Mosin 91/30 Ammo Test

M

MissouriCrowinMass

New member
What a beautiful day to do some shooting. I took my 1939, 91/30 to my club's range with a box of Silver Bear, a box of Brown Bear and a package in Plain Brown Paper (The headstamp was 60 over 80 - red seal on primer & casemouth - no idea what it is other than the cheapest 7.62x54R ammo.)

The Range is 50 yards. Standard Russian 9" Pie Plate. Iron sights at closest setting. POA - bottom of pie plate. 57 year old eyes. Discarding all outlier shots!

Results

1. Plain Brown Paper - 4"x2" Group is about 6" High & 2" Left.

2. Brown Bear - 5"x2.5" Group is about 6-1/2" High and 1" Right.

3. Silver Bear - 3"x2" Group is about 3" High and centered. Best round at 50 yards.

It amazes me how different these ammunitions shoot? I've shot the Plain Brown Paper Rounds twice now and they shoot WAY left for my rifle. All rounds shoot high due to the sights but a difference of 6" vs. 3" high can't be muzzle velocity, right? Not at 50 yards? What exactly causes these deviations? Is it the vibration of the barrel at a certain point when the bullet leaves the muzzle?

Good lesson today. With Silver Bear and shooting about 3" high at 50 yards.....I'm going to put a hurting on some beer cans. Plus, I used a tip on the clips. I put some oil on them and lifted up on the tip of the top one while pushing down on the hind end of the cartridge. Not smooth but not bad. Better than loading 1 at a time.

I wish my Mosin shot just a little better. The action & bolt are as smooth as Greased Owl Dung. The bore has very good rifling just pretty dark. The bore isn't very smooth...it chews up patches a leaves those little barrel boogers after a cleaning.

Anybody think that a good session with Bore Paste might smooth the bore & shrink the groups?

John
 
1) Different buring powders for sure
2) Every brand will shoot different from how your optics are set up aswell, If your sighted in with plain bear and your shooting silver bear the barrel will move very different (throw it differently) (inch-inches difference) with a scope or even iron sights.
3) Generally light bullet, heavery powder will throw very different oppose to heavery bullet light powder.
4) If your looking for accuracy and you reload the idea is to have decent size bullet with as light as poweder as you can go for a flat trjacetory.
(These are just ideas, Im trying to get in to reloading and I talked to an emoplyee from a gun shop a week ago and he said things iv stated, rougly but with better back up. cause he hated hearing how people say a type of ammo sucks.) hope this helps a litte, its hard to recall everything the guy told me but this is the basic idea I think. im sure alot more information will come in soon!
 
Hey, thanks for the tips both you guys. I think the main reason, I like shooting for a hobby is that there is so much to learn and whenever you learn one thing...it leads to another.

I reload for fun. Mostly pistol (9mm, .40 & .45). I haven't gotten into reloading for accuracy, yet. I haven't really compared my rifle reloads against eachother (7.5 Swiss & .30 Carbine.) 7.62x54R is so cheap, I can't see relaoding for it - and there's the Berdan Primer issue. Although I'm sure you can get brass with Boxer primers.

I forgot the pics.....duh.
 

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I think I got the luck of the draw on my 91/30s- they all have glimmery shinneh barrels :)

I've always stuck with the expensive surplus - If you wanna drop your groups, go with 7N1, they stuff they use for the SVD. It's usually only about 15 years old at most.
 
The most accurate surplus ammo in my 91/30 is hungarian light ball (silver case and silver tip). I mounted an inexpensive 2x7 NcStar pistol scope on it with a scout mount...WOW what a difference! my groups are 2.5-3" @100 yards. Even with Privi ammo, my groups only shrink by about 1/2" an inch.
 
I'm still trying to get my 91/30 to shoot a little better. I'd love to bed the the barrel with JB Epoxy like the fellow on "Box 'O Truth" does. I just don't have the stones to get JB near anything with threads no matter how much wax I put on them. (I had a bad experience with JB and some scope rings once - the stuff sticks!) So......I tried using some fiber gasket material. I cut then double thickness and installed them under the tang and receiver including the seat for the barrel nut.

Ran out and shot today after work. The Silver Bear is the only ammo worth shooting in my rifle. Brown Bear and Plain Brown Paper must have been designed for missle defense? They both shoot super high.

Here's the Silver Bear today. 1.6" average from target. Worst shots 2.25". That's at 50 yards with irons. POA was about a whisker below 6:00 o'clock on the black circle. That's not too bad. I'm pretty happy. I might even try the Scout Scope. Got one on a K-31 and I like it.

Thanks to the fellow that left these blank targets up and saved Mrs. MissouriCrowinMass a few pieplates!
 

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