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In his thread 'OT, sorry not a levergun, season's first 'yote' nemhed and JReed gave me some good advice on doing Camo on a Mosin-Nagant I have been playing with. They wanted to see the results.
Anyway, painted some today, may do a couple of areas touch up with dark, but overall the Krylon Fusion went on nicely. Will have to use it and see how it holds up.
This was a fun rifle to play with, cheap to start $75, chopped the bbl down, put a synthetic stock, a scope rail, scope, chopped off the bolt, and forged a new one out of 1084 and welded it on.
Looks like a Russian Lever to me! NICE, I have been keeping mine original. However, I have been thinking of getting me another one when the right opportunity presents itself. Cant beat the price of gun or ammo.
That is the ATI stock. They are a little rough out of the gate, but overall a nice stock. It is the ATI scope mount also, but I really disliked the screw on bolt that they had in the kit.
horsesoldier3, I thought about the hacking on if vs the keeping it original, but I bought it for the experience of hacking them up (have a short one I am working with too). So might as well. Been able to get them at Big 5 around here for $75-$85, so a good way to get the experience.
Pricecw, Nice work! You've really made quite a transformation on that old Russian. I'd like to see a close up of the work you did on the bolt. I think the learning experience will be worth a lot more in the long run than any collectors value. I would like to hear a range report, maybe then I could justify getting one of the "short" models. I've always been an Enfield SMLE fan, but only own one. I could never get excited about the rough nature of the Mosin -Nagants and that safety,if you could call it that. But I think it was Stalin who said when describing Soviet military equipment; "Quantity has it's own quality".
I have been playing with the 1891/30 and the m44. If I was to do it again, I would stick with the 1891/30 for all experiments, it is a more flexible platform to work with.
I have shot a couple of these stock, there are a lot around here, my brothers got them to work on also, so I have 2 (m30 and m44), one brother has one (m30), and the other brother has 3 (2 m30 (him and his son) and a m44).
We shot the m30s, dug right into the m44s. Could hit a 12x12 target at 500 with them stock. My nephew with his eyes could sit there all day with it (range out back of his place). I was suprised how accurate they were. I am really hoping that it maintains the accuracy. This was the platform that the Russian snipers used in WWII also, and those were prolific snipers.
These are not cheap rifles when fully done $75 for the rifle, $40 for the scope mount (no rings or scope), $60 for the stock, plus work (The new Marlin is close in price). But the fun is worth it.
I will try and get pics of the bolt today. It was pretty easy to do, rough it, take it out to the forge and shape it, weld it on, and go. I used some weld heat block from MidwayUSA that did a wonderful job protecting the rest of the bolt.
The rough look and the safety (I consider this a rifle without a safety) is why I didn't get one for quite a while. However, once you decide you want to learn to cut up and modify a rifle, it is hard to beat the cost to learn with this one.
Doesn't someone make what amounts to a trigger blocking safety for these things? I always imagined Russian soldiers never bothering with the safety. I read an article a few months back about the Finns using Mosin-Nagant based sniper rifles up through the 80s and 90s.
The Finns captured and rebuilt a number of the 91/30's and used them against the Russians. The Finnish versions are quite desirable in the Mil Surpluss circles.
This thread makes me want to go to Big5 right now and pick one up. I have a set of dies for 7.62X54R sitting on my bench right now. May be in a week or so after I take all of my cans to the recycle and turn them in.
Now here is a question for both of you. What foliage did you use for you shade coat. on my enfield I used the tan as the base with green and brown stripes. Then I over layed the whole stock with clippings from my honeysuckle bush and sprayed with black. to give it that leaf shade look.
Last edited by JReed on Sun Feb 03, 2008 4:09 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Jeremy
GySgt USMC Ret
To err is human, To forgive is devine, Neither of which is Marine Corps policy Semper Fidelis
The safety's really not that bad. I can see how it would be pretty useless for hunting purposes, but as far as safeties go, it's very positive, and not nearly as difficult to operate as some think.
Last edited by Kilroy6644 on Sun Feb 03, 2008 4:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
KILROY WAS HERE
"It's too bad that whole families have to be torn apart by something as simple as wild dogs."
Pete, Sorry man, but I had to do it. Think of it as carrying on a long tradition of learning by using cheap mil surplus rifles. If it helps, the bolt had been replaced by the armory at least once on this one, could tell when I cut it off.
those are nice rifles, and if I got one of those laminated ones I wouldn't touch it either. Does that sniper one on the bottom have the bent bolt?
JReed, the way I did the pattern, I laid down a tan coat, then sprayed stripes/blobs on the stock, then did a light overlay with tan to mute the darker colors. Layered this way to get the look a few times. Wanted the lighter look to go with the desert here, thus the tan overlay.
These were the issue sniper rifles for the Russians into the 60's from what I have read.
JReed et al, I used Fusion Satin River Rock as my base coat, then "splattered" it heavily with with the flat khaki, then added layers and shading with the flat brown and OD green. I was trying to duplicate the NaturalGear SCII camo I use. it fits in very well with winter foliage here in Indiana. I think most camo patterns appear too dark in actual use. By the way JReed I'll just buy you a Mosin-Nagant and trade you for your sporterized Enfield, I don't even need the original stock.
pricecw wrote:Pete, Sorry man, but I had to do it. Think of it as carrying on a long tradition of learning by using cheap mil surplus rifles. If it helps, the bolt had been replaced by the armory at least once on this one, could tell when I cut it off.
those are nice rifles, and if I got one of those laminated ones I wouldn't touch it either. Does that sniper one on the bottom have the bent bolt?
JReed, the way I did the pattern, I laid down a tan coat, then sprayed stripes/blobs on the stock, then did a light overlay with tan to mute the darker colors. Layered this way to get the look a few times. Wanted the lighter look to go with the desert here, thus the tan overlay.
These were the issue sniper rifles for the Russians into the 60's from what I have read.
OK, here are the pics of the bolt. Link is for the big pics, made small ones to post with.
Great article, thanks for posting it. Local shop has the Dragunov sniper in stock with all the bits, and I have been very tempted a couple of times to grab one (that would stay intact though).
. Is that an ATI stock?
