Soviet 91-30 sniper accuracy

[mike radford]

Having shot a bunch of WW2 snipers in an effort to determine what was the best(or at least potentially the most accurate with good ammo) sniper of WW2, I have fired about 40 Soviet snipers, most were PUs. I am leaning heavily toward the PU as being the best, which was a surprise. I am also pretty convinced that if all factors are considered, such as cost, impact to the war, simplicity, number used, ruggedness, optics, impact on the war, accuracy, etc. that the PU is pretty clearly the winner.

Accuracy being a biggie, here are a few recent results from a fresh refurb import PU from IO/Molot. This is not about my ability but the rifle's capability, as I am not the worlds best shot. I used quality ammo(Extra Match), a bench rest with bag at the butt in an attempt to minimize the human factor.

This rifle did receive a half barrel wrap near the front barrel band, an addition well known to Soviet shooters to help stabilize barrel harmonics. Most often the entire barrel is wrapped but some rifles prefer top 180 degree pressure instead and original rifles with either can be encountered.

This rifle was a 43 Tula and was refurbed, then put in storage. Of the first 6 groups fired after zeroing the average group was 1.12 inches, five shots at 100 yds. Three groups of the six were sub MOA.

Included also is a group fired from a 1942 ex-PEM, which is the best group I have gotten out of a Soviet sniper(or any WW2 sniper for that matter) at less than 0.4 MOA. This helps show what they can do on their best day with good ammo. It also helps support what I believe, and many of us who shoot these a lot, being that ex-snipers were not all made ex-snipers because they were worn out.

Looks like I have some picture resizing to do and will edit post.

Information

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[Patrick Chadwick]

This rifle did receive a half barrel wrap near the front barrel band, an addition well known to Soviet shooters to help stabilize barrel harmonics.

Sounds very interesting. Could you please explain that, for the benefit of us non-Soviet shooters

Here is what Ivan the Terrible can do, even now:

Attachment 39285

I must explain this target. The first shot was the 9 at 8 o'clock. I never like correcting in two dimensions simultaneously. So first a horizontal correction, followed by a 5-shot group in the 8-9 at 6 o clock. Then a vertical correction, which I got wrong, producing the 7 at 6 o'clock. Corrected the correction (!) in the other direction, finally producing the 5-shot group in the 10. At which point I decided that Ivan was OK. Now if I could improve that with the "half-barrel wrap", whatever that is...

Eagerly awaiting enlightenment!
Patrick

[Bruce McAskill]

Nice shooting Mike. But how do these rifles shoot with the standard ammo the Russian Snipers used, the 148 gr. bullet and later on the LPS rounds?

[Patrick Chadwick]

I continue to await enlightenment (photos?) with regard to a "half-barrel wrap".

[villiers]

... and also info as to the range at which this was achieved. For a sniper rifle, anything under 300 metres should really be the norm (please discuss!)

[mike radford]

Patrick, If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Your rifle is apparently fine so I would not do a wrap of any kind. Wraps, shimming etc. are done when the rifle has a good bore and scatters the group around. Your group is nice and tight. You can try it and remove the wrap if there is no improvement, but you have little room for improvement.

See gunboards for many discussions on the use of barrel wraps and action shimming, most of which comes from the Soviet manuals on how to tune a Mosin. The wrap, full 360 or 180 degrees, under the front band about 5 cm width helps stablilize barrel harmonics and prevents group stringing and flyers. Mosin barrels are small and bend easily plus are sensative to any pressure from the stock.

Villiers, the post specifies these five shot groups were fired at 100 yds. This has long been the testing range in the US, continues to be what is used in the thousands of tests done by the NRA in the American Rifleman magazine over the past 50 plus years and will typically give one an idea of what a rifle will do with regards to consistency.

The German miltary in WW 2 used 3 shot groups at 100 meters to select rifles for conversion to low or high turrent snipers. The Soviets used 10 shot groups at 100 meters to select rifles for sniper conversion. Recent US selection of the new generation sniper rifles, which unwisely went with 300 Win Mag IMO, used MOA and but did not specify what were the testing range. The 308 and 300 WM got a 0.8 MOA rating, the 338 LM got a 0.6 and the 50 cal got a 2.5 MOA. Max effective range was, of course, in the order I listed the rounds. The 338 was unwisely passed on due to cost of ammo. Soviet match and target ammo is tested at 300 meters, twenty rounds, extreme spread with less than 9 cm being requried for Match and less than 12 cm for Target ammo. Most milsurp ammo will be much worse, about double in accuracy potential.

One magazine which tried to determine which WW2 sniper rifle was the most accurate with WW2 ball ammo came to the conclusion that the PU was the most accurate. The study was less than perfect and had limited value. It was amazing that the WW2 Soviet ammo and the PU used did as well as it did. The German rifle was a ZF41, which was not the best choice for a fair comparison.

The vintage sniper matches run by CMP are a good way to get an idea of the maximum potential of WW2 sniper rifle accuracy even though most rifles used are replicas. The 1903a4 replicas won the national meet the first two times. With the M73b1 scope, that is amazing IMO. Ammo is typically a limiting factor as it was in WW2, but with these matches handloads and match ammo are allowed.

Several of my friends are working toward national competion and have won their local matches with Soviet rifles, mostly the PU. They are getting sub-MOA from their rifles at the match ranges, which are 300 and 600 yds, but not as consistently as they would like. I may give it a try once I retire but not enough time to be a serious contender at this point. Their results is amazing when one considers the 3.5X PU scope that is 73 yrs old, and their results are very close to current US sniper standards, i.e. 0.8 MOA. One would expect much better with all of todays technology and vastly superior optics.

In my personal testing of WW2 sniper accuracy, it is amazing that it seems that everybody had a rifle capable of about 1.5 MOA. That is the number that seemed to come up over and over again, on a good day, with good ammo, good conditions, good rifle condition, etc.. The Japanese rifles are quite capable, and many would underestimate them. The US optics, like the M73b1, is pretty bad for combat use IMO. The 8X Unertl is nice for targets but for combat, too big. German optics were excellent but not as rugged as the Soviet scopes. The early PE and PEMs are of Zeiss origin and the PEM is especially rugged plus good optics. Supposidely the British scopes had the most repeatable adjustments and with clicks. I have only fired two of the their WW 2 snipers and neither had espeically good bores. Making a definite conclusion of who had the most accurate, or the "best", sniper of WW2 may be impossible.

I feel pretty safe saying the one that made the most difference and that was the most bang for the buck, was the PU. It was accurate, rugged, simple, cheap, effective and could be made and deployed in huge numbers easily.

[Patrick Chadwick]

Thanks, I shall restrain myself and be happy with what I've got. Mind you, I think there might be some potential with ammo tuning...