Mosin Nagant keyholing

P

PlatinumCore16

New member
So I got back to the range last Saturday to try out my new EDC mags (which worked flawlessly) but also to shoot my Mosin and get some real accuracy stats out of it. To this point I have never shot anything but SP, brass-cased, hunting rounds. About a month ago I was at Wally World and was grabbing some 9mm and asked if they had any 54R. They had some Tula Ammo that was "non-corrosive", but Berdan primed. I just assumed it was corrosive anyways so I didn't want to shoot it unless I knew I'd have a good amount of time after my range trip to really clean out the barrel, action, and bolt.

The Tula Ammo bullets were not lacquered, so I am guessing that they are a "newer" production run. I had a box and a half of my SP ammo, so I shot that at 50 and 100yds, all offhand(which I initially thought meant non-dominant hand, but learned means unsupported, who knew). 50yds produced some alright grouping a bit above PoA. Good enough to kill any animal. 100yds wasn't great, so more practice is needed.

Then came the Tula. Now I apologize as the pictures are on my phone and I need to transfer them to my computer, but I'm 99% sure the few Tula rounds that hit the 100yd target keyholed. Now there were 20 rds, but I shot a fair amount of them at steel targets at about 130yds (I thought I was doing well and would be really cool to hear my hits, shame on me). So out of the 15 or less rounds that I shot at the 100yd target, 1 definitely hit in my 15-20" reactive target, but it wasn't a nice little hole and a few others hit the plastic retaining board also producing a weird hole.

I'm assuming it's the Tula ammo, but I have no idea why they would be tumbling when I've never had that issue before. Is it the rifling? Was it the copper jacketed spitzer rounds? The steel case? When I bought my mosin, it had a sharp, bright bore and from all accounts with the SP hunting ammo I've had, it's a pretty good subject. I am planning on buying some sand bags for when my Rem770 comes in and my thought was to use them to see what the Mosin is really capable of, but this disheartens me. Any thoughts or suggestions to really nail down this issue?
 
Key holing is caused by undersized bullets, An over sized barrel and sometimes excessively low velocity. If the bullet is key holing you'll have no doubts. The bullet literally hits sideways leaving a bullet shaped or oval hole instead of a round one. A steel target will still make the really cool DING!!!(no shame involved.)
However, they're not really much good when trying a new brand of ammo. If the shots are not on target at all at 100 it's more likely operator failure than the ammo. "All off-hand" will do that. Try shooting at regular paper sighting in targets. Use anything softish as a rest.
"...a good amount of time after..." Cleaning after corrosive ammo(Tula is not. Bullets aren't lacquered. The case is. Tula is steel cased too.) isn't a big time consuming thing. You just flush the barrel with plain hot water(preferably a kettle full) then clean as per normal.
"...buying some sand bags..." Make 'em out of old pant legs, pillow cases or just use small bags of cat litter, rice, oats or anything like that. Any cloth or synthetic material bag will do. Anything that says it's for shooting will just cost more too.
 
Awesome, thanks for the solutions. I'll break out the calipers and see what the bullet diameter is on the Tula. I don't have any of the SP left, so I'll go buy some of them (as I need more anyways) and compare. I can also slug the barrel. I do not have a cronograph, so I suppose if neither of the first two measurements are at fault, the velocity will have to be assumed the culprit. I have silhouette "bad guy" targets, the round black-that-turns-yellow-when-shot targets, and some smaller plastic-y targets that also change color when shot. What would you suggest as a "sight-in" target?

And thank you for the note on the Tula ammo. What I meant by laquered is red sealing material found on most surplus ammo. I knew it was steel case(kind of obvious innit?), nothing wrong with that.

Lastly thanks for the advice on rests.

On a another side note, there was a young man (I suppose I fit that bill too, but whatever) that was interested in my Mosin. We chatted about it and his. Mine seemed less beat up than his and had a nicer trigger, glad about that. He was very generous and gave me a satchel of surplus ammo, let me fire his Mas36 (weirdest gun EVER btw), and even had a Nagant M1895 revolver that he let me shoot. THAT thing was sweet. Also the internet does sometimes tell truth: I kid you not that DA trigger pull was 20lbs+(or so it felt, we didn't have a force gauge). I felt like I was using one of those finger exerciser things, holy cow. Nice crisp SA break, though still pretty hefty.
 
"...Mine seemed less beat up than his..." Hi. Milsurps are like that. The stuff I have cannot be found in the condition they're in these days. Moreso with the assorted bayonets, etc. Sad when your toys are your retirement fund. Paid $175Cdn. for my M1 Rifle and my 1903A4 Springfield about 40 years ago.
Years ago, I worked in a gun shop, up here. The Mosins we had(I think long before they were even seen Stateside), were all dead on at 200 yards. Mind you, that was using Norma ammo. There was nothing else.
Isn't likely to be velocity or bullet diameter with factory ammo.
"...as a "sight-in" target..." Buy 'em. Wal-Mart or the like will have 'em. They're the ones with inch squares on 'em. The 'varmint' target on the right here will do as well. Even 8.5" x 11" copy paper with an aiming point dot will do.
http://www.accurateshooter.com/shooting-skills/targets/
 
Keyholeing is not caused by bullets that are a couple thousandths under size. I have used all kinds of barrels to throw guns together and that is more rumor than fact. I still hunt with a 7.62x39 that has an Arisaka barrel (.311-.312) and use .308 hunting bullets because they are more accurate than .311 bullets. A common conversion was to take an Arisaka and re-cut it to .300 Savage. I had one I bought at a yard sale and it was unbelievably accurate with factory ammo @ 100 yards. It is possible that the barrel is so shot out that the bullet "Over runs " the rifling. A few thousandths will not matter, but there has to be sufficient rifling. Tumbling usually is a twist rate-bullet weight-velocity problem, or a combination of the three. It is Russian scrap ammo, it could just be out of balance bullets. I have a 6.5 Arisaka that I re-cut to 6.5x55. I did not realize that the twist rate on the early barrels were different. It shoots 160 grain bullets great. At 25 yards 140 grain bullets are going through sideways. I would get some decent ammo and try it again at 50 yards. You have a little more control and can see what is going on. I am not a fan of Russian bolt guns, but I suspect most of the accuracy problems are junk ammo related.
 
Bullet-to-bore size is not the only thing that causes tumbling.
A rifling twist that doesn't match a bullet weight can be a factor.

Your muzzle crown can be another.

When we refer to lacquered rounds, that's the coating on the steel CASES that prevents rust, it's not the sealant around the case mouth.

That said- get some white-ish target paper, shoot your stuff off a rest at 100 yards, and look at the paper for both keyholing and group sizes.
Denis
 
I would check the boolits if you're confident it's really keyholing....

I handload, but years ago discovered that some Prvi factory ammo used .308 bullets. Measured 'em myself.

If you have calipers or a mike- measure the base of a pulled bullet.

Or, call TulAmmo USA at 888-317-5810 to get the spec. Their website only provides the weight.
 
No, he just has an overriding hatred of Mosins that he can't control & it forces him to get into any thread on one without providing a single bit of useful info or discussion.
Denis
 
Which, again, has nothing whatever to do with helping solve the Mosin keyholing issue, which is the subject of this Mosin thread.

You are here, as elsewhere in other Mosin threads, no help at all.
Denis
 
Not at all. But good to hear on your 3-Gun aspiration. It's a great sport, although you don't see any Mosin-junk fans participating ... can't image why.
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Because they don't enjoy shooting that's why. I shot 3 gun with a Mosin, and a Nagant Revolver (couldn't find a Russian shotgun of the same time period].

Of course I didn't win. But I drew the most attention. There are a couple others that I shoot with that go the Mosin route in 3-gun I don't have any pictures of my Russian 3-gun matches, but I do of my Krag.

Shot the Krag, M1911, and Model 97 Winchester, it was a blast.

I enjoy shooting the old vintage military stuff a lot more then my modern high priced fancy guns.

Some people take their shooting to serious to enjoy the shooting.

08252013958.jpg
 
" If the bullet is key holing you'll have no doubts. The bullet literally hits sideways leaving a bullet shaped or oval hole instead of a round one."

Not all bullets will hit the target sidewise. Since the bullets are actually tumbling end over end but not at the same rate of tumble, some will hit nose or tail on leaving a normal looking round hole and some will hit slightly off camber leaving an elongated hole. It IS possible to hit a "node" in the tumble pattern where more bullets are at the sidewise point leaving a majority of profile strikes.
 
Just put 100 rounds of cheap reloads through my SP 101, and 32 of them keyholed. I guess my bad ammo was consistently bad. . .
 
Just put 100 rounds of cheap reloads through my SP 101, and 32 of them keyholed. I guess my bad ammo was consistently bad.
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Well, at least you did the right thing by shooting it up, instead of tossing it away in the local junk yard. :eek:

All of my old surplus M1 Garand ammo I shoot up too - and strangely, it never keyholes no matter how hard I try. :D :p

:cool:
 
You are here, as elsewhere in other Mosin threads, no help at all.
Denis
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Yep. He is just a one trick pony.He sort of reminds me of that poster named "theguyfromsouthamerica". You don't here much from him anymore. Oh wait. I remember. The mods got a belly full of him and now he is banned. He never had anything to add either. Just an agitator. And a troll.
 
agtman wrote: All of my old surplus M1 Garand ammo I shoot up too - and strangely, it never keyholes no matter how hard I try.
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You TRY:confused: to make it keyhole?

I'll see your vaunted Garand and raise you a Ljungman.

Now can we get back on track on the WHY of the OP's question?
 
I would start with slugging the bore followed by measuring the bullets. You may very well have an example of extreme edges fof tolerance: Wide bore narrow bullets. That would cause the bullet to not engage the rifling well enough for a good spin. Tula and other brands of com bloc ammo aren't exactly know for their tolerances.

I'm presuming that your "Hunting Ammo" is of the around 180 gr. variety such as S&B vs. the Tula which is around 150 gr. If it can stabilize the 180 gr., the 150 should NOT be keyholing.

Edit to add: When slugging your barrel, run from the breech to the muzzle. take note if you feel the slug suddenly get much easier on its way down the barrel or get suddenly tighter. If either occurs, make note of where in the barrel this happens. If it happens early on the problem is in the barrel.
 
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PC,
Did you get the rifle back out & shoot it off a good rest at 100 yards on paper to determine if it really is keyholing?
Denis
 
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