Mosin Nagant

[leveret]

Hi all,I have just bought a Mosin Nagant Sniper which i hope to shoot with a lead cast bullet,For me this is a first as i only shoot Muzzle loaders.I would be gratefull for any help with choosing a suitable mould before I sell the pig and start spending the money.

[Nora]

The first thing you are going to want to do with it before choosing a mold is to slug the barrel. MN's had some of the biggest spread of barrel dimensions. I have several and mine are anything between a .301/.311 to a .303/.3145 wile some have said theirs has been as large as .316. Matching the correct diameter is going to be your biggest step.

[Junior1942]

+1 to what Nora said. Mine shoots patterns above 1600 fps with cast bullets. My nephew's M44 shoots great with the .312" Hornady 174 gr jacketed.

[docone31]

The Lee .303 mold should serve well. It drops at .314. If a .312 jacketed works, so will that mold.

[leveret]

Thanks for all your advice,I sluged the barrell which come out at .314 so i will try the lee mould for the .303 and use a gas check.(Sorry for my slow reply had a rush job to finish.)When i get the chance to shoot my Mosin i will try to report the out come.

[Buckshot]

.............The Lyman 314299 would be my suggestion.

...........Buckshot

[Bret4207]

The FIRST thing you want to do is CLEAN that barrel! From what I've seen some have jacket fouling a couple thousandths thick. Not good for cast.

[725]

...........and clean it, and clean it, again. +1 on Bret. Those old war horses frequently have layers upon layers of copper.

[Larry Gibson]

Another + for a thorough cleaning.

Also on MNs I've found it is best to not even bother with slugging the bore. Mic the inside of 3 very well fire formed cases and size the bullet to that diameter or simply use "as cast" diameter if smaller. Two very good shooting cast bullets with currently available moulds in my Izhevsk sniper are Lyman's 314299 and Lee's C312-185-2R. I size both in a .314 H die in the 450 and lube with Javelina. I most often use 4895 with a dacron filler with the Lyman bullet and 5744 with no filler with the lee bullet. Both of those bullets also shoot very well in all other MNs I have used them in. I currently have 4 of my own and have loaded and shot many more over the years. I use Norma cases mostly with some Winchester cases.

Note; In my Sako built Finn M39 I have to size the bullets to .312" as bullets sized .314 are very difficult to chamber.

Larry Gibson

[JIMinPHX]

Yep, clean her good. If she isn't all choked up with copper fouling, she is probably all gummed up with cosmoline. A little heat usually helps to get that crud out, otherwise it can be hard like a rock. I've known guys to shoot a gun for years before realizing that the groove diameter was actually several thousandths bigger than they thought it was because it took 50 or 100 normal cleanings to wear away at that stuff. It can be almost like a barrel liner after it sits in there long enough.

[1Shirt]

After cleaning, and cleaning and etc.etc.etc. Butter the rifle with what ever lube you are going to use. My Mosin's (long and carbine) both like .314, but will stablize .313 without leading. Both like the lee 165 and the 180 over Ed Harris's
"the Load" of 13 gr of Red Dot. The carbine with this load will stay about an inch and a quarter to an inch and a half at 50, and with my old eyes, for me this is more than satisfactory.
Good Luck!
1Shirt!:coffeecom

[knappy]

Hi all,I have just bought a Mosin Nagant Sniper which i hope to shoot with a lead cast bullet,For me this is a first as i only shoot Muzzle loaders.I would be gratefull for any help with choosing a suitable mould before I sell the pig and start spending the money.

I use a Lyman mould 314299 in my nagant and it shoots great spot on all though time I allso G.C them Best of luck.

[rhbrink]

Like everybody says check the bore and groove and the inside of the case and size to fit. I've had pretty good luck with the Saeco 315 and 16 grains of 2400 in my Finn.

[Jack Stanley]

...........and clean it, and clean it, again. +1 on Bret. Those old war horses frequently have layers upon layers of copper.

Not to make it sound like an impossible job , but I found a layer of cupronickel between layers of guilding metal and carbon on one surplus rifle I had . When clean , it took a little while to condition the bore to shoot cast well but it did shoot good .

Jack

[Phat Man Mike]

I cast the Lee C312-185-2R for all the mosin in the house. I then size to the weapon my m-44 is a .314 dia and my girlfriends have .313 and a .312 dia.. then I load them over 13 grains of red-dot and shoot away.. my old m-44 shoot's way better that I can hold the rifle:holysheep

[Three44s]

The man that has more than one girlfriend ....... and they all have rifles ....... could be in for a bad outcome!!

I suspect this is true for most women ..... my wife likes a certain gun or not ..... guys like ALL SORTS of guns for what they are .... women seem to be more partisan in their gun likes and dislikes ..... they either REALLY like a particular gun or they could care less about another one.

I think my wife thinks I am nuts with all those old beaters ....... different Mosins, Mausers and an M1917 thrown in for spice when I have a number of newer, racier long guns already!!!

Three 44s

[chasw]

I have 4 Mosin rifles, with groove diameters ranging from .313 to .315". The best advice I've heard is to size your boolits to the largest diameter that will still chamber without difficulty. For my rifles, that is .314". Loading a .315 boolit is noticeably more difficult to fit in the chamber. Accuracy with the .314s is very good, compared to smaller diameters. - CW

[Rangefinder]

My 91/30 loves a TLC312-160-2R (same bullet I feed to my AK) over 10gr. of Red Dot. I can spit 3/4" groups at 50 yrds. with that one all day long and still have a bright shiny bore at the end. If you need a little fatter boolit you could beagle it a tad and size accordingly. Casting for a Mosin makes it such a fun shooter, it's a shame NOT to give it lots of attention.

[Donor8x56r]

Is any maker producing neck sizing die for MN? I ( and maybe someone else) could use one.

[rhbrink]

I have ask about getting a resize die modified for a bushing so that you could just neck size without over working the brass but no luck yet. Someone did suggest that you can buy a .284 Winchester bushing die and then be able to use the "S" type bushings that Saeco makes. That die in Midway is $75 haven't spent the cash yet but if a guy does a lot of Mosin shooting it may be the way to go.

Rangefinder, I with you these rifles are great to shoot, cheap and and if you can get one with a decent bore very accurate. I just discovered them within the last year and had previously thought they were mostly junk boy was I wrong on that. I cheated a little bit and bought a Finn M39 a little while back now my Mauser and Springfield buddy's are shaking there heads just can't believe that a Mosin can shoot that well. One accused me of having the barrel pulled and a match grade barrel installed, it shoots that well. But nope straight from Finland. I know one thing is that one is not enough some suggest that it's a sickness once it strikes there is no cure but more Mosins. I agree 100%

Richard
Missourians for Mosins

[nicholst55]

Is any maker producing neck sizing die for MN? I ( and maybe someone else) could use one.

Lee will make a custom set of collet dies for your rifle for around $60; details are on their website. I've written to them a couple of times suggesting that they offer the 7.62X54R as a production item in their collet die lineup, without response.

Lee Custom Services (http://www.leeprecision.com/html/catalog/custom.html)

[rhbrink]

Thanks I didn't know that Lee offered that die in a custom size might be the way to go.

[Milsurp Junkie]

What about the Lee Load all for 7.62x54r. I believe that just neck sizes. It is cheap as well...

[Donor8x56r]

Yes,I know about Lee Custom Services.I used them already for other caliber and I will use them again.They did really good job.I was hoping someone started producing them for less since there is a lot of MN around and surplus ammo is getting harder to come by ( at least up here).

[chasw]

I've had good results in my M44 with 26 to 27 grains of Reloder 7 with a grain of dacron and Fed 210M primers, under a 208 grain Lyman 314299 boolits. IMR 4198 is in the same league but requires weighing each charge to come close to RL-7's accuracy. Velocity is about 1800 fps with RL-7 and about 1950 with 4198. I avoid fast shotgun powders in rifle cases due to the perhaps unreasonable fear of ringing the chamber. - CW

[C1PNR]

We do "Fun" shoots in a rock quarry now and then, mostly pistol but some rifle, so I took a MN 1891/59 Carbine to one and it turned into the star of the show! Surplus ammo shot to the sights and the steel cores broke rocks like a convicts sledgehammer.

The M39 Finn I took along had an issue with "****" in the chamber so was hard to extract, but the trigger and accuracy was very impressive.

I really like these old soldiers!

[Jjed]

Using a lymen 311413 and 20 gr of 2400 mine shoot pretty good.the target is at 100 yds.

[870TC]

I use the RCBS neck die. Bought extra expander 's and ground them to the size needed, by putting them in a cordless drill (poorman lathe) and using a file and sandpaper to reduce the diameter.

[madsenshooter]

I have one of those lathes! I even got fancy and bought me one of the ones you stand on your bench! It's a lot steadier than the portable model. But why run to the bench when the portable is always right here. I'm glad there's some hope for the Mosins, impulse buying made me answer a recent email from Widener's with a purchase. First thing happened was the nasty lopsided recrown got redone. That made me able to see that the muzzle is quite worn, so counterboring might be in order. I have a .316 version of the 311365 coming that I hope will work ok. I hope a caseful of 860 or something on that order proves useful with that bullet. I'm not changing my handle to Mosinshooter just yet, I'd probably have to get in line for that one.

[fgd135]

I've used a Lee Loader for MN neck sizing, but the one I own sizes the necks for .308" boolits. Maybe Lee has change that dimension over the years, as mine is several years old.
But it does a decent job.
A better neck sizer is the one on the old Lyman 310 tool, as it sizes necks a bit larger in 7.62x54r.

[richhodg66]

The Lyman # 311284 shoots well in mine.