Mosin-Nagant: An Obsolete Battle Rifle We Still Talk About

A truly amazing rifle was created as the M1891 Mosin-Nagant. Amazing because the action never really evolved as did every other rifle born during the late 19th century’s smallbore/smokeless powder revolution. More amazing is its 7.62x54R cartridge—a living fossil that still serves strong 133 years later with no signs of slowing down, even though both rifle and cartridge were obsolete by Western standards well before World War I.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then the Mosin-Nagant is the wallflower of guns. No one copied its design, although many countries fielded versions of the 10 million or more of all models produced. That makes the M1891 a hard rifle to ignore, and its size makes it stick out.

The M91/30 version’s overall length exceeds 48.5 inches. Add the bayonet and it’s a whopping 65.5 inches and weighing an ounce shy of 10 pounds. That may be fine for forming a square against Napoleon’s cavalry, but World War I and the machine gun shook all that cavalry jazz out of every army in short order. The length quickly became a burden in the trenches of World War I and street fighting in World War II.

The straight bolt handle was found on many rifles throughout World War I and contributed to a higher incidence of elbow wounds. A lot of torque is required to lift a cock-on-opening bolt. When it is 45 degrees to the bore and you lift it upright, your elbow tends to rise to shoulder height, exposing it to return fire.

Departure

Most countries moved on from bolt guns after World War I, but the new Soviet Union continued production of these rifles more or less unchanged throughout World War II. There are 10 distinct models for the collector to pursue in addition to an even wider cornucopia of guns made or rebuilt by many different countries.

Once an inexpensive way to begin collecting, all models are creeping up in price yet not approaching the prices of the average German K98k Mauser. Rarer models such as the Cossack and Dragoon rifles approach Mausers in price, but the standard rifle is still affordable. Prices average between $400 to $800, depending on condition, for average World War II models.

The Soviet Union provided tens of thousands of Mosin-Nagants to client states and allies, and they can often be found with marks identifying Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Communist China, many of which are uniquely marked. A must-have reference with a roadmap to the various markings is The Mosin-Nagant Rifle by Terence W. Lapin, now in its sixth edition.

My sample M91/30—the last long-rifle type—was made in the Soviet Union in 1942 at Izhevsk and captured by Finland during the Continuation War from 1941-44. It has the Soviet marks intact and the Finnish “SA” for Suomen Armeija (Finnish Army) stamped on the barrel.

Finland had been part of Czarist Russia until 1917 and was armed with the Mosin-Nagant. They made them and rebuilt them there with their own unique markings. Finland fought off the Bolsheviks after World War I and formed its own nation. The Soviet Union attacked the Fins in 1939, and Finland lost much territory to them. Finland counterattacked in 1941, and my gun was one of the many Soviet rifles captured.

Rugged Workhorse

The Mosin-Nagant is a rugged, dependable workhorse able to function reliably in harsh conditions. Its execrable trigger generally breaks after a long, heavy, spongy, eight- or nine-pound pull. This does serve a purpose. In biting cold weather, when the feeling in the fingers is lessened by numbness, the trigger remains manageable. You simply hold the sights steady and squeeze. It eventually breaks.

Accuracy with the open sights is sketchy at best, and most rifles are good for only four or five m.o.a. with good ammunition, although the scoped sniper models shoot far better. If you learn to shoot a decent group even at 50 yards with one of these monsters, no trigger will ever intimidate you again.

The Soviet-era rear sights are optimistically graduated to 2,000 meters—another hangover from the days of long-range volley fire before the machine gun became common—and are not windage adjustable. The front sight is a post protected by a globe set in a dovetailed base fixed to the barrel. Despite being in a dovetail, it isn’t really adjustable.

The safety is perhaps the clumsiest of all early battle rifles. To apply, draw back the cocking piece far enough to rotate it counterclockwise until it locks in place.
It’s tedious, but it is visually obvious when the safety is on, and it locks the bolt closed. To release it, draw the cocking piece back and turn it clockwise. If a recalcitrant primer is encountered when firing, you can draw back the cocking piece for another try at firing the round.

Because the cartridge has a large rim, loading the rifle requires some care. If you place a round in the magazine and don’t push it all the way back before pushing it down, the next round will cause the rim of the first round to jam between the interruptor/ejector and the side of the magazine box. It will take several minutes to clear, and getting it free usually ruins the round. The “interruptor” holds down the cartridge below the one feeding to prevent jams from the fat rims.

Charging

Loading from a charger mitigates the problem. There are still plenty of chargers available at gun shows and from online vendors—along with the cartridge boxes, combo tools, cleaning kits, oil bottles and the like. These are all reasonably priced. Most of these rifles came with all this stuff when they were imported. Almost every country using these rifles had uniquely marked oil bottles, and rooting out the correct ones can be a nice Easter egg hunt.

Slings are the most unusual encountered, and why the Russians thought their design was a good idea remains a mystery. Originally, the rifle had normal sling swivels, albeit placed where they were in Napoleonic times. By 1910, swivels were discontinued and the stock slotted for a pair of leather “dog collars” with buckles and keepers fitted into the slots and sling looped through them.

The slots were protected by escutcheons on either side, held by two screws each fore and aft. Wartime production saw the elimination of these escutcheons, but often a thin metal plate was crimped into the front slot for strength. Most slings are leather, but mine is a late-war Finnish cloth one marked “SA.”

Mosin-Nagants were zeroed with the bayonets affixed, since doctrine called for fixed bayonets before an attack. The bayonet is a cruciform-bladed socket style that had been used for more than 100 years. There are quite a few Mosin-Nagants with fixed bayonets sprinkled among the period flintlocks in Sergei Bondarchuk’s epic movie “War and Peace.”

There is still quite a bit of corrosive ammo for these rifles in circulation, so cleaning is imperative if you shoot any of it. Field-stripping is quite easy. Open the bolt and ensure the chamber and magazine are empty. Draw the bolt to the rear while depressing the trigger and the bolt comes out. Hoppe’s No. 9 is still my go-to cleaning solvent after shooting corrosive primers, and if you clean soon after shooting, you will keep the barrel pristine. To reinstall, insert the bolt, depress the trigger and push it home.

This is truly an interesting rifle if only because of all the oddities in its construction, the vast number made and because it was found in almost every 20th-century conflict—with the sniper versions still being used in the Middle East. Launching a 150-grain 0.312-inch bullet at 2,800 fps, the ballistics of the 7.62x54R cartridge—Old Babushka—are quite acceptable, and it is an able medium-game round.

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