gettign rifles to meet expectations

[crankycalico]

Its very very popular to decide to buy a rifle, come up with a perceived NEED to have the rifle, then to go out and buy a rifle that simply cant meet the users needs, and then spend lots of time and money modifying the rifle to TRY to make it work..

They want a rifle for generic shooting and deer hunting. End up buying a 91/30 from a guy and a case of 1940s heavy ball, and get to work at 100 yards making shot gun patterns.
Spend 200$ on the archangel stock, 2-300$ on a scope and scout scope mount, still keep making huge patterns that Frodo could stand in the middle of and not worry. Gets really price 3$ a round target ammo, groups stay the same.
Visits a gunsmith who takes 3 minutes to find out the barrel is missing half the rifling, as a result of using ww2 corrosive ammo and never cleaning it for 30 years like the previous owner did.

why do people have to do that?

[Preacher Jim]

It's a learning curve but parts will all go on another 91/30 with good rifling and you learned a valuable lesson of checking inside before looking outside..

[toallmy]

Nope they gave up to early , all was left to do was install a new barrel ....

[richhodg66]

A lot of people like to tinker with things, goes for rifles to. You want to see this even worse than rifles, get on some motorcycle forums.

A lot of guys get the Mosins because they're cheap and kinda cool and most aren't really shooters they just want something to shoot. That said, get a good Mosin and they can be surprisingly good guns. Dad got me (I don't know all the variants) on that has a very long barrel and excellent bore and with the 311284 will put many modern, scoped bolt actions to shame at 100 yards.

There are a lot of guys who decide they want to deer hunt and nowadays a guy can go to Wal Mart, but a Ruger American or Savage Axis, couple boxes of ammo, make a range trip or two and never have to do anything the rest of his life except buy an occasional box of ammo and they are happy. More power to them.

[GhostHawk]

I started this journey several years back with a pair of Mosin's.

Factory loads seemed like they were going to knock me off the bench and scramble my brain. So I started stepping down, using my own cast. Trying to work out Lube and everything else all at the same time. Boolits of course were not big enough at first so I leaded them up.

Lube was not up to the job.

But eventually with all the shooting, lead removal, cleaning, shooting I discovered I had actually a couple of pretty good bores. Leementing a mold out to .314 and using a .314 sizing die for gas checks solved a few more issues. Reading almost everything on cast boolits on lube I discovered Ben's Red, and BLL. Ben's Liquid Lube hit the ground running and never looked back.

I can clearly remember days when I was doing good to put 10 rounds into a 5 gallon plastic bucket. And then as everything slowly came together the groups started to shrink.

By the end I could put 5 rounds into a pop can at 50 yards and never miss. I was pretty happy with that considering where I started.

Yes it helps to start with a rifle that has the potential to be good.
But if it doesn't, there are always options.

[rking22]

It's about the learning experience, I wish more people approached it that way. Example, there is a very nice, inexpensive folding 410, it is locked by a simple pivoting block operated by a "trigger"shaped lever in front of the trigger guard. Fellow wrote a review, said brand new gun, right out of box would not fire. Stated he pitched it in the dumpster as it was 75 miles to take it back! No troubleshooting, no looking for the problem, nothing just trash it! All the idiot needed to do was look how it operated and would have seen the issue. The fellow fiddling with the mosin will do much better in life. Sometimes we intentionally do something the hard way for the experience. Why else cast, just buy factory loads..

[country gent]

Crankycalico, a lot of shooters love to tinker, modify, and improve firearms. Back in the 50s and 60s the craze was "sporterizing" a military surplus bolt action rifle. Or building a custom rifle on one of the many actions available. I wonder how any springfields, mausers , martini cadets, and other rifles were done then. The wildcatting craze was going then also. Were several very popular cartridges got their start. ( 22-250,243, 6mm ppc,25-06 to name a few) This is a part of the hobby that's often overlooked.
As to bore condition its hard to tell by looking and measuring if a barrel will shoot or not. There are so many variables to take into account and some that don't show to the eye.A friend and I looked in a lot of barrels over several years with Hawkeye bore scopes, both used rifles and new from almost all makers. We could see wear, throat erosion, and other damage. Occasionaly we got feed back from purchasers, or on used we would put a few rounds thru the questionable ones. Some of these "questionable" barrels ( throat erosion, dark bores, pitting. rod damage)would shoot pretty well. While the new barrel on a major manufacturers rifle wouldn't group, or was very finicky as to load. We looked in barrels on mil surpluss rifles ( 03s, gaands, M14/M1As, mausers, enfields and others). Some of these were interesting to say the least. On commercial brands Rem, win, Savage, Some Sharps, mausers, inter arms. BSA. We even checked the "custom" barrels Hart, Krieger, Pac nor, Lilja, shilen, Douglas. Mc Gowen, Brux.
You cant always tell by looking, then throw in that until recently bore scopes were a expensive and rare commodity. Seeing flaws looking thru the barrel by eye its really hard to see flaws or damage. Where as that 90* mirror and magnification makes things stand out.

Your average guy getting started dosnt have access to this equipment or the back ground. Price rules his decision.

[Earlwb]

Sometimes chasing the Holy Grail of perfection is what people like to do. I know of several guys who wore out barrels trying to find that perfect load for the ultimate in accuracy. They enjoyed it, even though once they found a perfect load, the barrel needed replacing. Then they repeated the process again. It is a hobby still.

[pietro]

.

Hey, They go "bang" - what else do ya want, egg in yer beer ? .


.

[country gent]

Earlwb, Im one of those guys. My first NRA Match rifle in 243 I tested worked up loads looking for the very best. Almost all were more than acceptable for across the coarse matches. Didn't get a full season out of the first Hart barrel. But I learned , put the second barrel on picked the best 200 and 300yd load, the best 600yd load and best 1000yd load. tested then in the new barrel and stocked up on components. LOL Load testing was less than 50 rds on the second barrel.

[crankycalico]

I guess better example would be, person wants a 100 yard 22 lr and instead of getting something capable of doing that, buys a savage rascal and tosses on a 200$ scope and spends 600$ on ammunition to test because the poor rifle cant hit the target at 100 yards.

[Drm50]

I run into these situations all the time. What puzzles me is why anyone would put any money in a
Mosin. I understand guys who are into Milsurps and even guys who just want something cheap to
play with. If you are going to sink money in making a hunting rifle in a Milsurp there are many better
donars to build on. One guy I know was culling out 52gr Sierra match bullets that didn't wiegh out prefect on a Lee balance beam scale. His rifle was 223 H&R Handi gun with a big BSA varible complete with sunshades, bi pod and aftermarket synthetic stock.

[chuckbuster]

You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him wear a silk purse made out of a sows ear

[JBinMN]

I like to let folks "walk their own walk" & not worry about the other guys goals & what he wants to do with "tuning" his firearms. I have enough to think about my own firearms & how I like to do what I do with them to get them to shoot the way I want, without thinking about what "the other guy" wants.

"Let the buyer beware", also comes to mind, but if a guy wants to buy something & thinks it is a good deal, who am I to question his decision if he is no personal friend or family where I might have some "skin in the game" for some reason. It is not "my" decision, & what he/she is getting, and his/her decision means nothing to me, so why care?

If I am helping someone else out, then it would likely be a different matter, but what the "other guy" who is a stranger to me, wants in firearms ( as well as women,wine/liquor/music & and all other things), as long it is not "mine" he is after, & doesn't affect me or mine in the least, then IMO it shouldn't really matter.

Discuss away though. I find it interesting reading. LOL

[JBinMN]

You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him wear a silk purse made out of a sows ear

Hahahaha! Funny!

[Texas by God]

If it won't shoot well (Mosin) in it's original condition throwing money at it won't help, short of rebarreling. Sporterizing milsurps is a losing game nowadays. BUT you can buy the ones that have been, cheaply. LGS has a Centurion P14 .300 Win mag for $275-as an example.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[richhodg66]

If it won't shoot well (Mosin) in it's original condition throwing money at it won't help, short of rebarreling. Sporterizing milsurps is a losing game nowadays. BUT you can buy the ones that have been, cheaply. LGS has a Centurion P14 .300 Win mag for $275-as an example.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

In 2018, I bought a nicely sporterized 93 Mauser in 7x57 and a nicely sporterized Krag. Both are good shooters with cast. I wouldn't have done either, but I'm glad someone did.

[crankycalico]

Ive never understand the concept people have of buying something, that DOESNT meet their needs and trying to run in circles trying to putt extra parts on it in an attempt to make it what they want it to be.

Its fun playing with rifles, doing things they normally shouldn't do. Have seen wonderful utube videos of a guy doing 800 yard shots with a 91/30 in the desert. That's fine. But spending 1,000$ on it to make a 600 yard prairie dog rifle from it,,,,, no, that's a sickness and lesson in futility.

Go buy the cheapest savage at the local box store, put a 120$ scope on it, get decent ammo and you got that 600 yard prairie dog rifle.

[Hick]

I buy the rifle that I like the looks of, or the history of, then worry later about how to make it work-- that's where all the fun is.

[samari46]

I have a M39 Moisin Nagant rifle that on the outside is to die for. Almost perfect until you take out the bolt and try to see the light at the end of the barrel. Rusted, rotted out or corroded beyond belief. Previous owner shot surplus ammo and never cleaned the barrel. Was given to me and as soon as I pulled the bolt which had a light coat of rust my heart sank. Definitely beyond shooting, ate brushes and patches. Frank