did.
Cast bullets are a good way to go in the ones that have a 400-500 yard battlesight zero.
Thanks for commenting, Joe.
Why would a rifle intended for 500yards come with a bayonet?
If you have a really strong arm, you can turn it into a spear.