Mosin Bolt Problem

[Westwindmike]

I seem to have a similar problem to the Enfield post below. When I fire my 1954 Romanian M44 Mosin, the bolt handle moves up about 1/8 inch. It still takes a good bit of effort to open the bolt after firing. I'm just worried that it will pop up enough to unlock right into my face.

Is this common in Mosins?
Can it be easily remedied?

Thanks,
Mike

[highbrow]

Very common with Mosins. When you pull the trigger, watch the bolt, it moves up and down. Mosin bolts can be stiff, some times needs a good chamber cleaning, many times they just need to be "bitch slapped" by strong Russian farm boy.

[milkman-06]

I agree with highbrow. I've cleaned 4 '91s and a 91-30 in the past 2 months and 3 of 5 exhibit the bolt jump. I have not headspaced them yet for I misplaced my gauges-new ones on backorder.
milkman-06
in SW Missouri

[Calamity Jake]

http://www.surplusrifle.com/russianm...9130/index.asp I beleave has a fix for that problem.

[Westwindmike]

http://www.surplusrifle.com/russianm...9130/index.asp I beleave has a fix for that problem.

I looked this site over and don't see the fix for the bolt "jumping". Can you be more specific?

[richbug]

The bolt jump is the cocking piece settling in the lowest part of the notch in the bolt. A couple of mine do it. Just the nature of the beast.



The sticky opening is a dirty chamber, polish it up, use good ammo.

[C1PNR]

The bolt jump is the cocking piece settling in the lowest part of the notch in the bolt. A couple of mine do it. Just the nature of the beast.



The sticky opening is a dirty chamber, polish it up, use good ammo.

IIRC, most of the surplus ammo has some sort of coating on it which tends to foul the chamber over time. A real good scrubbing of the chamber should help a lot. Repeat as necessary.

[richbug]

IIRC, most of the surplus ammo has some sort of coating on it which tends to foul the chamber over time. A real good scrubbing of the chamber should help a lot. Repeat as necessary.

There is brass cased surplus out there, but it seems to be the exception rather than the norm.

[Ricochet]

I no longer use oven cleaner on milsurp stocks, but I've been meaning to find out what a chamber full of it will do for baked in case lacquer and/or dried cosmoline that makes these old rifles' extraction sticky.

[Gunfreak25]

As said above, the bolt moving up is perfectly normal. It's not going to pop open. To get that bolt to operate a little smoother you need to clean out your chamber. Attach a .410 shotgun brush on a section of cleaning rod, put that in a cordless drill, and dip the brush in your favorite solvent, spin that baby in the chamber for about 30 seconds, spray it out with brake cleaner, and repeat about 5 times. You can speed up the process by heating up the chamber area with a propane torch, not sizling hot, but enough to where you can just barely touch it with bare hands. It opens up the pores of the metal, and any dried cosmoline in there is history after the chamber scrubbing.

[Westwindmike]

Thanks for all the replies, guys!
I'll clean it good and just shoot it.

[inuhbad]

For my Mil-Surplus guns that typically shoot lacquer or polymer coated steel russian crap ammo I have a good 'chamber cleaning' fix...

Lots of people have chastized others when they were found to be shooting lacquer coated ammo, and some even praised the newer 'polymer' coated ammo, but the truth of the matter is the polymer coated ammo is actually WORSE for creating chamber-sticking conditions!

Give me lacquer any day over that polymer junk!

The cure, I found, to cleaning out these chambers is to get a pistol caliber cleaning rod, with a plastic bristle bore brush (that will fit in the rifle's chamber), and I'll chop the handle off the pistol cleaning brush, chuck it into a hand drill, squirt some nitro/cleaning solvent into the chamber area, and spin that plastic bristle bruch in there for a minute or two... It seems to get nearly all the caked on lacquer & melted polymer out just fine.

The plastic bristles on the brush don't really do anything to damage or errode the chamber at all either... I typically only do that on the Mosin-Nagants, and my AR-15 though. Those two guns tend to be 'finicky' when shooting too much steel cased ammo, and once their chambers are dirty they stick in there pretty good.

[RGRWJB]

I have a rather large collection of these rifle and have shot them for some time now. Sometimes it is the lacquer but sometimes it is headspace. Not dangerous headspace but enough to lock up the bolt. Take some different 7.62x54R cartridges and measure the rim and look at the rim configuration. This round headsapces on the rim.

[Ricochet]

I can't think of a mechanism by which excessive headspace per se would lock the bolt after firing in a Mosin. However, bolt lug setback in a bolt action rifle will cause both increased headspace and bolt locking as the cartridge case expands to fill the headspace and then is compressed as the bolt lugs turn and have to move forward slightly. That's a well known issue with early Mausers made with soft steel (under the case hardening) in the receiver rings. I haven't heard it mentioned with Mosins, but can't imagine why they would be immune to it if overpressured or if one somehow ended up a little soft. Another thing that would mechanically cause a problem is an oval or egg shaped chamber. I once saw a Web page about M91 Mosins having a known issue with bulging the chamber most often toward the side with the ejector cut when overpressured. The bulged cases then seize in the chamber. I've lost the bookmark to that page, and have been unable to relocate it by Googling. If anyone knows a link, please post it.

[Gerry N.]

Some years back I worked with a fellow who had been an Officer in the Soviet Army in WWII. He had some stories that would straigthen your hair.

He said his experience with wartime M-N's was that most had sticky bolts. He didn't know whether it was ammunition or just the nature of the beast, but almost every live soldier he saw had a rock or a chunk of wood to open the bolt with. Four or five rounds rapid fire would nearly weld the bolt closed. As the war wore on, the problem got worse. Thousands of Soviet conscripts died because they were, for all practical purposes, armed with a short spear.

Gerry N.

[Doug Bowser]

I have 2 Moisin Nagant Rifles. One a Soviet Izhevsh 1944 91/30 in near mint condition. The other a SAKO Army M39. I have been shooting Bulgarian light ball marked 10-53. It is brass cased. My reloads are made in Lapua Brass. I have not experienced any bolt handle jump or stiff extraction. If I have a dirty chamber, I get a .45 rifle brush and screw it to a length of 3 jointed USGI rod. I wrap 000 steelwool around the brush and hook the rod to an electric drill motor. This really works and does not seem to damage the chamber. I would not get the steelwool into the throat of the barrel.

Both rifles shoot well with Lapua .309" D-46 bullets. I had 1000 of them and my friend just gave me 500 more. I fired all of mine. This is the bullet the Finns used in WW2.