IIRC, the original load for the MN 7.62x54r was a 214 grn. RN bullet powered by compressed Black powder.
|
   
   
|
|
IIRC, the original load for the MN 7.62x54r was a 214 grn. RN bullet powered by compressed Black powder.
Hello,Originally Posted by Hang Fire
212grn copper-nickel jacket bullet pushed to 2100fps by smokeless.
The last black powder arm was the Berdan II in .42 caliber.
Regards,
Josh
I have a ton of Mosins. This is all helpful info. Tried to get in on the NOE order, not sure if I made it or not. Might be a good bullet for the Finns. Most are .309-.310. Never shot cast in them but that is going to change soon I hope. Thanks for the OP.
As to the smokeless thing, I didn't realize the standard was smokeless in Russia in 1891..
Hello,
The French invented the Lebel in 1876. This made the rifles currently issued in Europe obsolete.
In 1888 the Germans came out with the Gewehr 1888 Commission Rifle which fired the predecessor of the modern 8x57mm round. That was the 7,92x57 m88 cartridge, and it was to the 8x57 what the .30-03 was to the .30-06. The m88 round pushed a 220grn bullet to around 2000fps.
The Russian rifle was the M1891 Three-Line Rifle. It took a 7.62x54 rimmed round.
The European rifles of the early 20th Century were all very similar and stayed that way through WWII. In fact, in my experiments, I found that a K98 Mauser rear sight will fit a 91/30 Mosin-Nagant with very, very little modification.
These were all new technology, though, and took a while to implement. A lot of Europe stuck with black powder arms, going so far as to come up with what we consider today as black powder substitutes.
Militaries like to stick with what works.
The Lee-Enfield was designed as a smokeless arm and the .303, a smokeless cartridge. I have read that it was loaded with blackpowder as smokeless was originally in short supply.
Though the Mosin does indeed generally carry a blackpowder proof cartouche, I cannot find any evidence of the 7.62x54r ever being issued blackpowder loads.
The Mosin-Nagant was originally manufactured in the USA and in France. Most ammo was manufactured in England at the same time. However, the Mosin didn't see widespread issue into WWII -- and even then, lots of old Berdan II rifles were still in service on the front lines.
It's never easy for a military to do a complete paradigm shift in small arms thinking, and this is exemplified in early smokeless military arms. I think a large part of my fascination for them comes from seeing what they got right, and what they got wrong.
Regards,
Josh
Hello,
The French invented the Lebel in 1876. This made the rifles currently issued in Europe obsolete.
In 1888 the Germans came out with the Gewehr 1888 Commission Rifle which fired the predecessor of the modern 8x57mm round. That was the 7,92x57 m88 cartridge, and it was to the 8x57 what the .30-03 was to the .30-06. The m88 round pushed a 220grn bullet to around 2000fps.
The Russian rifle was the M1891 Three-Line Rifle. It took a 7.62x54 rimmed round.
The European rifles of the early 20th Century were all very similar and stayed that way through WWII. In fact, in my experiments, I found that a K98 Mauser rear sight will fit a 91/30 Mosin-Nagant with very, very little modification.
These were all new technology, though, and took a while to implement. A lot of Europe stuck with black powder arms, going so far as to come up with what we consider today as black powder substitutes.
Militaries like to stick with what works.
The Lee-Enfield was designed as a smokeless arm and the .303, a smokeless cartridge. I have read that it was loaded with blackpowder as smokeless was originally in short supply.
Though the Mosin does indeed generally carry a blackpowder proof cartouche, I cannot find any evidence of the 7.62x54r ever being issued blackpowder loads.
The Mosin-Nagant was originally manufactured in the USA and in France. Most ammo was manufactured in England at the same time. However, the Mosin didn't see widespread issue into WWII -- and even then, lots of old Berdan II rifles were still in service on the front lines.
It's never easy for a military to do a complete paradigm shift in small arms thinking, and this is exemplified in early smokeless military arms. I think a large part of my fascination for them comes from seeing what they got right, and what they got wrong.
Regards,
Josh
US guns were made 25 years after they first came out unless someone has been hiding info. I have never seen or heard of a US made 1800's dated Mosin Nagant. Chatternault made some in 1892-95 but only a few of them. All of the first run Mosins were from Russian builders like the Tula arsenal. Chatternault was contracted to supplement production early in the game.. Lets start a new thread on the subject so as not to hijack this one.
Arlon, you are correct. Three arsenals in Russia (Tula, Izhevsk, and that S one I can't pronounce) did indeed produce them. I was oversimplifying and condensing time for the sake of brevity, but maybe I shouldn't have.
Russian production couldn't keep up and so production was outsourced. How's that for brevity?
I'm not concerned about hijacking the thread. The gun discussion informs the ammo discussion, and besides, it's my thread!
Regards,
Josh
25 years of production when considering the issue of black vs smokeless is a LOT of brevity. Saying that Mosins were originally made in the USA goes way beyond brevity to me. My guess is the 9.5 twist was designed for black powder considering when and where it was done.Arlon, you are correct. Three arsenals in Russia (Tula, Izhevsk, and that S one I can't pronounce) did indeed produce them. I was oversimplifying and condensing time for the sake of brevity, but maybe I shouldn't have.
Russian production couldn't keep up and so production was outsourced. How's that for brevity?
I'm not concerned about hijacking the thread. The gun discussion informs the ammo discussion, and besides, it's my thread!
Regards,
Josh
ALSO if you happen to be lucky enough to have a Finn 28/30, it will have a 1-10 barrel and very close to .308 bore rather than the standard 1-9.5 and .310+ (maybe + a lot) bore.. The 28/30 might be the best Mosin cast bullet shooter available.
Glad we aren't hijacking then! (-:}
My brevity was also due nervousness. My potty-training little girl was sitting on my lap and squirming like she had to go!
The point was that Russia was still replacing the Berdan II all the way through WWI and, I believe, when the Bolsheviks took power and withdrew from the war. Just a massive military.
I once believed, as you do, that the 7.62x54r was loaded with blackpowder, and was quickly corrected by collectors.
If you can provide evidence of issue blackpowder rounds for the Mosin, I'd be very interested in seeing it. Though I'm considered by some to be an expert, I'm really just a student of any arm I study. Being an expert would be boring, I think, and would probably make me seek another learning opportunity.
Regards,
Josh
Never suggested they actually used black powder (maybe the very early prototypes), just that the rifle was designed with black powder in mind. They were working with the knowledge base at hand. There just wasn't any smokeless experience and everything about the MN was designed with folks that new nothing other then black powder. That's a guess. Maybe Old Mosin and his pal Nagant were cutting edge techie types of the day and been up to date on the latest developments. I think Smokeless powder was patented around the time they were developing the Mosin Nagant.
I'd just think that the best accuracy for an older Mosin Nagant using a heavy cast bullet might be obtained by trying to get closer to BP ballistics than more modern smokeless. Slower heavy bullets, slower bulky low pressure powders.. Just a thought since I haven't tried it yet. Hard enough to get it done with a jacketed bullet. Another issue is going to be bore size if you have more than a few Mosins. I have rifles with bores from .309-.318.. Impossible to ever come up with a single load or even bullet that's going to work well in all of them.
Another consideration is barrel length. If they designed the gun for smokeless, they wouldn't have made such a long barrel on the early guns. You don't need that much barrel to burn smokeless.
I'm still chuckling about the lap thing. Been almost 30 years since I had that issue!
Last edited by arlon; 04-09-2017 at 07:10 PM.
God bless you and count your lucky stars if you got a mosin nagant that will shoot sub moa with any ammo.
OK, Arlon. I get you, and I think we're saying the same thing, mostly.
The Mosin-Nagant was designed with smokeless in mind as evidenced by the dual locking lugs on the bolt head with the massive backup lug that the bolt handle attaches to. If anything, it's overbuilt even for smokeless. A case can be loaded with a compressed Bullseye charge and fired in a Mosin, and the action will hold. It'll weld the lugs, but it won't open. This was tried by first a gunsmithing school then by YouTube Yoohoos.
The gunsmithing school actually did this multiple times, and eventually the receiver stretched far enough that the firing pin wouldn't contact the primer. But the action held. Take this as anecdotal as I cannot readily supply a reference. (I lost it some time back.)
The Gewehr 88 had an action better suited to blackpowder pressures, and I'd accept that argument there.
The barrel was long due to the long-standing tradition of the bayonet. Military doctrine is slow to change. For the US, that doctrine was an emphasis on individual aimed shots which kept target sights and rapid fire out of the hands of the common soldier.
For Russia, the reliance on the bayonet and the use of the rifle as a pike that happened to fire bullets was their doctrine. They clung to the massed bayonet charge because that's what worked for them in the age of muskets and single-shot breechloaders.
Even through WWII, Russian/Soviet military doctrine stated that no rifle would be without bayonet affixed at any time unless it was totally impractical to have it affixed; ie, storage or transport. The Mosins were even sighted in with the bayonet affixed, and removing it will usually cause high-right impacts. This is why my business came to be!
However, doctrine also indicated, in most countries in the late 19th Century, that relatively slow, heavy bullets were what were needed to do the best job from a rifle.
This had the majority of nations pushing what we now consider heavy-for-caliber bullets in 6mm to 8mm at moderate (about 2000fps) speeds. Remember, 2000fps was considered fast for the time, and the equation E≈MV^2 was only a fairly recent discovery, mid-19th if memory serves.
Therefore, the function of velocity didn't seem to be largely recognized outside the scientific community, though the 2000fps was considered very fast for the time.
The French started pushing things faster with the Balle D round, followed by Germany in 1905 if memory serves (~150grn 7,92x57is -- Infantry Spitzer -- also the first evolution of the M88 round toward that which we know today as the 8x57 Mauser load) and the Russians in 1908 with their 7.62x54r light ball load. (In 1906 on this side of the pond, the US dropped the .30-03 round in favor of the improved .30-06, thus the designation.)
There is ample evidence that nitrocellulose's potential was not well understood. Examples of this include the previously-mentioned relatively weak action on the Gewerh 88, and the lack of a recoil lug cross bolt in the stocks of the first Mosin-Nagant rifles.
So yes, I'd say you're partially right. The rifles of the time were based on the general understanding of nitrocellulose gun powder, and that understanding was derived from an understanding of the latest evolution of black powder. However, I wouldn't go so far as to say these early smokeless military pieces were designed around an understanding of holy black, but rather a lack of full understanding of the new nitrocellulose-based powder.
Regards,
Josh
Get into the 1900's and I think everyone had pretty much figured out the smokeless gig. Just compare an 03 to a M91 (rifle and ammunition). Few years difference may as well have been a century.
Do you know of anyone shooting cast bullets in an SVT? Have a finned SVT that would be fun to try in cast as well.
No, Sir, I do not. I think, until now, the issue of using cast with a gas system, combined with the availability of inexpensive surplus ammo has kept casters from using boolits in the SVT.
However, I'm not so sure they won't start. The data is needed; maybe you could be one of the first?
Regards,
Josh
That sighting with the bayo attached is the biggest bull that is spread on the net. I have had over a hundred of these rifles in just about every configure there is and NONE of them shot to the right. NONE!!!
Let me guess, the ammo sticks in the chamber because of old dried cosmo and lacquer??? I have news for you, it is the steel cases that have aged and become hard. The steel cases do not contract like brass does. Plain and simple. I was the person that tried to snuff out the old BS with scrubbing the heck out of your chamber with emery cloth at first then everyone switched to steel wool. But that is not what was the cause.
Sorry but I hate the misinformation that keeps getting spread by everyone. I have some Czech silver tip that will lock up ANY Mosin. I just have not got around to pulling it apart yet. All of this ammo after WWII was made for machine gun use. The Mosins were an after thought, they were a 3rd line weapon. That is why they had to keep the bayo attached. As long as it got the first shot off that is what mattered. After that is was too late and you were in hand to hand combat.
Not so much.
Do your Mosins shoot high?
Affix the bayonet. Now, does it shoot to point of aim?
Now, pull out an M38 and a PU.
Shoot them without bayonets. They hit to point of aim, right?
PU snipers and M38 carbines did not have bayonets. Their front sight posts are about 1mm taller than the 91/30s' posts.
The myth going around the internet is the belt buckle hold, or the 300 meter sight-in.
That latter actually has a little truth to it, though. The rifle's rear sight was set to 300m and the rifle was fired at 100m. It had to impact correspondingly high on the target.
My information doesn't come from the internet. It comes from conversion with Russians and Finns, and study of documents of the time.
Is usually not lacquer locking things up, granted. And it's not necessarily steel cased ammo. I can cycle steel just fine.
Go to my website and check my videos. There are explanations there. Most of the problems come poorly fitted refurbished rifles.
Josh
Last edited by Josh Smith; 04-10-2017 at 01:49 AM.
"The myth going around the internet is the belt buckle hold, or the 300 meter sight-in."
Not a myth. That is exactly where they were instructed to aim with combloc (and Tsarist) MNs and other weapons, especially SKS/AKs with the rear sight set all the way back on battle sight zero. Of course with a 300 meter zero the impact would be higher. My M91/28 with bayonet attached does not bring the zero down to 100 meters. I've tested a lot of MNs with an without bayonets and some do change POI with the bayonet and some don't. Only a few actually brought the POI into zero at 100m.
Most M91/28s and earlier models have the rear sight in arshins starting at "400". "Arshin" basically means "step" and those, even though remarked in meters, are actually zeroed a bit farther than 300 meters with "L" type ammunition.
The M91/30s and later models were zeroed at 100 meters.
If you have official Russian, finish or Chinese manuals showing a different aim point would you please copy and post? I have seen the official Soviet Manuals.
Larry Gibson
Last edited by Larry Gibson; 04-10-2017 at 11:06 AM.
I'll see if I can dig them up. They're digital and stored elsewhere. My reference is not so much a manual as it is a picture of a sight-in target.
By belt buckle hold, yes, it's a convenient place to aim. However, it's not meant to shoot a foot high.
Procedure:
1. Unit marksman is used to sight in at a range of 100m.
2. Rear sight is placed on "3".
3. Four shots are fired. They must hit in a box 15cm (I'll have to check that number) above the point of aim. That's about 6 inches. Group size needs to be about 15cm as well; again, check this or I'll have to find time to do so.
This should roughly equal point of aim at both 100 and 200 meters, but might still be a little high. Not a foot, though!
Now, a couple caveats:
First, there were alternate sight-in procedures using shorter ranges if 100 meters were not available.
Second, refurbishment. Barreled actions were removed from stocks and stripped.
Good parts went into bins. Bad parts were trashed.
Good rifles were assembled using new and used parts. A minimum of hand-fitting was done, and front sights were often not put back on their correct rifles.
Some shoot low. Some shoot high, and some shoot very high. I've seen some very short sight posts come through here, too, indicating special adjustment.
If you follow procedure on a Mosin that's properly inletted, using a new sight and affixed bayonet, and then take the bayonet off, point of impact will change. How radically depends on the tickle rifle and barrel length. On 91/30 rifles, impact usually rises.
Regards,
Josh
The first M N that I bought way back in like 1976 had a taller sight then all the other 1891's that I bought since.
The first one made in 1896 was Spot on at all ranges, either using the Arshin Scale or what was Re marked in meters.
But all the 1891's since shot high and had shorter front sights.
I attributed that to them Re Dressing the sight Blade or a Bent rear sight leaf when being refurbished or Re Armored
Not all of them had the same Curve to the rear sight leaf, probably from being dropped at some time.
Sir, it sounds like that may be a Finnish Mosin.
The Finns marked out Arshini and stamped meters. They had high blade sights, often stacked using risers. I have a couple risers in my shop, in fact.
Finnish Mosins are often, but not always, marked "SA".
Regards,
Josh
Posting Permissions
| BP | Bronze Point | IMR | Improved Military Rifle | PTD | Pointed |
| BR | Bench Rest | M | Magnum | RN | Round Nose |
| BT | Boat Tail | PL | Power-Lokt | SP | Soft Point |
| C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
| HP | Hollow Point | PSPCL | Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" | C.O.L. | Cartridge Overall Length |
| PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
| LRN | Lead Round Nose | LWC | Lead Wad Cutter | LSWC | Lead Semi Wad Cutter |
| GC | Gas Check |
Reply With Quote
