Custom Mosin-Nagant target rifle is complete!

[ptrthgr8]

This rifle started life as a 1939 Tula M91/30 Mosin-Nagant. The barreled receiver was purchased from RGUNs (makes me feel like less of a Bubba knowing it wasn’t a complete rifle before going through this project) and I snagged one of the Czech UK-59 LMG barrels that TGI was selling a while back. I’m not a smithy, but I know someone who is. A professional job is always preferred to some hacksawed garage job. The barrel was floated, shaped (to remove much of the UK-59 rear sight dovetail), and tapered towards the muzzle end a bit to better match the YHM QD flash hider. (I plan to use my Phantom suppressor with this one, too!) The barrel also timed perfectly so most of the area with the unneeded dovetail is actually under the wood line. Nice.

I bought a Timney Mosin Nagant trigger (4.5 lbs.); Rock Solid mount, aluminum pillars, and hex-head action bolts; had the bolt polished inside and out, handle swept back, and personalized by Max Shepherd; and bought a nice laminated target stock from the shop owner. My smithy friend completed all the inletting, fitting, and bedding; I completed the final stock finishing on my own using Behlen’s Mahogany Solar-Lux NGR dye and Behr’s #600 tung oil finish. I wanted to have the metal blued, but the different types of metal involved may not have allowed for a uniform result – so I went with a nice satiny dark grey/black parkerizing job instead.

The rifle is topped off with a Leupold VX-3 long range target rifle scope (30mm tube, 6.5-20x 50mm side focus) with their Varmint Hunters Reticle and a set of their medium 30mm QRW rings. (May have been able to go with the low rings… but these work.) And, finally, I installed a Harris S-LM bipod and Alpha-Bravo bipod lock to make this rifle range-ready.

I'm absolutely pleased with the results. The real test will be out on the range, of course, but I've no reason to expect that this rifle will be anything other than a great shooter and a tack driver. I'll post pics and a report once I've had the chance to put it through its paces.

I've posted some pics below - additional shots and some bigger pics are here:

http://public.fotki.com/ptrthgr8/soviet/targetrifle/

Cheers,

~ Greg ~








Here's a shot of the customized bolt. The name was stamped in the same orientation as the original Soviet S/N. I would have preferred that it be stamped upside down so it would have been upside right with the bolt closed... but it's still pretty cool to have your name on a rifle. Even if it is upside down.

[Gary]

Totally SCHWEEEEEEEEEEEET looking rifle. CONGRATS and thanks for sharing!

[Funker]

She sure is puuurrrtttyyy!!!!
Can't wait to hear how she shoots....

[06sandstone]

Great looking build. By far the best Mosin build I've seen .

[macshooter]

Wow. Nicest Mosin ever!

[ptrthgr8]

Hi, folks.

Saturday I had the chance to spend a small amount of time at the range testing my new rifle – only had about 90 mins or so, but figured it would give me a good idea if the project was a complete failure or if there was some potential.

I started off at the 50 yard line shooting the Soviet surplus 3KCTPA "Extra" 200 gr. match ammo. This stuff is supposed to be even more accurate than the 7N1 “sniper” ammo:



First target is below. The 7 shots to the left in the black were me walking the POI to the middle. (Not sure why the laser bore sighter was so far off to begin with, but at least it was on paper.) The two shots in the lower left corner were intentional - I was trying to see where it was printing after making some windage adjustments. The last 5 shot group in the red told me I had the rifle on paper. It was then time to move on to the handloads.



A few years ago I started loading for my Finnish Mosin Nagants. I had written to the folks at Lapua (who had made the cartridges used by the Finns during the war years) and they provided me with the info for a cartridge that would be as close as possible to the as-issued D166 round. Here’s what I used:

Bullet: Lapua D166 200gr.
Primer: WLR
Case: Lapua 7.62x53R
Powder: N140, 38.2gr
OAL: 2.992"

Here’s the 10-shot group of these handloads at 50 yards:



Before moving from the 50 yard line to the 100 yard range, I decided to dump 30 rounds of IMI 855 surplus ammo through my Rock River AR – I wanted to see if my ACOG (a TA31RCO-M150CP) was still zeroed well enough for zombie blasting. It is – here’s 30 rounds of semi-rapid fire:



We had to wait a little while to retrieve targets before moving to the 100 yard range. We then had to wait a little while before being able to set up a target down range. By the time I got the 100 yard target set, I only had time for one 15-round group of those handloads I had made. The results are very promising:



Those 15 shots were done pretty quickly. Somewhere around 10mins or so? No chance for the barrel to cool down anyhow. Time was a factor and I also wanted to see how the heavy barrel reacted when it got warmed up. The three fliers are all my fault – rushed too much and didn’t control my breathing properly and/or didn’t have a solid grip on the resting hand before pulling the trigger.

Looks like I need to adjust the POI left a little for those handloads, but overall I’m quite pleased with the potential this rifle shows. I’d say I did pretty well for the first time out with this rifle. It’s only going to get better.

Cheers,

~ Greg ~

[jurist]

Very nice. I've got a bunch of those barrels and need to get to work on something like you've got set up. Looks great,

Charles

[06sandstone]

Nice Shootin..
Where you using the can?


jurist , How many do you have?

[ptrthgr8]

Nice Shootin..
Where you using the can?

No, the can had to stay at home since the range is across state lines. I'll take it along next time when I stay on my side of the river.

Cheers,

~ Greg ~

[Funker]

Nice Job!!! Yeah one click left and you should have that Bad Boy taking all the red out!!!!
Thats one Sweeet shootin sombitch!!!!!