Personal Critical Review of Firearms - The Mosin-Nagant Rifle

Mosin-Nagant Turn-bolt Rifles



Personal - The real question is - why don't you have one of the Soviet Hammers?...

The Mosin-Nagant is most likely the least expensive, reliable, powerful, and sometimes accurate bolt action rifle model available. Crude, often not cared for well, but about as simple as any turn bolt can get - you could make this rifle in a small primitive machine shop with barely competent labor - oh, yea, that is what it was designed for.... The ultimate throw down buried in a tube last ditch peasant with pitchfork rifle. I actually like this rifle, it has the same type of strange romanticism as a lever action or a single action pistol, I find myself drawn to this turn bold over the Lee-Enfield. My personal Mosin-Nagant choice is the Model 1944 Carbine and I would typically want to remove the bayonet and modify or make a new stock.



The original Girls with Guns









Function - Just about anyone above room temperature, except a neocon lickspittle or neo-liberal progressive is capable of understanding and operating this bolt action rifle. The stiff, awkward bolt sadly will disrupt your sight picture and takes an exaggerated movement to operate, but it works well and is solid and dependable.

Design flaws - I find that all clip fed rifles clumsy and the clip feeding systems outdated, the Mosin-Nagant clips are a fold around style that are odd and awkward to use. The original butt-plates combined with the recoil is punishing to many users. The triggers are often loose and gritty with a high effort needed to pull to fire. The rifle uses a cartridge that is outdated and often supplies are Berdan primed and corrosive making reloading more difficult and cleaning a ritual necessity. Headspace on the rim, simple production but problematic with reloading.

Quality - Fit and finish are often crude, the best examples will be surplus from Finland. Condition often depends on the manufacture and secondly the storage and use from the country of origin before import. Some examples will be reasonable while others are so abused that they would most likely be best for arming friendly troglodytes.

Caliber/Ammunition - Readily available surplus ammunition is possibility or likely corrosive, corrosion in the action and bore can destroy the functioning of the rifle but with this simple design this neglect would have to be advanced. Modern ammunition and Boxer primed brass cases are available, this ammunition even lends itself to be loaded with black powder and of course will function quite well with simple cast lead bullets. While this is a primitive rimmed round it is very powerful and capable of bringing down even large game like elk and bear with ease.

Use - I consider this a supplemental rifle, a solid rifle for training and arming reformed neocons retarded reformed liberals and other useless troglodytes unfamiliar with the necessary skills. This could be a good inexpensive second to lend out when hunting and even modern stocks are available (almost the cost of the original rifle). Like all old turn bolts this is not an "evil assault rifle" leaving this rifle in original full stocked military furniture will only get mild curiosity from the typical troglodyte Billy-bob six-packs when hunting with one. Originally designed as a military long arm to arm simple peasants in mass with rounds far more potent than some small current "assault rifle" calibers.

Current production - I am not aware of any current production (outside of modifications) of this very old design but surplus examples can be measured in tons! the surplus is drying up somewhat, the relations with Russia and the US are starting to sour. There are many models from several countries and many modifications.