Mosin Sporter (part deux)

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http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?p=5957022#post5957022

ths will be a lengthy and photo driven thread with huge pictures that won't fit your screen. I apologize. let me start by saying that I inherited a lathe today:D:D it old, its big and its a huge learning curve, but I ain't complaining. so let's get started, if you saw the first part, it was just the adding of the scope mount. a few days ago, I decided I wanted a polished barrel.......LOTS OF WORK GUYS!!! but worth it

first of I had to get the rear sight base off, I didn't have a torch handy, but I had a fireplace....

I just heated it up enough until I could see the silver solder bubbling, then it hammers right off, but then your left with the ugly sight base, which I jus went to work with a 4" grinder(maybe not the best idea, created a lot of work in the end)



after grinding that, I began the white vinegar soak, I just wrapped a towel around the barrel after plugging the bore, then dumped about half a gallon of vinegar on the towel and let it sit for an hour, wiped it some, let it soak again...repeat and repeat
 
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that gives you a nice rusty looking bare metal barrel

then just go to town with 46gr-60gr-80gr-120gr-180gr crocus cloth, and spend hours and hours

heres some polishing mud, then polishing


still have some lumps where I ground the sight base off, but ill get into that later
 
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now for the fun stuff, cutting and crowning on the million year old ATLAS lathe

first, cut-off with band-saw


then spend a couple hours figuring how to turn on a lathe that hasn't been used in 60 yrs, and all the fun that went with learning how to use it. but I wanted a nice 10-15 degree crown



okay, this is where things got weird, I wanted to smooth out the sight base area, so I decided to just turn it on the lathe, but in the end it worked out, but had to do a ton of hand work with files and emory to get it nice

 
so, I wanted to add a third screw to the scope mount.......almost,like a half-second away, destroyed my gun. you see that hole up on top of the CHAMBER!!:eek: luckily my sense kicked in before I drilled in the reciver, I just added a screw to the middle of the other two and threaded it. it was close though.....I gotta slow down sometimes


so...how'd all my efforts turn out

still a tiny ding where the sight base was, but hardly noticeable, and the whole gun still needs the high speed polish. but it's really pretty. next week will be the muzzle brake, which I will make myself. then timney trigger and then the stock


oh yeah, the crown
 
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Curious...
Why didn't you just set up a steady rest, and turn the whole thing (including the sight base) off in the lathe?

You can drill the third hole up front, you just need to be careful about depth and use a bottoming tap.

Clark, here on the forum, has dimensions for it.
 
I don't know, I have never used a lathe, so I have lots to learn. after I started turned the sight base area, I considered just turning the whole barrel, but figure it doesn't need it. it looks pretty darn good as it is. I may go back in the future and do it again, but i'm done for now. as for the thir screw,i think it's fine where I have it, I don't wanna mess around with the chamber area, i'm sure it's possible, but I don't see it as necessary

what do you mean by "steady rest"
 
I've got an Atlas just like that in the workshop. Pretty nice little basic unit, I've been having fun with it for years. The thread-cutting setup comes in handy for making replacement action screws.
 
good to hear, expect some messages from me in the future, if you don't mind me asking for some tips here and there
 
very pretty. I accidently saw my wifes order confirmation from BUd's, the only thing she would of got from them is the archangel stock, so I guess that's what ill be going with. I got out to shoot yesterday, it went well, I have a terrible tru-glo 3-9x on it right now and still the crappy loose monte carlo stock. so I was happy to get sub 2" at 100 yard using a tree as a rest.


not sure what weight the silver tipped ammo is, I get better accuracy from a different type, but this was all I brought. anyone know the bullet weight of the silver tipped (Bulgarian?) surplus?
I ran a couple more 5 shot groups and one was a bit better, didn't snap a pic. but so far she's looking like she will end up being a decent budget shooter.
 
The light ball surplus is usually about 147 grain. Heavy ball surplus is all but impossible to find.

I'm guessing you already know this, but surplus ammo is corrosive primed, so be sure to flush the barrel and bolthead thoroughly right after shooting.

Here is some ballistic info on the surplus ammo- she's shooting fine! Don't expect much better from surplus; with handloads that rifle should be able to shoot half of that- definitely a "shooter" there.

You can check headstamp to confirm identification, and click on it for details:

http://7.62x54r.net/MosinID/MosinAmmo036.htm

http://7.62x54r.net/MosinID/MosinAmmo.htm
 
Thanks, ill poke around the links when I het home. I have. A can of surplus that is definitely heavier, no silver tip and looks like newer production. Maybe ill just yank a couple and weight them. Thanks again.
 
so I looked into the headstamps and found that both can I have re Russian made, the unpainted tip is 1989 production factry stamp "60" and the "silver-tip" is 1975 production also Russian. so i was curious to as why i always get better grouping from the un-marked tip rather than the silver-tip. i had assumed diferent weights, but i assumed incorrectly. i pulled three bullets of each, and i was very surmised at the consistency of the un-marked newer production, but also found some other differences that would most likely be why i have better results from one over the other.

silver-tip: less powder. 48.7gr as compared to 50gr on the newer prod. silver-tip bullet diameter of .311-.3115 as compared to .312-.3125 on newer prod. but the kicker was the bullet length, silver-tip bullet length 1.260 compared to 1.270 on newer prod, creating an OAL of 3.005 on "silver" vs. OAL of 3.022 on newer.

i know not huge differences, but they were consistent differences from bullet to bullet. the un-marked newer production had larger diameter, loner bullet and longer OAL combined with 1.2gr more powder making a better round for my particular gun. maybe it is more to do with the consistency from bullet to bullet, the oler stuff would have powder and/or bullet differences up to 1.2gr whereas the others were withn .5gr. who really knows, just food for thought and i was interested to know.

 
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