The Russian Mosin Nagant Forum

Picked this up from the "big online firearm sales site'' and it arrived at my local FFL yesterday afternoon. 1955 Polish WZ48 .22LR training rifle. Took it out and ran 20 rounds of CCI standard velocity through it, will have to take some time and see what ammo it really likes. Shooting to the left, not a problem as I know a guy who makes tools to fix that...

No import marks and extractor is in good shape, brass is only slightly deformed upon firing. Going to see about manufacturing a few extractors down the road a bit.

Very cool

I like it!!

Looks to be in really good shape mogunner. You got it out to the range yet? Titanium Hammer and myself have found all of ours really like the Thunderbolt ammo. Tried giving mine "good" ammo and it wound up making key holes. Give it the cheap stuff and it creates great groups. Hard to complain about that!

Lotema wrote:Looks to be in really good shape mogunner. You got it out to the range yet? Titanium Hammer and myself have found all of ours really like the Thunderbolt ammo. Tried giving mine "good" ammo and it wound up making key holes. Give it the cheap stuff and it creates great groups. Hard to complain about that!

Took it out for an initial test with 20 round of CCI standard velocity and it functioned was about it. I was able to hit my 4"x4" steel swinging target at 50 yards every time with it once I figured out that it was shooting to the left about 3". Tore the bolt down last night and soaked in in Simple Green to get the nasty grease off everything inside, just finished polishing it up a bit with some Mother's and put it back in after giving it a light coat of oil. Rain forecast for tomorrow so more shooting will have to wait. I have about ten different manufacturers of ammo on hand but I think only one box of Thunderbolt stuff. Have a lot of CCI standard velocity and mini-mags, Federal in the "Fresh Pack", Remington, Winchester, Aquila, Blazer, Federal American Eagle, even some Sellier and Bellot. Bought pretty much everything I ran across.

Congrats Mogunner, that's a good looker. Yup, Lotema beat me to it. Between us we have 3 Wz48's and all 3 shoot the Thunderbolts hands down better than any other domestic stuff & as he stated as well, all the European stuff keyholed or had spreads like a shotgun. I really enjoy shooting mine. At first I was having all kinds of issues with the bolt but after finally figuring how to tear it down & get it cleaned up it has functioned great.

Titanium Hammer wrote:Congrats Mogunner, that's a good looker. Yup, Lotema beat me to it. Between us we have 3 Wz48's and all 3 shoot the Thunderbolts hands down better than any other domestic stuff & as he stated as well, all the European stuff keyholed or had spreads like a shotgun. I really enjoy shooting mine. At first I was having all kinds of issues with the bolt but after finally figuring how to tear it down & get it cleaned up it has functioned great.

And of course here I am sitting with only one 50 round box of Thunderbolt. Figures...

Guy I know did a youtube video of the bolt teardown after we got to talking about how there is so little info out there on these, but I noticed that his "striker pin" I guess you would call it, is much longer than mine. Now, no comments about striker-pin envy please...

I plan on possibly making some firing pins and extractor assemblies for these down the road a bit...as soon as time allows.

mogunner wrote:

Titanium Hammer wrote:Congrats Mogunner, that's a good looker. Yup, Lotema beat me to it. Between us we have 3 Wz48's and all 3 shoot the Thunderbolts hands down better than any other domestic stuff & as he stated as well, all the European stuff keyholed or had spreads like a shotgun. I really enjoy shooting mine. At first I was having all kinds of issues with the bolt but after finally figuring how to tear it down & get it cleaned up it has functioned great.

And of course here I am sitting with only one 50 round box of Thunderbolt. Figures...

Guy I know did a youtube video of the bolt teardown after we got to talking about how there is so little info out there on these, but I noticed that his "striker pin" I guess you would call it, is much longer than mine. Now, no comments about striker-pin envy please...

I plan on possibly making some firing pins and extractor assemblies for these down the road a bit...as soon as time allows.

Yeah I had a real hard time finding clear info on the bolt tear down. I actually fabricated a wrench to get that castle nut or whatever it's called unscrewed from the firing pin & spring. Was pretty shocked at just how nasty both bolts were internally. Once I got them cleaned up & the nut re tightened both bolts cycled like butter & I had no more light strikes or difficulty getting the bolts to lock.
At least Thunderbolt isn't difficult to find. Seems like Walmart has had it in stock pretty regularly at my local branch. Curious to see how yours likes it. Both Lotema & I were pretty shocked when we figured out it was what all 3 of our 48's preferred.

mogunner wrote:

Titanium Hammer wrote:Congrats Mogunner, that's a good looker. Yup, Lotema beat me to it. Between us we have 3 Wz48's and all 3 shoot the Thunderbolts hands down better than any other domestic stuff & as he stated as well, all the European stuff keyholed or had spreads like a shotgun. I really enjoy shooting mine. At first I was having all kinds of issues with the bolt but after finally figuring how to tear it down & get it cleaned up it has functioned great.

And of course here I am sitting with only one 50 round box of Thunderbolt. Figures...

Guy I know did a youtube video of the bolt teardown after we got to talking about how there is so little info out there on these, but I noticed that his "striker pin" I guess you would call it, is much longer than mine. Now, no comments about striker-pin envy please...

I plan on possibly making some firing pins and extractor assemblies for these down the road a bit...as soon as time allows.

If you're going to be making some misc parts for them, the bolt wrench would also be a great one to add to the list! Darn near impossible to find but boy do they make the bolt disassembly so much easier. Like Hammer mentioned, we wound up making our own though they were both pretty crude.

I just unscrewed the rear of the bolt, then took a pair of small needlenose pliers and used the tips. But then my "striker rod" might be different or something as it is much shorter than the one in the video.




I have a few different manufacturers to try out in it...

Titanium Hammer wrote:

mogunner wrote:

Titanium Hammer wrote:Congrats Mogunner, that's a good looker. Yup, Lotema beat me to it. Between us we have 3 Wz48's and all 3 shoot the Thunderbolts hands down better than any other domestic stuff & as he stated as well, all the European stuff keyholed or had spreads like a shotgun. I really enjoy shooting mine. At first I was having all kinds of issues with the bolt but after finally figuring how to tear it down & get it cleaned up it has functioned great.

And of course here I am sitting with only one 50 round box of Thunderbolt. Figures...

Guy I know did a youtube video of the bolt teardown after we got to talking about how there is so little info out there on these, but I noticed that his "striker pin" I guess you would call it, is much longer than mine. Now, no comments about striker-pin envy please...

I plan on possibly making some firing pins and extractor assemblies for these down the road a bit...as soon as time allows.

Yeah I had a real hard time finding clear info on the bolt tear down. I actually fabricated a wrench to get that castle nut or whatever it's called unscrewed from the firing pin & spring. Was pretty shocked at just how nasty both bolts were internally. Once I got them cleaned up & the nut re tightened both bolts cycled like butter & I had no more light strikes or difficulty getting the bolts to lock.
At least Thunderbolt isn't difficult to find. Seems like Walmart has had it in stock pretty regularly at my local branch. Curious to see how yours likes it. Both Lotema & I were pretty shocked when we figured out it was what all 3 of our 48's preferred.

Got an email from Academy that they were offering free shipping, no minimum and lo and behold they had a brick of Thunderbolt marked down to $21 and change. so $23 and change shipped to my door! And if it don't shoot good, I'm blaming you two...

mogunner wrote:

Titanium Hammer wrote:

mogunner wrote:

Titanium Hammer wrote:Congrats Mogunner, that's a good looker. Yup, Lotema beat me to it. Between us we have 3 Wz48's and all 3 shoot the Thunderbolts hands down better than any other domestic stuff & as he stated as well, all the European stuff keyholed or had spreads like a shotgun. I really enjoy shooting mine. At first I was having all kinds of issues with the bolt but after finally figuring how to tear it down & get it cleaned up it has functioned great.

And of course here I am sitting with only one 50 round box of Thunderbolt. Figures...

Guy I know did a youtube video of the bolt teardown after we got to talking about how there is so little info out there on these, but I noticed that his "striker pin" I guess you would call it, is much longer than mine. Now, no comments about striker-pin envy please...

I plan on possibly making some firing pins and extractor assemblies for these down the road a bit...as soon as time allows.

Yeah I had a real hard time finding clear info on the bolt tear down. I actually fabricated a wrench to get that castle nut or whatever it's called unscrewed from the firing pin & spring. Was pretty shocked at just how nasty both bolts were internally. Once I got them cleaned up & the nut re tightened both bolts cycled like butter & I had no more light strikes or difficulty getting the bolts to lock.
At least Thunderbolt isn't difficult to find. Seems like Walmart has had it in stock pretty regularly at my local branch. Curious to see how yours likes it. Both Lotema & I were pretty shocked when we figured out it was what all 3 of our 48's preferred.

Got an email from Academy that they were offering free shipping, no minimum and lo and behold they had a brick of Thunderbolt marked down to $21 and change. so $23 and change shipped to my door! And if it don't shoot good, I'm blaming you two...

If your's doesn't like the Thunderbolt, I'll buy what's left in the brick off of you. (Unless of course yours just doesn't like shooting anything at all in which case we'll need to break out the calipers and see if the Thunderbolt still did better than the other 7 MOA rounds ) On mine, Eley keyholed, Sk would keyhole half the time with about a 14" spread at 25 yards. With a good seeing day, the Thunderbolt got 1.5" at 50 yards for me. Nothing else has gotten anywhere near that close out of that rifle.

Well I never tried any S&B in either of mine but I think I tried just about everything else you showed. The American Eagle probably grouped the best for Lotema & I outside of the Thunderbolt. Glad to hear you were able to get a deal on the Thunderbolt! Really curious to see how yours shoots. Best of luck & keep us posted.

Well, today was the first day it hadn't rained in the past week, so I was out cutting down a dead oak tree for a bit of firewood as they say temps are going to drop back down after tomorrow, and my range is still "draining"...so hard telling how soon I will be able to get out and do some shooting with it.

Aguila Super Extra Standard velocity ammo shoots extremely well for me. It also is the cheapest standard velocity ammo I can find! I shot it against much more expensive ammo and it shot very well! I compared it to Federal Match, Federal Ultra Match, Aguila Rifle Match Competition, and CCI Standard Velocity.