Mosin Nagant Sniper info..

[Tango89]

Originally Posted by Patrick Chadwick
This is something I do not quite understand. To select a rifle for accuracy, it must first be assembled in order to shoot it. Which would surely mean it had been finished. Or were they assembled, selected for accuracy, and then dismantled and refinished with a smoother surface?

Who knows. Seems little is really understood with these due to Soviet secrecy or failure to keep records. I'm just passing along what I've read on the selection process. I would guess they were finished further after assembly as I've noted no difference in the finish of my barrel, it still shows the lathe marks. The receiver however has been polished.

this is something i've been looking into as well, was there such a thing as cold bluing back then?

So only the receiver and not the barrel shack with all the numbers was polished?

I'm assuming they also improved the fit of the stock?

[erno86]

Erno86,

You mention Vasily Zaitsev , looking at pics of him he used a nagant with PE scope and a side rail mount (similar to the german LSR mount ) would this be a rarer sniper variation than the usual PU mounted rifles.

UPDATED, I,ve answered my own question with a bit of reading on the forum you suggested very interesting but could not find you peice on Vasily, any chance you post a link?

Duel of the master snipers, by Vasily Zaitsev, page l -76k

If link does not work: Search on the web --- Vasily Zaitsev --- Go to page 6 ---- Duel of the Master Snipers, by Vasily Zaitsev, page 1

You can link on ATS {Above Top Secret} ---- Go to Search Engine, and type in --- Duel of the Master Snipers ---- or just go to page 5

jjjxir8 --- It seems my Mosin sniper has a Black-light effect that you talked about, but it seems to have some tiger-striping on it; but not much. How did the Russian gunmakers produce this effect on the wood? Maybe.... buy burning some of the wood stock with a power saw?


I found that the link only works partially. But... you can still link on when you go to the upper right hand corner of the ATS page and click the "SEARCH" soft key ---- and type in: Duel of the Master Snipers

[Aragorn243]

My receiver is polished as good as my other pre-war rifles. The barrel "shack" with the numbers is polished better than my other 1942 but you can see it was done by hand and not on a lathe as there remains some marks which are not aligned with lathe polishing. My barrel is unfinished, just blued. The stock is not an original and probably are not original on any of the ex-snipers unless by sheer coincidence. It is an odd length, it's shorter. both the hand guard and the stock were shortened about an inch and a half, probably due to damage of some sort. The caps were put back on. The hand guard is a neat trick, unless you put it side by side with another, you'd never know it was shortened. End caps fit perfectly. But again, I don't think this stock oddity has anything to do with it being an ex-sniper, it was just the next available one in the stack when they were re-assembling them. The bolt also is not original so I lost the nice trigger assembly, etc. I've been experimenting with that off and on but I either seem to get it too light where it fails the drop test or no improvement. Polishing seems to help but I can't find the correct bends in the spring.

[erno86]

Aragorn243,

May I suggest that you just by another trigger spring from Numrich Gun Parts, while they still have them. If you put one in backwards like I did one time, it will give the spring the wrong angle.

My Mosin rifle's group's... tend to walk upward's when the barrel's get hot. Anybody have a fix for my problem?

[jjjxlr8]

..... How did the Russian gunmakers produce this effect on the wood? Maybe.... buy burning some of the wood stock with a power saw?
...

It's just the natural figure of the birch on the rifles that I have. No burning or anything like that. Just beautiful wood.

[jjjxlr8]

My receiver is polished as good as my other pre-war rifles. The barrel "shack" with the numbers is polished better than my other 1942 but you can see it was done by hand and not on a lathe as there remains some marks which are not aligned with lathe polishing. My barrel is unfinished, just blued. The stock is not an original and probably are not original on any of the ex-snipers unless by sheer coincidence. ...

Here are a couple examples of PU snipers that might support polishing by hand after numbers, logo, and date were stamped. Maybe even after an accuracy selection? I suppose it's also possible that there was some polishing during refurb, though. Wish I had an original un-refurbished sniper to look at.

You can still see coarse turning marks on part of the barrel shank. Most of it looks like the tool marks have been polished away with a hand held buffer, rather than on a lathe.



Here's a '44 Izhevsk PU sniper. This one certainly had some polishing during the refurbishment as almost all of the original scope number was removed rather than lined out.



My '43 is the same way.



Interestingly, this '42 Izhevsk ex-PEM sniper seems to still have the very coarse turning marks on the barrel shank. No sign of polishing at all and even the receiver is very rough. This makes me wonder if the polishing on the barrel shanks in the above examples was, in fact, performed during refurb. It might not be a fair comparison with the PU snipers, however, as PEM side mounts were a very short-lived interim configuration. Production may have been a little hectic at that time.

Here's some photos of the '42 showing the expedited finish work...





Rough receiver!




Original ex-PEM stock...

[Aragorn243]

My ex-sniper was a PEM version. The scope serial was ground off during refurb. If you look at it close, you can tell what was ground during refurb and at an earlier time as they did not get too particular about "rounding" . The scope serial and the screw holes are both flatter areas of the metal. Not so much that it's noticeable unless you're looking for it but it is there.

[ptf18]

Aragorn243,

May I suggest that you just by another trigger spring from Numrich Gun Parts, while they still have them. If you put one in backwards like I did one time, it will give the spring the wrong angle.

My Mosin rifle's group's... tend to walk upward's when the barrel's get hot. Anybody have a fix for my problem?

Erno: I had my 43 CH marked Tula out this past weekend shooting some of my handloads at 200 yards, slung up on a NRA SR-C target. I had a vertical string group also. I shot slow fire. My groups with Wolf GOld seem to be pretty round.

[mike radford]

There is a ton on information on these rifles on gunboards. That includes how to tune them and help improve accuracy. The Soviets knew how to do it. There were manuels on it.

Always start by making sure the action screws are tight. You can wrap the barrel under the front band to stabilize harmonics. You can shim the action when needed. Much more detail can be found.

On what Vasilly used, he used lots of different snipers. He liked the PEM side mount rifles, and yes, they are much more rare and considerably more expensive than a PU. The PEM scope can cost as much as a complete PU sniper. The mount will be 2 or 3 times as much as a PU. Vasilly also used a PU. His PU is on display in the museum in Volgagrad/Stallingrad.

Pictured is a 1939 Finn captured PEM purchased from Vic Thomas, owner of gunboards.

[jjjxlr8]

Now that's a spectacular rifle!! Very nice.