91-30 from Bud's

[Robert8904]

Bud's had some 91-30's recently, both very good and excellent condition. I bought an "excellent" for $399. It may be sacrilege here, but I got it because I didn't have any old surplus rifles and a Mosin was cheap enough to take a chance on. I'm not a collector and I bought it to shoot. It's a hex receiver ex dragoon.

Took it apart and cleaned the grease off, both much easier than I feared. Bought 100 PPU brass cased rounds since they were cheaper than Lapua cases. Took it to the range and it cycled this ammo perfectly. The bolt works smoothly. At 50 yards it shot 1 1/2" to the right and 9" high with the rear sight all the way down. The group size was 5-6" making me think I had a dud of a rifle. The barrel looked "frosty" but the rifling was all there.

I got dies and some jacketed bullets, .311 and .312, loaded them with IMR4895. Accuracy was better and then I fired some .311" 175 SMK's. These bullets went into a 1 1/4" group at 50 yards. Still 9" high. I have more bullets coming but i'm encouraged now. I have no intention to modify this rifle but I want to try something on the front sight to bring down the POI, maybe a piece shrink tube on the post? The front sight drifted easily enough for a windage correction. I'd appreciate any ideas on the elevation question, it seems to be a common thing on these rifles.

[Junk Yard Dog]

The Soviets sighted them in with bayonet mounted, and 50 yards with a full house .30 rifle cartridge is like using a Hemi powered '69 Dodge Charger to run down the drive to fetch the mail. Cool, but you will never see it's full potential like that, time to find a 250-300 yard range, or longer. You have the right idea with the handloads, commie surplus is good enough for casual plinking, but for serious work, work up your own loads. How tight is the crown on that barrel? These saw war so the frosting is expected. Some people used to fool with putting electrical shrink tube over the front sight post to make it higher, and thus drop the POI at short range a few inches. I just aimed for the belt to hit the chest, or 6 O'clock hold on the target.

[Robert8904]

Reloading for this Mosin is a big part of the fun! I even fired some Hornady 100 gr XTP pistol bullets with 12 gr of Red Dot. They were accurate at 50 yards and super quiet. The rifling there at the muzzle but it is thinning somewhat. I am taking this rifle to a longer range next month to shoot some steel. Since the shrink tube sounds easy to use I'll try it.

[RazorBurn]

My first purchase with my C&R was an M91/30 from Bud's in January of 2015. When I bought it I thought the $149.00 I paid was on the high side. Apparently not now.

[matt167]

I paid about $250 for a minty 1932 Tula M91/30 from my LGS. Red lettered, with a red varnish soviet refurb around 2015ish.. I sold it when my at the time girlfriend ( Now fiance ) needed some money and we were in a tight spot, which was about 2017, and the same LGS bought it back for about $250. I bought one a few months ago, just as nice, 1936 Tula but laminate stock but it cost me just about $400