Nagant pistol

[mooman76]

I just tried a new bullet in my Nagant Revolvers today. I thought it would shoot allot better than it did with the new bullet being bigger. [smilie=b:The bullet I used was the Lee 314g 90g SWC. I loaded tham as dropped at .315 JPW and 2.6g of Unique. I did see some improvement but not as much as I hoped for. My revolvers slugged at .312 & .314. I was shooting off hand at 10y and was getting 4" groups. This was down from 6-7" groups. Still working on it. I'm hoping to get them to shoot better. They would be real fun guns to shoot if better. I want to add also that I had trouble getting a few rounds to chamber. Loading as dropped made them pretty tight and I did manage to fine a chamber that was a little looser so I could fire off the last 3 rounds. And I loaded a few in 32 long cases. They chambered easier and shot the same as the others. ;)

[Bret4207]

I just tried a new bullet in my Nagant Revolvers today. I thought it would shoot allot better than it did with the new bullet being bigger. [smilie=b:The bullet I used was the Lee 314g 90g SWC. I loaded tham as dropped at .315 JPW and 2.6g of Unique. I did see some improvement but not as much as I hoped for. My revolvers slugged at .312 & .314. I was shooting off hand at 10y and was getting 4" groups. This was down from 6-7" groups. Still working on it. I'm hoping to get them to shoot better. They would be real fun guns to shoot if better. I want to add also that I had trouble getting a few rounds to chamber. Loading as dropped made them pretty tight and I did manage to fine a chamber that was a little looser so I could fire off the last 3 rounds. And I loaded a few in 32 long cases. They chambered easier and shot the same as the others. ;)

Is that cylinder and barrel or something else?

[mooman76]

Not thats two revolvers. Slugging the cyl in a nagant pistol would be useless as the brass sticks out the front end of the cyl.

[Bret4207]

Ah, okay. I was thinking about the original cartridges with the gas seal and was wondering how you got .312/.314.

[dbldblu]

I have had best results with the Hornady 90 grain HBWC over 2.5 Reddot. I use 32-20 cases that have been through Lee's Nagant dies. I use as long an oal as I can and still have the cylinder turn.

[Doug Bowser]

I have had best results with the Hornady 90 grain HBWC over 2.5 Reddot. I use 32-20 cases that have been through Lee's Nagant dies. I use as long an oal as I can and still have the cylinder turn.

i AGREE ON THE BULLET, but I use 2.7 gr Bullseye. I have also rechambered the revolver to .32-20. I already had 2 finish chambering reamers in that caliber, 1000 pcs of brass and a set of dies. You have to counterbore the cylinder a few thousanths to let the head of the case clear the recoil shield in some makes of .32-20 brass. I did the depth by trial and error. The two cartridges are very similar until you get to the 7.62x34r's extended neck. Very little metal is taken out of the 7.62 chamber to allow the .32-20 to work.

I also discovered, the original ammunition can be used in the converted chambers, without much change in the fired brass.

The cartridges have to be loaded approx. 1/10" shorter than .32-20 maximum length, to clear the back of the barrel.

Have fun,

[9.3X62AL]

I use the Starline 7.62 x 38R brass in my Nagant, so it has "brass throats" almost to the cylinder face. Slugging the throats gave an average of .339", then adding twice the brass thickness (.013") left a sum of .313". Thinking "rifle chamber" here, I subtracted another .002" for boolit release, and tried .311" boolits.

This actually worked, and using Lee 100 grain RN seated with the point-end even with the case mouth I was able to pretty reliably PLINK the 35 yard dinger plates at Angeles Shooting Ranges--once the front sight got drifted into the same ZIP Code as the target. The load was 3.0 grains of WW-231, which might do for cottontails or ground squirrels. The prospect of using this load or platform in actual combat isn't one I'd look forward to.

I chose the Lee RN due to its "shoulderless" design. Even with the full-length Nagant brass, there remains a bit of clearance ahead of the case mouth. This could result in a bit of "rattle room", and taking a hint from Ken Waters I used a shoulderless RN design based on his belief that such shapes may "self-center" in forcing cones more readily than do square-shouldered designs. Dunno, myself--but it kinda worked out for me. Still, the Nagant is no Kit Gun.

[mooman76]

Had a good day at the range today. Finally got off my but and tried some HBWC bullets at the advise of dbldblu so a big thanks goes out to him. I at least doubled my accuracy with my pistols with these using 2gr of red dot. I'll try 2.5gr next time as I only loaded a few to try. One pistol shot a 5" group instead of pie plate accuracy at 30ft and the other was about 3" at the same and this was off hand with no support so I have no doubt they can do better. I also took some other guns to try new loads on with not as good of success but I still left happy. Been trying off and on for a couple years to get the Nagant to shoot better than pie plate and finally did.
I also shot my new to me TC scout and it shot well also even though I only shot it a few times. I just wanted to give it a try.