Mosin reloaders (again)

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skizzums

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okay, talking mosin's and 54R.i have burned through a couple hundred of my first handloads, finally. they were the hornady 174 FMJ .3095. these were very accurate loads at 100 yards. I got a 1 1/2" four shot group yesterday morn, was hoping to get out farther, but had catastrophic scope RING failure:mad:

anyway, I need to order some more bullets, and I would like to hear from experienced mosin shooters what bullets have been most accurate. I am very interested in hearing what weights have done the best in mosin's. here is my concern, my surplus shoots an inch bigger than my 174gr hornady, seems normal right, but then I go to 185gr Barnaul and it shoots all over the map, then the 148gr tula from Walmart(148gr) shoots 2". so I am thinking that maybe I need to go lighter and maybe get better results than my 174's, rather than going heavier and going with sierra's. bullet, powder, brass....everything is expensive to reload for these rifles, so I am hoping to take a lot of the error out of the trial. not to mention, it's not a rifle that gets hundreds of rounds put through it every shoot.

so I am hoping to hear from people that have reloaded the gamut of weights/sizes/lengths and have some input from ranges of 125-200gr what shoots the best. is their a standard twist for all mosin's ? mine is a finn and slugs at exactly .3092, which is why I tried the hornady first.

thanks, I am mainly asking because I have been told to go with the 180 sierras .310 many times, but am thinking that may be going in the wrong direction

here is a work-up with the 174gr, with the 185gr barnuall in the middle shoot n see. the 1.2 " group has been pretty much a fluke, as I have not again successfully gone under 1.5"
 
one more thing to add. I need this rifle to shoot at 500 yards. not accurately, only enough to hit a 24"x24" steel plate, but if that seems inplausable with the 125gr than I won't try.

I have just read that mosin pretty much universally have a 1:9.5 twist, correct me if i'm wrong, but that seems fast enough for whatever I want, right? maybe the barnual just doesn't do well for some other reason.
 
I'll go out on a limb and say what you've got is probably as good as you can get with a Mosin Nagant. Vasily Zaitsev would say 'Horosho'.

What powder are you using? Primer?

I agree, the 125 grain bullets will probably not be worth the powder at 500 yards, but if you have some already, might try some out.

I'd want to re-shoot my 100-yard groups again once I got the scope remounted, wondering if there isn't something there.
 
I have shot a many 100 yard groups with this bullet, found a sweet spot at 45.3gr of 4064(I think, hafta check) win LRP and have gotten several 1 1/2 groups. i'm with you, thinking that is as good as it SHOULD get, but who gets that lucky with the first bullet they ever try? I really don't expect to get much better, but you never know, and will at least try. I think i'll just start with one box of 180's and one box of 150-ish's and see which takes a turn for the best. just wanted to feel out what bullets people use for theirs. but I think in the end, I will probably be going back to these hornady's, they are just so dang short and stubby, seems odd that they would be the best target bullet
 
Primer and powder are matched, no issue there.

You'll find the best bullet may change when you get out to 500 yards. The longer the travel, the more flight characteristics, wind, air density, etc., come into play.

I stick with heavier stuff, too. 175 grain, 180 grain, that size of bullet, since that is what the military cartridge was designed for.
 
I have a PU Sniper that shoots pretty well with the Horn .312 174gr match bullets from Graf's: http://www.grafs.com/retail/catalog/product/productId/21415 It used to be a Graf's exclusive, even says GRAF on the box, but I picked up 2 boxes from Midway a couple months ago.

mosin_pu_handloads.jpg
 
I've only just started testing x54R and my first round of testing was the 174SMK's and 4350 . Not sure about concrete accuracy as my groups were sporadic. Thus far my best average was 51.5gr of 4350 . I shot two separate 4 shot groups and measured .77 moa and 1.44 moa.
 
I wouldn't be surprised if that's as good as it gets. It, at the very least, appears to be fairly consistent.

But, if you're curious about lighter bullets....
Why not just jump straight to the .310" 123/125 gr SPs or FMJs?
 
I am just going to order the hornaday 150gr and the 174gr. the previous 174gr were the ones with the cannelure, so I will try the others. I see that the available smk's appear to be the same weight and sizes as the hornady's, and i'd rather stay with red because they are more affordable. will order tomorrow and get them loaded next week. hopefully the following weekend, i'll have results.. going to stick with 4064
 
I have looked at those, but the prohunters have a significantly lower BC than Hornady or SMK. I thought were more designed for hunting rather than pure accuracy. I could be wrong, but if I have two bullets of the same weight, ill usually opt for the higher BC.
 
I'll admit I'm new to the X 54R... but, I've found that I get as much accuracy out of the bullet shaped like the Prohunter than I do on higher BC bullets with milsurp rifles I've loaded for in the past... YMMV
 
Ive tried a few loads but settled on H-380 with the Hornady 150r SST/0.312". I don't have my notes handy, the load was published, I was at 53.0 gr in PPU cases. Function and accuracy are very good. My rt eye doesn't work as well as it once did, but I managed a couple of sub MOA 3 shot groups, and a couple about 2". I have a surplus of the H380 so I guess Ill stick with it.
 
How far are you shooting? At short range 2-300 yards or less you will probably never notice the difference in BC.
 
I have only bought lapua bullets twice, and both times they were fantastic. those aren't so pricey that they aren't worth a try. if I do try 125, those should be it. if lapua market them specifically for 54R, they probably work well, they seem to know what they are doing in finland, and probably have a thing for Finn mosin's
 
okay, I got a box of the Hornady 150gr SST and two boxes of the "Graf's" exclusive 174gr Hornady 303/7.7. At first I thought the "Graf's" bullets were just the regular 174gr w/o the cannelure, but they are actually a bit longer which is great because I had to seat the standard one way out. since I will be able to seat these a little closer to the lands, and without the cann I hoping to see marginally better results. I bought the 150's just to try a different weight, but hoping those do a little worse since they are slightly more expensive and I would prefer the extra weight for 5-600 yards.

I have read about this topic many times, but have never really read into the consensus since I don't own any bolt guns except the mosin's. BUT, should I be resizing at all? obviously I need to do the neck, but this brass isn't easy to come by and I feel like I am really working it in the FL. I have already resized this batch, so I am more asking about next time. not looking for a hot debate here, just in general, will my accuracy NOT suffer(maybe even get better) and will my brass last longer? the latter I assume is true, cause why wouldn't it? also, can I use the .303 brit neck die? I use the bullets for the .303 and the ez expander, so I assume it would be perfect, and LEE doesn't offer a specific 54r neck die and I would rather not dump the extra $$ for a HRN die

I will report on my findings with these bullets compared to my other loadings, although it may be a couple weeks since: 1- it's 100 degrees and humid as crap and 2-I really need to get on my muzzle brake project this weekend. I should have tried the SMK 175's as well, but I dunno, just having good luck with HRN right now and I know the cost difference isn't great, but I don't feel like working up from scratch with another 175gr, maybe next time I buy bullets i'll give them a shot.
 
I usually FL size everything, since there's always the chance that the ammo might end up in my brother's M44.

But, if it's something I plan to keep to myself, I just 'neck size' in the FL die.
 
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