General shooting question

[alex2293]

Hey guys,

I'm just wondering what kind of accuracy are you able to achieve using milsurp rifle and iron sights? After how many years of shooting?

I bought my Mosin last year and after 200 rounds I can expect 2 inch group at 50 yard shooting 10 shots groups from a bench.

Thanks for sharing any experience or tips.

[Scharfschuetze]

Well.... That's all going to depend on your shooting skill, your rifle's overall condition, the quality of your ammunition and what model of rifle you are shooting. Really too many variables to tie down a definitive answer.

Many military rifles in good shape with good bores will often shoot 2 MOA and I've got a couple that will shoot close to MOA when shot off of a bench rest at 100 and 200 yards with match grade jacketed bullets for 10 shot groups. The same rifles will often shoot sub 2 MOA at the same distances with a well cast, sized and lubed cast boolit.

Not much help I know, but I think that 3 MOA is reasonable for most of 'em and an honest 2 MOA for 10 shots is great for these old soldiers. With modern-high-quality ammo, they usually shoot better than they ever did with their original issue ammo.

[alex2293]

But for someone who shoots once a week at a shooting range on target (not some casual plinking in a sand pit) is 2 MOA achievable with iron sights at 100 yards.

Today I tried the 100 yards for the first time. I hit the paper twice in five shots. I could hardly see the target and the front post would cover the 10 or 12 inches circle... I guess better sights and a lot of practice would not hurt.

[fast ronnie]

Have you slugged your barrel? Mosins are notorious for having different sized bores. Loading mauals all seem to say .308, but mine slugs at .313. Accuracy can be greatly improved by choosing a proper size for your mosin. A friend has one that shoots 1" at 100 yds. He uses a .312 jacketed in his. I bought some from Graf's that measure .3115. The surplus that I measured was .310 and does not shoot as well. If shooting cast, It then is even more important to slug your barrel. I've hears of more than one that was .314 and I wouldn't be real surprised there may be bigger ones out there. Some of these mosins can be very accurate, but not with the cheap surplus ammo.

[Scharfschuetze]

Shooting military rifles with their sights can be rewarding and good accuracy can be obtained. 2 MOA is not out of the question if your rifle and ammo are up to it.

Shooting fundamentals, particularly when using iron sights is critical to good groups. In review (and assuming you have a steady position and good trigger control as well as follow through) you'll really want to focus on your front sight and accept that your target and your rear sight will be a little fuzzy. This will allow you to maintain good sight alignment which is more important than your sight picture, particularly as the range increases. Once you have your sight alignment sorted out, address your sight picture. With most military sights, you'll want to take a 6:00 O'Clock hold. That's with the top of your front sight touching the bottom of your target if it is a bullseye. Zero your rifle to hit center of the target with such a hold. That should alleviate the issues you describe in hitting at 100 yards.

Many good shooters use what is often termed a "Navy hold" in target shooting circles. That is nothing more than a center mass hold. I use that for hunting, but for accuracy on paper, I prefer the 6:00 O'Clock hold. Give it a try and I think that you'l hit your hundred yard target a little more often.

[Wayne Smith]

Also look at the size/contrast of the target and the quality/cleanliness of your optics (eyeglasses). I have found that increasing the size and contrast of my bullseye compared to the rest of the target greatly improves my shooting, especially at 100yds.

[NavyVet1959]

For some of us, we're lucky to see our front sights, much less be able to actually see the *target*.

Getting old sucks...

[country gent]

Use the 6 O'clock hold as mentioned and maybe even a line of white between the front sight and bull. Another thing is to "controll" the light as it makes the sight harder to judge. Use a match bic lighter or best a calciym carbide burner to smoke the sights, This gives a dead black surface that dosnt glare or shine. If your front sight is covering the bull and it is hard to see then a bigger bull is needed. Dont make it a seeing contest but a shooting contest. Being able to see the bull and some extra around the sight allows for the same hold every time. Most try to shoot to small of a target and dont have the consistent sight picture to get true accuracy results. Military rifles can be interesting to work with and can be fairly accurate when loads and shooter are right.

[Multigunner]

Some milsurp ammo can be near match grade, while others were mediocre at best when fresh and did not improve with age.

There are high accuracy military loads for the Mosin Nagant, don't know if any of these are as good as they were meant to be.

The specialized mil spec cartridge cases often have thick or hard necks that affect pull strength, with heavy crimps and sealants that can harden with age.
Its not so much the amount of pull strength as it is the variation from one cartridge to the next.
The lighter the pull strength within reason the less the affect of such variations.

The Mosin Nagant 147 gr steel core has been extremely accurate in my .303 British hand loads.

[Kraschenbirn]

I'm not really a 'scope' guy and do 95%+ of my range shooting with iron-sighted milsurps and BPCR single-shots. Weather permitting, I try to get to the range, at least, once a week...50-100 rounds per session. I just turned 70 and, admittedly, my eyes aren't as good as they once were but on a good day I can still coax 2 MOA groups at 100M from my 'tuned' Garand (NM sights) and come awfully close to matching that with either of my Schmidt-Rubins. or my Mk4#1. Farther out, shooting prone with 'issue' sights (and using a sling), I'm happy to keep all my shots on the 10" swinger at 200M or the 16" at 300M. I normally wear bifocals but, for shooting, I've got a pair of lightly-tinted (yellow) single-vision glasses with an 'adjusted' prescription (my eye doctor is a trap/skeet guy and understands the meaning of 'sight picture') and, as mentioned by Country Gent, I blacken my sights to eliminate glare and sharpen the image of the front sight.

Bill

btw: I no longer compete but was 14 when I shot my first high-power match using an '03A1 Springfield borrowed from the assistant Scoutmaster who coached our troop's smallbore team.

[missionary5155]

Greetings
Your target can also be an influence on better accuracy.
I use the inverted T or upside down T. Make it large enough to be easily seen. A 24 inch square paper helps. The bottom leg of the inverted T gives you a soild base and the horizontal bar gives you precise windage. Give it a try. But no matter what use a target large enough to be seen by you.
Mike in Peru

[frnkeore]

This is what I use with a post and 6 O,clock hold. You can choose any contrasting color, you like. I fold the V so it's 3" wide at the bottom for 100 yards. For 200, I just mount the 11" lenght verticle so, you float the 8.5" with on top of your post.

100 yard one looks like a diaper :) but, works good and it's cheap. Large circle targets are expensive to buy or copy.

Frank
127126

[DCM]

Great idea Frank. Especially the contrasting color(VS ft. sight and background), makes it easier to get good focus on the front sight, adjustable for various sights and reasonably priced.

[StratsMan]

As said above, the best answer to the original post is "It depends"... Condition is everything... I had a Mosin built in 1943 with rough machining marks and a horrible bbl... Couldn't hold a minute of Barn Door... I also have (still) a 91-30 that was rebuilt and sent to Spain during their Civil War, then imported to the US in the 1960's.... With heavy bullets, that rifle shot half-dollar sized groups from rest at 100 yds. Of course, I was able to see the front sight in those days, too... Not sure how good I can do with the same ammo today....

[coffeeguy]

Very good advice so far! I've found that .310-.312 is the norm for Mosins as well as SKS and a lot of AK-style platforms. But it sounds like you're doing pretty well especially with iron sights.

Just focus on all the elements (sighting, hold, breathing, trigger squeeze, etcetera) but individually...they all have to be consistent in order to shoot consistent groups, just master each one individually and have fun doing it. Military rifles are built for the lowest common denominator and weren't meant to be precision tack-drivers but if handled properly you can get pretty good accuracy from them, certainly enough to hunt with and they're always fun to shoot!!!

[alex2293]

Well that is a lot of good tips that I'll have to try next time I go shoot the mosin. Especially the 6 o'clock hold.

I think one of the things that is not helping me at 100 yards is that the target (white sheet of paper, 6 inch light blue circle and 2 inch white bullseye) is not very constrating on the snow here in Quebec.

I will continue working up my load using IMR 4198. When I find the powder the charge that gives me the best groups, do I progressively reduce the seating depth checking for accuracy improvements or do I go straight to seat them barely touching the lands?

Thanks again.

[country gent]

That could be part of the problem there more so depending on direction range faces. White typing type paper or buthcher paper is "shiny" reflecting light . The light blue bull isnt alot of contrast to the whiteand depending on it can be shiney as well. Look at the NRA targets on the coarse brown paper with black bulls and you can see the dull non refective surface they have. Try one with around an 8" bull ( the 100 yd targets are close to this). Flat black works very well Flat red also will work. You want a flat non reflective surface as light changes change what your seeing otherwise.

[dtknowles]

But for someone who shoots once a week at a shooting range on target (not some casual plinking in a sand pit) is 2 MOA achievable with iron sights at 100 yards.

Today I tried the 100 yards for the first time. I hit the paper twice in five shots. I could hardly see the target and the front post would cover the 10 or 12 inches circle... I guess better sights and a lot of practice would not hurt.

Better sights might help but a more appropriate target or choice of sight picture would be a quicker fix. You need a much bigger bullseye or switch to 6 o'clock hold. 6 o'clock hold will put the bullseye right on top of your front sight. I was shooting my Swedish Rolling Block today and I actually had to hold at the bottom edge of the paper to hit the center of the bullseye. It has fixed sight that must be regulated for a different load. It was dead nuts for windage but hitting 10 inches high at 100 yards. I hit the steel plate at 100 yards 3 time for three attempts by holding a bit under the 8 inch plate. The bead on the front sight covers about 8 inches at 100 yards.

Tim

[Scharfschuetze]

I posted this photo in an old thread about the various reduced range targets for National Match shooting at 100 yards. These are the centers used for the reduced course of fire. The targets are reduced in size so that they appear to be at 200, 300 and 600 yards when placed at 100 yards. I buy the centers rather inexpensively and using adhesive pasters over each bullet hole extend their lives up to something like 40 or 50 shots.

An M1 or M14 (M1A) shooter will note that when viewed though those sights, the black bull is about the same width as the front sight. NM sights can be thinner, but I prefer the normal width front sight even on match grade M1s or M14s.

As designed, the left target is for off hand and sitting rapid fire. The center target is for prone rapid fire and the right side target replicates the 600 yard slow fire prone stage at 100 yards. They are about as good as it gets for iron sight shooting for accuracy. The NRA 50 yard small bore sight is perfect for those shooting at 50 yards due to range restrictions, weather or mobility.

[303Guy]

For a scope I use a black square with a smaller white square in the centre. I have used it with open sights but not much but it seemed OK. I use open sights differently to everyone else, I focus on the target only. Hopefully soon I will be able to get out and shoot some sporterized milsurps and see how it goes but a 22lr will be the open sight litmus test since the accuracy is known. When I was a kid I was deadly with open sights - it will be interesting to see how my eyes will perform after a lifetime. I'm keen to see how my focusing on the target shapes up!

[Bill*B]

I believe that acceptance criteria for the open sighted German service k98 was a 5 shot group of 120mm or less at 100 meters - or a hair over 4 1/4 MOA. I think you're doing fine with the Mosin. Service rifles were built for taking care of business, not for punching tiny little bug hole groups.

[MtGun44]

Highly variable with gun and ammo. Swedish Mausers, Finnish M28s and M39s, Swiss K31s and US
M1903 Springfields are the absolute cream of the crop, individual examples that I own will realiably
shoot 1-1.5 MOA with good ammo and stock sights.

The majority of milsurps, IMO are 2-3 MOA rifles with good ammo, and a LOT of surplus ammo is not
that good so you will see 3-5 MOA with many rifles and many lots of surplus ammo. Finding a good lot
of surplus ammo is like finding gold. Get as much as you can while it is available.

Bill

[alex2293]

Well, today I went to the shooting range.

Things are getting better, I'm still working up a load but right now at 25.5 gr of IMR4198 my 10 shots group at 25 yards is 1.5". Not bad I guess for a beginner. I still have to play around with the seating depth.

Today I took my time to get the same sight picture every shot, but I find it hard to have a good, solid and repeatable rear stock rest with the mosin sight.

Thanks again,
Alex.

[JSnover]

I think 3 moa was a common spec for military rifles. Most will do better with the right care and the right load.

[Multigunner]

A good way of determing whether a rifle is living up to its potential is the testing methods used by armorers for rebarreled rifles.
During WW1 the test for Springfield rifles required sighting in on a cross formed by bands laid on the target. At 200 yards one flyer was allowed but four of five shots had to be within a 4 inch square formed at the center of crossed 4" bands. That worked out at a minimum of 2 MOA. When a two hundred yard range was unavailable they fired from 100 yards and the width of the bands was halved.

With ammo of the day the first shot from a cold clean bore was likely to be a flyer.

[NavyVet1959]

To see what a rifle is *really* capable of, I suspect that you need to remove the human out of the sighting equation. You need some sort of rest that locks the firearm into it and will return to exactly the same position after every shot. Otherwise, you might be thinking that the problem is with your technique whereas it really is with the firearm or the ammo.

[Motor]

Well, today I went to the shooting range.

Things are getting better, I'm still working up a load but right now at 25.5 gr of IMR4198 my 10 shots group at 25 yards is 1.5". Not bad I guess for a beginner. I still have to play around with the seating depth.

Today I took my time to get the same sight picture every shot, but I find it hard to have a good, solid and repeatable rear stock rest with the mosin sight.

Thanks again,
Alex.

Alex, Is this a cast boolit load?

I thought you were shooting milsurp ammo at the start of this thread.

As far as hand loads go with jacketed bullets I get real nice results with .312" bullets.

My cast bullets are .313 to .3135"

I suggest trying different milsurp ammo too even if its the same weight bullet as what you currently have. They can picky at times. Also expect some fliers. Its just normal for the milsurp stuff.

Motor

[alex2293]

Sorry if I was not clear, this is using cast bullets.

I used the lee C312-185-1R mold. I slugged, my barrel last year and it was around 0.3125-0.313.
I'm sizing the bullets and crimping Gator gas checks with the Lee 0.314 sizing die so most of them comes out at 0.3135-0.314.
This is my first attempt at reloading and casting.

NavyVet1959, I totally agree with you on that point. I don't have a way to measure the repeatability and the reproductibility independantly. The fact that I'm not an experienced shooter does not help. Harder to say if it is the shooter or the equipment...

[alex2293]

After about a hundred of my reloads, here are some photos of the barrel (sorry for the crappy pics)

127904
127905
127906

Does this looks like leading or is it normal after a hundred. It looks like what it used to look before the cast bullets except for the grey color of the bore. I think it looks like some .22lr bore I've seen. The color is really uniform (it does not show on the photos).

[texassako]

Sounds like antimony wash.

[Motor]

alex2293, If you had a leading issue you would know it very quickly. The rifle would be shooting more like a shotgun pattern than a group. Personally I would clean it after each range session. If there is lead build up in the bore some of it will come out when cleaning and you will see it.

You should look at the first 4 inches in front of the chamber and the last 6 inches. I think these are the 2 most common areas for lead fouling. I don't see any build up in your photos.

Is that shrink tubing on your front sight to make it taller? If it is and that is one of the globes that have the nail head type removable sight pin I have some tall carbon fiber pins.

Motor

[fast ronnie]

alex2293, If you had a leading issue you would know it very quickly. The rifle would be shooting more like a shotgun pattern than a group. Personally I would clean it after each range session. If there is lead build up in the bore some of it will come out when cleaning and you will see it.

You should look at the first 4 inches in front of the chamber and the last 6 inches. I think these are the 2 most common areas for lead fouling. I don't see any build up in your photos.

Is that shrink tubing on your front sight to make it taller? If it is and that is one of the globes that have the nail head type removable sight pin I have some tall carbon fiber pins.

Motor

I just made a new pin for mine tonight. It was a foot high at 100. A friend told me to make it .050 taller. Anxious to see how it works. How much are your carbon fiber pins?

[alex2293]

Yes this is some heat shrink tubing. I first used it because it shoots high with MFS FMJ. But I will remove it before my next trip to the shooting range because right now with my cast boolits load I used the 6th notch at 25 yards and it does not shoot high or low.

How do you replace the pin with your carbon fiber pin?

[leebuilder]

Hey Alex. Drift out the front sight. Then from the bottom you can see the pin you need to remove. Do this from the top of the hood through the hole with a punch. They come out easy some will bend, then replace. I have not seen a carbon fiber one. I make mine on a drill press with a file.

[303Guy]

Have you thought of paper patching? Apart from polishing up the bore it allows one to fit the boolit to the throat, not to mention jacketed velocities.

[1johnlb]

Some of the ink tubes from a ballpoint pin, make good sight extensions.

[Motor]

Hey Alex. Drift out the front sight. Then from the bottom you can see the pin you need to remove. Do this from the top of the hood through the hole with a punch. They come out easy some will bend, then replace. I have not seen a carbon fiber one. I make mine on a drill press with a file.

You have to be careful. Some of the front sight globes are solid on the bottom and the pin is pressed in from the top. I have not tried to remove one of these. If you have the removable type is easy to tell after you remove the globe from the dovetail.

I had to "fix" my high shooting 91-30 also and had access to a conversational programable CNC lathe. I tried steel, aluminum, and also had some carbon fiber scraps so I tried them too. It was too diffecult to keep the cutting pressure from bending the steel. The aluminum ones came out nice but of course are shiney bright and need blackened. The carbon fiber ones machined ok and are already black. :)

I never really offered any for sale though a few forum members have got them from me. I have a few aluminums ones left and some carbon fiber ones too. Another nice thing about the carbon fiber pin is its eaisly shortened by sanding and can be done without taking it off of the rifle.

Calculating the adjustment is not hard either. Use a taper per inch formula. Measure the distance between the front and rear sights to establish a taper per inch change. Then extend that to 3600 which is 100 yards in inches.

If your rifle is shooting low its even eaiser. Set the rear sight to where it shoots correctly then measure the difference between that setting and the "100" setting. The difference is how much to remove from the front sight pin.

Motor

[leebuilder]

It is tricky turning small diameter stock. I used the drill press only because it allowed better access with the file and to fit the pin to the sight, faster and easier set up too. I used 4 inch spikes for stock. For me and my buddys it is the easiest fix. I have found almost all mosins out of the box shoot 4 to 6 inches to the right and 8 to 12 inches high, saw it somwhere they were sighted in with the pigsticker fixed to the rifle. But i will use ink tubes for a quick fix. This site rocks!!!