I saw a 7.62x54R Mosin Nagant in a gunshop advertisement this weekend. Unfortunately I do not know what type or year. He was selling it for just under $80. I thought it might be good to have to bounce around behind the seat of my truck for coyote, badgers, etc. I do reload so corrosive ammo is no concern.

So my question is (without knowing any details) Is it worth 80 bucks? Are these worthwhile guns to spend any amount on.

MT The Mosin Nagant might be described as rather crude at best. They do not lend themselves to be made into "sporters". Mounting a scope is a chore. Reloadable brass is expensive. If you want a "cheap" rifle watch for mauserin 6.5x55, 7x57 or 8x57. Or even better watch for a reasonably priced factory made rifle. Rifles such as Savage 110's, Win 670 or Rem 700 ADLs can often be found at very reasonable prices. That would be my preference.

Heck yeah they're worth $80. Due to the fact that they are old, they do need to be closely inspected for quality though. Which version is it? They have their quirks.

I reload for my 91/30, and get 1 1/4" groups @ 100 yards. (not bad for a gun that's 70 years old. I'm loading 190 grain Hornady interlocks in front of 49 grains of 4895. (I'm in the process of working a load for 4350).

As previously stated, they're a pain to mount a scope on, so if that's your idea, you might want to look elsewhere.

Also, if you happen to find a swiss K-31 (7.5x55), the surpluss ammo is exceptional. To reload, they use standard .308 bullets. (designed using a 174 grain bullets).

As for brass. Graffs has brass that is of good quality available for both calibers. (usually) The Graffs brass I ordered for my Mosin Nagant is just as good as my Norma brass. I just needed to clean up the flash hole and that was it.

mike

This gun will keep its original everything, unless it needs to be replaced. I am not into sporterizing any gun. I just want a cheap gun to have that will be fun to shoot and will handle being bounced around for the occassional close range varmint or coffee can.

Anybody got some other recommendations on cheaper guns (military or civialian)

I have a m91/30, and after a few initial dislikes, I love it now. It has a pristine laminated stock and barrel. I think it was arsenal refurbished after the war. I had to scrub the chamber, because cases wouldn't extract when the shellac warmed.

I like the Mosin sights better than Mausers, about as good as Swiss k-31's. Surplus ammo can be pretty good, and its $2/20 at the gunshow. I clean corrosive ammo with hot water and soap, like a muzzle loader, so I don't worry about it. It is as accurate as my K-31's. From a bench, I can hit a 8"x14" steel plate at 300 yards, almost every time.

If the barrel looks good from the muzzle, the Mosin should shoot well. There are some beat up ones out there, so look carefuly.

I think the swiss K-31 is the best deal out there. I like them enough that I bought 4. K-31's are most likely to be good shooters. Every barrel I have looked at looked brand new. Mine shoot better with open sights than my wife's scoped Handi Rifle! Surplus ammo is good, but will run out. Reloading is easy. I use 284 win brass run through a 7.5*55 die, no ther steps. I'm getting adequate cheap blasting with Surplus powder and pulled 147g .308 fmj's.

If you are into mausers, Yugoslavian m24/47's are cheap now, and can be found in excellent shape.
If you want to go slightly more modern, Yugo sks (m59/66) in very good shape are also realy cheap now. Mine will also hit the 300 yard plate most of the time.


As far as ccheap commerial guns go, I have 5 Savages and love them, except for their poor feeding. I have one NEF Handi rifle for my wife, and the $220 I spent on it was $220 too much. The Savage built Stevens can be found under $300, seems like a good deal.

I've had a few and they are reliable and reasonably accurate. The rifles might be a bit ungainly to have behind a seat, whereas the carbines make a niftly little package.

I have a 91/30 that will shoot 1.5" @ 100 yards consistently. I paid a c-note for it. It may well be my most accurate mil-surp and will probably be one of the last to go if I ever need to part with them.

I have an M38 that won't hit the side of a barn. I gave $80 for it. I bought it on impulse as a collectors piece anyway.

I also have about 10 boxes of empty Winchester repackaged S&B ammo that I burned up shooting my 91/30 that reloads well enough. The reloadable components available cost more than the 30-06, but still arent' too expensive. Heck, just buy Wolf ammo and be content.

If you want an $80 knock-around gun, by all means don't let us stop you. I think both my MN's are neat have both have better sights than any of my Mausers. I recommend them to someone who's interested in rifles and wants something cheap to play with.

Just stay away from the corrosive military surplus ammo. That crap's too big a pain in the ass to mess with!

I know a couple of guys that use them quite regularly for a variety of purposes. They're tough rifles, and probably the cheapest milsurp out there right now, except maybe the Turk Mausers.

Isn´t the caliber 7.62x53R?

I hade one that had been refurbished after the war and the barrel rebored to 8mm. There are quite a few of these around in Finland and they are very affordable -dirt cheap. Some of the 7.62s were given 9.3 barrels and all of them are still seen during elk season. Scoping isn´t that hard, all you need is a sturdy side mount.

I sold mine a while back, not a gun that I miss.

I did some research and found that we use the cal 7.62x53R and you use x54R -but why? Looked at a Mosin-Nagant collectors sight but no answer to the question.

Not sure why it's 53R in europe and 54R here. Makes no sense, but few things do.

I would definitely recomend either a MN or a K-31 as a behind the seat plinking rifle. they're great. Both can be quite accurate, and both are very dependable. Well worth the minimal amount of money for rifle and ammo.

mike

I own lots of Nagants. Mostly Finnish rebuilds of WWI actions. For a time in the 80’s I could buy a Finnish Nagant with a new or unpitted barrel for under $100.00 So I bought a bunch of them. I took one of my M27's hunting and shot a deer with it. It was about 25 feet away. It was a bit dark but I was able to center the deer with the wings of the front sight. It did the job just as well as any modern thunderstick.

You know the Nagant is an 1880’s vintage design, so in comparison with later designs, relatively speaking, it is a “primitive†action,. But it works. The trigger pulls are long and creepy, opening the action takes a good heave ho!, and putting on or taking off the safety requires a hard twist. The safety is very positive but very slow.

Rimmed ammunition is obsolete for a reason; I have had rim jams with different brands of ammo. However if your brand works, it works. The 7.62 *54R is about as powerful as the 30-06, though with the primitive military sights, I doubt anyone will be making the typical 400 yard shots that I keep on hearing about.

The front sight on most of these are drift adjustable, so you can zero the rifle. If you are lucky, the rifle won’t shoot 16 inches high at 100 yards. When one of these shoots high, you have to find a taller front sight. That takes work.

I never tried shock or vibration testing on any of my Nagants, but I bet that it is as rugged a rifle as you will find. The ones with laminated stocks should never warp and are as weatherproof as any military rifle. (Still you have to worry about rust!) The only thing that has broken on any of mine is the sear spring. Since this spring is integral with the sear, you have to replace it if it breaks. And I bought a bunch of surplus springs for about $5.00 apiece. The WWII versions have rough machining, but they go bang. The best built of the Nagants are Finnish, (in my opinion) though I have seen a couple of WWI Westinghouse Nagants that showed excellent worksmanship. I have rebedded a couple of my Finnish Nagants. I cannot tell any improvement after rebedding. I have a couple of M44’s that were rebuilt in an arsenal. The bedding is horrible. If you tighten the screws, you can see the action bend! If these actions were a Mausers, the group sizes would be measured in cubits. However, these Nagants will shoot within 3-4 inches (at 100 yards) with ball ammo. Don’t know why. But that level of accuracy is quite acceptable considering that these are wartime barrels.

For $80.00, take a cleaning rod, push it down the barrel and see if it is pitted. Don’t buy one with a pitted barrel. If you can get one with a shiny smooth barrel for $100.00, buy that one. Secondly, make sure the bolt and receiver numbers match. The bolt number is on the guide rib/safety lug. Any other numbers that match are just gravy for $80.00.

Oh yes, the short barrel carbines, they are loud!!. And they produce some outstanding fireballs with surplus ammunition. Fun to shoot.

I got lucky with mine. I bought it at Big 5. It was one that the manager wanted set aside for himself, but the worker set aside the wrong rifle. So I lucked out and got a hex receiver in great condition.

Getting it to shoot accurately has been an interesting, and long process. But, with handloading, I've got my groups down to 1 1/2" @ 100 yds. (not too bad considering the rifle is 70 years old).

I love it. It's a very smooth shooter, as long as you can get past the long, heavy,creepy, and spongy trigger.

mike

My only real complaint with any of the Nagants I own is that I find the length of pull decidedly too short for comfortable sustained range sessions.

However, as these rifles become more and more popular on the surplus market, that problem is easily curable.