Mosin Nagants at Big5 for $99

[superior]

I have not gone over there to look at one yet, but for $99, is there a chance they may be in good condition? I dont want to end up with a wall-hanger and there's no way to know for sure if they will shoot.

[swheeler]

I think you will find they are all arsenal recons and will shoot just fine, I personally have not seen any for sale with unusable bores. I paid 69.00?? years ago for 91/30, mine shoots .313 cast fine and loves the 250 gr oldfeller 8mm sized down with 748w and dacron, talk about SD. I also did a little HV testing with jacketed, the .310 -125 WW bullet for ak round, worked up to over 3200 fps, hum gophers with the mo-seen na-gaw. If you don't get one you'll kick yourself later.

[klcarroll]

Hmmmm.........

I've been waffling about the purchase of a Mosin Nagant for a couple of years now.......

I suppose I should pick up one or two now, ....before they dry up too.

Where can I go to find a reasonable price on Boxer primed cases????


Kent

[NuJudge]

Graff's is probably the cheapest for Boxer cases, but they are currently out of Prvi:
http://www.grafs.com/metallic/776

[JIMinPHX]

Winchester makes boxer brass for those things too. My local shop had them on the shelf primed & ready to go when I was in there a few months ago.

[Ron.D]

I bought one several yrs. ago. Made in Poland. The worst workmanship I've ever seen on a gun, bar none. The tool marks on the bolt were 1/16" deep circles. The headspace was way off and I didn't feel comfortable shooting it. I couldn't with clear concience, sell it to anyone. I traded it in to a gunsmith after telling him what was up. I think I let it go for $25. I know most are quite good, but bargain basement prices on these things sets off all kinds of bells and whistles here. The bore was fine and it didn't shoot badly, but I only put about 2 boxes through it. It seemed like such a bargain when I bought it. Ron.D

[thx997303]

They usually have a freaking stack of them, and they all are usually in good shape.

I bought mine from Gunnies in Utah, and two of my buddies bought M44s from Big 5, they were both great shooting rifles.

I want an M44, I already have the 91/30

Need to start casting for this one.

[BoolitBill]

I bought a M44 a couple of years ago when my brother-in-law said to me " they are 69 bucks, you can't even get a .22 for that! I figured what the heck. It is no match gun, but it shoots decent groups, and if it gets dings and dents riding behind the seat of my truck I don't care too much. Overall it was a good value for what I spent, and at $99 these would be one too.

[Shiloh]

The Arsenal Re-cons I have seen were imported by Century International Arms and are in good shape. Good to very good bores. Most have counter-bored muzzles.

Brass is a bit scare and available from Prvi, Norma, and Lapua. Norma and Lapua are spendy.
Cheap surplus ammo is all but gone.

SHiloh

[462]

For the price, buy as many as you can afford. They're not '03s, Enfields, Garands, or Mausers.

Bought an M-38 and a case (440 rounds) of ammo, from Century. Not original, by any means, with an m-44 stock, mis-matched parts and a counter-bored muzzle, but for $69 I couldn't pass it up. And, yes, it's crudely machined, but the Commies of the day were pretty desperate for weapons. None too accurate, but still fun to shoot, and the muzzle blast from its short 20" barrel quickly grabs your attention.

From a rest, I found that using my left hand to cycle the bolt is much easier than using my right. It's akin to using your left thumb to cock a single-action revolver. Assuming you are shooting right-handed.

[C1PNR]

I picked up one of the Big 5 Special 91/30 rifles a year or so ago. Mine is in pretty good shape, but the muzzle does show signs of wear from the cleaning rod. But it still passes the "bullet in the muzzle" test, so it should shoot pretty well.

The 1891 NEW I got recently has a counter bored barrel (about 1/2") so I'm hoping it'll shoot well, too.

If I didn't already have mine, I'd get one now.:-)

[Buckshot]

............I have 3 of the Big 5 M-N's for the simple reason of being able to by a high powered rifle for that was neat. Two of those was when they were $69 and had all the 'extras' included. The last one was for last Christmas when my wife was bugging me about what I wanted so I told her one of the M-N's Big 5 had on sale.

Two of them were made in the 30's ('36 & '39) and are both smoothly machined. The bolts are mixmasters as they're arsenal re-furbs, but also they're nicely blued. The stocks had that Russian reddish shellac slathered on as an extra bonus! The one I got for Christmas was made in 1943. The outside machining was rushed, they pushed the tools and didn't chang'em out too often :-) I think the Rooskies had been pushed about as far as they'd go in '43.

However all the internals were smooth. In other words, what counted was well finished. I have a M-N I bought years ago from SOG for $39 while ordering some other stuff. It's a Finn pickup and has a counterbored muzzle. My last M-N was a 1926 Tula which naturally has the octagon or 6 sided action (which ever it is :-)). All 5 of these rifles have barrel dimensons that run from .302" x .314" to .300" x .311".

They're long, they're clubby, the trigger sucks, but they're a great bang for the buck and they all shoot reasonably well. If I was going to actually haul one around looking for a deer any one of'em would do the deed at iron sight ranges.

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

[O.S.O.K.]

I've had many of these - still have two - a m44 that's an outstanding shooter and a 91/30. If I didn't already own these, I'd definately get one.

Even with the increases in ammo prices, the good quality milsurp 7.62x54 ammo is still very reasonable and of good quality. Corrosively primed yes, but a little water through the bore before normal cleaning disolves the salts.

And yes, they make good cast boolit shooters too. You can usually find a rear sight setting that will work for your cast loads at 100 yards- probably around 500-600 meter setting for the 1900-2000 fps loads.

The Lyman 314299 mold is a good one for these.

http://www.gunsnet.net/album/data//500/medium/314200grSMLEboolits.jpg

[mike in co]

Winchester makes boxer brass for those things too. My local shop had them on the shelf primed & ready to go when I was in there a few months ago.


actually sellior and bellot MAKE BOXER brass, and some of it has winchester head stamps. the winchester ammo has inappropriate 308 dia bullets.


mike in co

3 91/30's(one is a finnn), three 39's, a couple of 44, 38's and 59's

[Three44s]

Two 91/30's, two M44s and a M38 ...... all from Big Five.

My druthers: The two 91/30's and two M38's and skip the M44s.

But an M44 is better than no Mosin Nagant!

Three 44s