Mosin Nagant sporter (lets see if i can rile people up)

Of course brass is slightly difficult to find at a decent price for the russian, as well. I was fortunate enough to have bought several boxes of Sellier and Bellot ammo when it was about 6 bucks a box for 180gr softpoint.
It's not bad brass at all. Not benchrest quality, but... neither am I.
Norma brass is just stupid expensive.
I'm not sure if Starline is making it, or not. If so, that's what I'd go with.
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Starline doesn't make it, and probably never will. It's not obsolete, or a 'cowboy' cartridge; and they generally only make mild-taper bottleneck cartridges for rifles.

I don't understand why so many people have trouble finding 7.62x54R brass. Not only can it be ordered from S&B or Prvi Partizan by their dealers, but I have several local shops that stock both brands. One shop, in particular, generally has either brand of primed brass at $44 / 100 cases. That's cheaper than .30-06 and .270 Win, in this area (generally $56-60 / 100 now).

It can also be ordered from Winchester (but requires large lots - I'm guessing 1000+ pieces). The "Winchester" brass is drawn by PPU and S&B, though. I have 100 pieces of S&B "Winchester" brass, and 100 pieces of PPU "Winchester" brass. I prefer the PPU, but they're both as good, or better, than our domestic stuff (R-P, Win, Fed).
 
Apparently you have never been to WY, you cant find a thing here for reloading, if its not popular its not stocked here.

Hey Matt I have a 40 cal barrel lets build a 40-65 Win. Oh by the way I'm home now give me a call and lets see if we can get that safety done.

Bob
 
Apparently you have never been to WY, you cant find a thing here for reloading, if its not popular its not stocked here.
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I spend plenty of time in Wyoming. I live right across the border.

Just because you aren't seeing it in your area, does not mean it doesn't exist. Wyoming doesn't have the massive metropolitan areas that its border states do (Salt Lake, Denver, etc), but you can still usually find what you're looking for. It just requires a little more travel time...

For lack of a better cliche:
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
 
Apparently you have never been to WY, you cant find a thing here for reloading, if its not popular its not stocked here.
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Order it online.. I have family scattered all over the state and they seem to manage... If they can't find it, they order it...
 
You ain't telling me nothing I don't already know, I have been here for 50 years. And things just across the border a not all that good either for odd stuff, since Mike McCormick died and they closed down Cache La Pouder Rifle Works. I order when I need to, but I would much rather support my own state. We have two gun shops in town neither will order for a customer I waited 6 months for a box of 41 bullets and finally had to order them myself. This town is the reason I became a gunsmith, I couldn't find one here to do the work I wanted done.
 
Read the article "The Odd Couple" in the May/June '11 issue of "Rifleshooter" magazine. It's about sporter conversions and the main example is the most beautiful conversion of a Mosin-Nagant I've ever seen. Lot's of pics!!
 

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hmm 40-65 sounds like it might be fun, i had never heard of it before so i had to look it up and it sounds like it would be a fun gun to play with. Yet another caliber to add to my wish list. I know what ya mean about finding stuff around here. I think we only got one decent sporting goods store here in Laramie and they are mainly a fly shop with guns on as a side.
 
If this is a rifle that you are going to keep and treasure for the rest of your life, do it. If, on the other hand, you grow tired of it someday and try to sell it, expected to get back about 1/10th of what you put into it $$-wise.
 
i don't do projects like this ever thinking ill get my money back buy reselling. One of my other hobby is restoring on cars and trucks so ive already learned that with a project like this the only reason to do it is if you really want it with no thought of ever getting your money back. I got to look at one of these today and there are definately an interesting design, the action is much more closed in then say a mauser,I ran the bolt a couple of times and it seemed fairly smooth but the one that i looked at had like a quarter inch of packing grease on it so i didn't look too hard at it. I think ill just have to buy one of darn things so i can acutually tear it apart and see what i got to work with.
 
Well, have at it then. Look at it this way: They have been around for 120 years now and still going strong. Ugly they may be, but they sure do last a long time.
 
You'll have a lot of fun with it. I did with mine, and I may do another just for the hell of it- you can buy a nice barreled action for $60- so why not?

The only real quandry with the MN is how you're going to handle the scope mount and bent bolt (assuming you're going to scope it).

Main thing is getting the bore cleaned up, hopefully you've got reasonably sharp lands all the way to the muzzle. Good luck.
 
I sporterized mine. Scoped and bent. Cut and recrowned.

It shoots well. For a while, I was having problems with opening the bolt without a rubber mallet. Today, I discovered that if I fire a round and then pull back to re-cock it, the action opens up slick as a nice Mauser. That was pretty exciting.
 
If wanted to get into hunting(will some day) I would buy 2 91/30's off of JG sales for $80 each and sporterize the one in worse condition with a pistol scope.

I am in Florida and our deer are small and shots are usually under 100 so no real reason to sporterize it other than because I can(I think a 2x scope would be perfect).
 
I bought a M-N for fun, thinking that I could modify the hell out of it. Turns out that it is an ex-PEM sniper.

All I did to make it more "shootable" was to install a Mojo rear sight. I kept the sight leaf/slider, so it can go back to original if I ever get around to re-snipering it.
 
Finnish gunsmiths have been building sporters on these actions for years. They end up looking similar to a Mannlicher sporter. Scopes can be side mounted, so split rear bridge is not really an issue. The 7.62x54r is a great all around cartridge and ammo can be found cheap. There are also Finnish cartidges based on on it such as 9.3x53r or 6.3x53r (there is your quarter bore). Not hard to make your own wild cat. I've had an idea for one: the 6.5x55 swede has about the same size case body, just cut a chamber with a 6.5 swede reamer and resize 7.62 russian brass in a 6.5 die. You could also go larger, say 35 or 40. One of these sizes would also allow loading of revolver projectiles for lighter shooting. The larger bore sizes will require widening the magazine. Lots of options, go for it.
 
This is my former Mosin rifle that was fitted with a walnut custom stock. I sold it in 2009 to help pay toward my daughter's wedding. So it goes.

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In my opinion, the safety device is poorly designed for hunting.

Jack
 
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