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.
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