Mosin Nagant Reduced Power Loads

[juniustaylor]

Well, I finally got around to shooting those loads. It would have been nice if I had been able to sight my rifle in for my Brown Bear 203 gr. SP's. However, the dude over at the shooting range wouldn't let me shoot them because of some miniscule amount of steel in the jacketing. I think that's BS that I couldn't shoot them but what do I know...?

1931 Mosin Nagant M91/30. Customized, barrel shortened 4". Muzzle crowned by a friend of mine.


Anyway, this is with the gun bore sighted, 25 yards...


All shots were fired at 25 yards. Colored cross-hairs indicate where point of aim was.

BLUE – These are the first shots I took. Some of the orange ones should be blue but I don’t remember which were which. Some were flyers from the RED shots.

RED – These were the second round. I shot 5, I can only account for 2. I’m not sure about the other three. I think one missed the paper and two of the orange ones are supposed to be red.

GREEN – These were my final set of 5. I can only account for 2. Not sure why. I had 1 that didn’t go off and 3 that had the balls fall back into the case.

My wife, Joni shot two. One of hers didn’t even hit the target. She may have flinched. I think she thought they were going to hurt. After she shot the first one she said “That’s it?” Ha-ha.

There was a guy there shooting a .22 rifle and his rifle sounded significantly louder than these loads. So, I think I have found a winner right off the bat. I’d like to do further tests, but that won’t be anytime in the near future as I don’t have the supplies to make more cartridges. Maybe later. I could always experiment with my .30-30 though!!!

Here's the one shot that my wife got to shoot and hit the target. She didn't do too bad.


Well, this is all I know.
Junius

[normsutton]

juniustaylor

nice groups

NORM

[juniustaylor]

Well, I finally had a chance to shoot it with regular loads. I have been itching to try regular ammo since I had the barrel cut down and the crown put on. I was using 203 grain Brown Bear soft points. Not THE best ammo, but it will certainly kill a deer. I figure the accuracy on it was good IMO. I had a 3.5" 5-shot group. This was not my "best" as it took me a while to get the darn thing sighted in. I was shooting off an ammo can and finally utilized a bench rest. fknipfer1 and I had a pretty good day. Here's the picture of my target. 100 yards.



I will certainly have to try some Winchester, S&B, or some other commercial ammo later on and see if my group size shrinks. If I ever get some reloading equipment, I may have to experiment with this rifle. It's not exactly a light rifle and with the scope I have on it, it's even heavier. I suppose it "could" have potential for a decent long range gun with the correct bullet. Lugging it around hunting whitetail could be annoying. But, I guess that's what my Winchester Mod 100 .243 and '94 .30-30 are good for.