Mosin Nagant -- for Vassili & m24

[timmy]

Gentlemen:

As you are probably aware, the Mosin Nagant was adapted by the Russian Empire as their service rifle in 1891. It was a result of combining the design of the action, submitted by Col. Sergei Mosin, and the design of the magazine, submitted by Nagant, a Belgian. The cartridge, which the Russians and Soviets refer to as 7.62 x 54r and the Finns as 7.62 x 53r, obtains about the same ballistics as the US .30-06 military round when loaded with 150 grain bullets.

The first M91s had a 31 inch barrel. Russian military doctrine was based on an army that consisted largely of recruits from all sectors of the huge Tsarist Empire, many of whom had limited education. Therefore, Russian Armies, when viewed in total, generally preferred mass attack tactics that did not require a lot of training and soldierly finesse from the individual troops. The bayonet was seen as a vital part of battlefield tactics, and long barrels, combined with the long bayonets fitted to the early Mosin Nagants, were part of this battlefield doctrine.

If you recall your European history of this time, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, every the international intriguer and bungler, let Bismarck's "Reinsurance Treaty" between Germany and Russia expire in 1890. Russia felt exposed in the face of Austro-Hungarian expansion in the Balkans (An area in which Russia always had a keen interest, especially in gaining access to the Mediterranean Sea for its commerce and Black Sea naval fleet) without a security agreement with Germany, which was allied with Austria.

Therefore, Russia turned to France, a nation which Germany had sought to isolate after the Franco-Prussian War. France's economy had proven much more resilient to Germany's attempts to isolate her diplomatically and commercially, and France was eager to invest in many of Russia's budding industries of the day.

Because Russia lacked many modern manufacturing facilities, the first Mosin Nagant M1891 rifles were turned out in the French arsenal of Chatellerault. From there, manufacturing in the Tsarist Empire was begun in Sestroryetsk and remained the "tooling" factory that maintained the standards for production, but it did not produce nearly the amount of rifles produced by the two main Russian arsenals at Tula and Izhevsk. Sestroryetsk manufacture was gradually phased out during WW1.

Additionally, the Russian defeats during WW1, especially the defeats of the 1st and 2nd Russian Armies called the Battle of Tannenberg in the first month of WW1, cause Russia to be crucially short of M1891 rifles for her armies. The USA companies of Remington and New England Westinghouse were contracted by the British to make M1891s for Russia, because of the unreliability of Russian finances in 1916. About a million and a half M1891s were made by these two companies before the Tsar fell, and the Kerensky government canceled the orders. In order to keep these two companies from going bankrupt, the USA government purchased many of these rifles and then sold them to American citizens after the war for a small fraction of what the government paid for them.

So, these are the 6 arsenals where the first Mosin Nagants were made.

In addition to the 31" barrel infantry rifle, there was a "Cossack" model with a somewhat shorter barrel.

By 1930, the Soviet military brought out a new version, the M91/30, which was the main rifle of WW2 Soviet forces. In 1938, a 20" barrel version was brought out for other branches requiring a short barreled carbine, like the artillery. During WW2, a similar version, the M44, was brought out -- it is similar to the M38, but has a folding bayonet permanently attached.

Later, there was an M91.59 version, often made up of cut down earlier rifles, that was issued to security type forces.

The Soviets then exported the design to their allies, and the M44 version was made by the Poles, the Hungarians, and the Czechs. The Chinese then made a Type 53 version of it as well.

There are a number of interesting things that make the Mosin Nagant stand apart from most bolt action rifles:

1. When the bolt is closed, the locking lugs are horizontal, not vertical as in Mauser-like actions. This allows the left locking lug to rest against the solid left wall of the receiver.

2. The magazine is a single column design. Since the barrel was so long, the balance point is forward of the magazine and the exposed magazine was not an impediment to carrying the rifle. (It was not, after all, made to sell to American deer hunters!) Besides promoting reliable feeding, the single column magazine allowed the opening in the bottom of the receiver to be made narrower than for a double column magazine, making the receiver more stiff. Also, the magazine has an "interrupter," which is combined with the ejector. This clever device makes the rimmed 7.62 x 54r round load without jamming, and also prevents double loading.

3. The entire system has very few parts. The trigger also serves as a bolt stop, and the sear and trigger spring are combined into one part.

When Finland achieved independence, that nation had no arsenal. Military weapons were former Tsarist army weapons that were found in arsenals. Initially, the Finns used the M1891 and cartridge. After WW2, the Finnish army began buying surplus rifles that had been captured from the beaten nations of Germany and Austria.

Poland was in a similar situation as Finland, except that war reparations gave the tooling for making M98 Mauser rifles at the German arsenal in Danzing to Poland. (Most of WW1 on the eastern front had been fought in Poland, and a great deal of the national wealth had been destroyed.) The Poles adapted the M1891 to the 7.92 x 57 German round and shortened the barrel for cavalry use. They used M98 furniture on the stock and called that rifle the wz 91/98/25. However, since the Poles wanted to equip their forces with the M98 system, they traded some of the Mosin Nagant and 7.62 x54r machine guns to Finland for M98 and 7.92 x 57 equipment.

As the Finns went along, they began to modify the M1891 for their own use and needs. At first, they began making M1891 stocks from 2 pieces of Arctic Birch, which eased the demand for long pieces of wood from which to make the stocks. Then, they began to modify the rifles for their own military needs. Where the Russians/Soviets wanted a rifle that could be mass produced to equip large numbers of troops with little training that relied on mass attack, the Finns were a small nation that had to maximize the contribution of each soldier. Their requirements were like that of Switzerland, and they needed a very accurate military rifle. So, they began to design their own rifles which used the MN action only. This series of rifles included the M27, the M28, the M28/30, and culminated in the M39. In addition to these, Finland also continued to use the M1891 and derivatives of it, as well as the M91/30s that were captured from Soviet forces during the WW2 time frame conflicts.

This is only a very brief rundown of the Mosin Nagant. Probably the very best single site on the internet for Mosin Nagant information is here:

http://7.62x54r.net/

My own Finn M39 was made in 1944, a common rifle. After the Finns were forced to terms by Stalin, one of the requirements of the peace terms was for the Finns to stop making rifles. However, many parts were still in arsenal warehouses, and rifles continued to be built "on the sly" well into the 60s, at least. Some collectors call these rifles "sneaks."

It is a tribute to the qualities of the M1891, that such a different rifle could be derived from it, and still perform its new functions so well. As a matter of fact, after WW2, many target rifles were built on the MN action and they continued to take match trophies many decades after the original receivers were made.

Here are links to pictures of various Finnish and Russian/Soviet MN-based target rifles:

http://s84.photobucket.com/albums/k36/c ... 2028%2076/

http://www.opticstalk.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=12364

m24: I'm still stuck in a rut on my Mosin projects ;-(

-- Mon Dec 07, 2009 18:19 --

I forgot to mention this: The early Mosin Nagants up to about 1935-36 had what collectors call "hex" receivers. Actually, the receiver rings look octagonal from the top, as one can see 5 surfaces, but underneath the stock, there is only one more curved surface on the receiver ring.

After this, the receiver rings were round.

Then, sometime later, perhaps 1941, the inner receiver ring, against which the barrel abuts, was eliminated. Those receivers, then, which had the inner ring, breached similarly to the M98 Mauser action with its inner receiver ring, and the ones without would breach more like the 1903 Springfield and the M70 Winchester (except, without the cone breach on the barrel.

Almost all of the Finn rifles were hex receivers, except for later rifles captured from the Soviets during the Winter War and the War of Continuation.

Also, even the Soviets would use older hex and round receivers on new rifles at times. There are a lot of variations to Mosin Nagants, and there's no way I could write about all of them in a reasonable length of time.

[m24]

Wow!! Great exhaustive read. Thanks for the post, Tim. I guess I'll go over MN blog site during the weekend, cause I'm sure that will take time. All this reading and the pics is making me itch to lay my hands on a MN.

Regards

[timmy]

I would like to get in one more elk hunt before I'm too old to manage it. I have found that in my Finn M39, the 204 grain Barnaul works very well. I'd like to mention that I haven't come near to shooting everything in it, but it did shoot better than the fancy Sellier & Ballot hollow point boat tail match ammo. Of course, every rifle shoots a little differently and what works in one may not work in another. For practice, I shoot a lot of the Hungarian yellow tip lead core heavy ball (~174 grain).

I would like to set up one of my M91 barreled actions as a hunting rifle for the elk hunt; I'm sure it will do whatever would be needed to bag a wily wapiti.

I will try to get about getting some MN pics of my own up.

[m24]

That's the one with the Tsarist Crest?

Regards

[Sakobav]

Nice one timmy..the Fins, Poles, french and Tsarist..this rifle went through a lot and wasnt Kerensky the last PM or one appointed just prior to the Revolution? Didnt he immigrate to US and became a professor in Princeton?
Thanks

[Vassili Zaitsev]

Bravo Timmy....one of the best,comprehensive and t.all together post on mighty mosin nagant ....thanks and thanks a lot man...amazing.

[diskaon]

Absolut good read..