Tag Archives: Mosin

Testing My Mosin

by Woodsbum

This last weekend I took out my Mosin I installed into the Archangel stock. Because it was a used barrelled action I tied the firearm to a tree and pulled the trigger with a length of 550 cord for the first 4 or 5 times. It fired without issue and had no problems at all so my father grabbed it and finished out the magazine. It fired 10 rounds just as if it was new from the factory. By the end of the day I put 4 boxes (80 rounds) through the rifle. Not once did a magazine malfunction or the rifle fail to feed.

The Archangel stock is actually quite pleasant to shoot. The only issue is that the recoil pad tends to almost stick to your shirt and skin, thus causing your skin to pull a bit when getting the rifle shouldered. I may look at swapping out the recoil pad later on, but it isn’t that big of a deal one way or another.

I did find that the front sight needed adjusting, which considering the obvious rough life this rifle has seen didn’t surprise me. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a front sight tool that worked so I ended up using a piece of metal and a chunk of wood to tap the post over a touch and get it more on target.

Although it seemed to hit in the same location, quite consistently I did not take the time to get into a good position and put it on paper. Considering that I was able to hit an anti-freeze container 9/10 times at 80 yards offhand, I figure that is accurate enough to consider this build a success at this point. Again, the rifle never failed to feed nor did it jam up at any time during the 80 rounds that we put through it.

My father took the other barrelled action with him to drop off for some lathe work. A guy he knows does machine work out of his home and offered to clean up the muzzle and recrown it. When I get it back and test fired I will order another Archangel stock, scout scope mount and a scope.

For those of you who have an old Mosin Nagant that has been beat up and/or Bubba modified I really suggest you spend the money for an Archangel stock and some magazines. The finished product is really a lot of fun to shoot and fairly comfortable.

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Archangel Stock for Mosin Nagant

by Woodsumb

About 18 months ago I ended up with two Mosin Nagant M44 barrelled actions. Since I purchased them both have been wrapped in an old bed sheet and shoved into the back of my closet. Over the last few weeks I have slowly been putting them back into working order and just last week I purchased an Archangel stock for one of them to test.

This is what it now looks like after installation and fitting.

M44 Mosin Nagant on Archangel stock

M44 Mosin Nagant on Archangel stock

As you can see, the M44 barrel length actually fits well on the stock. The overall length and feel is much better than I expected. I even lucked out because the stock I purchased had a 10 round magazine upgrade in the package rather than the normal 5 round.

The stock has a spacer that allows the use of either the stock trigger group or the upgraded Timney trigger group with safety. There is also more than enough room for the folding bayonet to just lay against the barrel without hanging up on the stock. Originally, I was going to take the bayonet off. After installing the barrelled action into the stock I think I am going to keep the bayonet simply for additional weight at the muzzle. The stock is quite heavy toward the butt so any barrel/muzzle weight helps to balance out the rifle.

The magazines (I ordered 2 extra) seemed to have some feeding issues at first. I then bent the wire keeper over a bit more and soaked the inside of the magazine with RemOil. That really made a huge difference and I don’t get the hung cartridges now. The Mosin family is well known for jamming and feed issues due to the rimmed cartridge. Design of these magazines does seem to eliminate that issue, but you may have to make the modifications and lube things like I did.

Now that I have one set up with a new stock, head space fixed, bolt issues taken care of and new springs in the bolt I am starting on the second barrelled action I have sitting around. It also has had the bolt gone through and parts upgraded, but I am sending it over to be put on a lathe to get the muzzle and crown fixed. Someone took a hack saw to the end of it thus cutting off the front sight, bayonet and leaving a completely horrible crown. When this gets back to me I will put this in an Archangel stock as well, but will install a scout scope mount from S&K.

Seeing as I now have yet another rifle in my safe, I am quite unsure as what to do with it or how to include it into my gear. It will be worse once I get the other Mosin done. I will have to do some serious thinking. Maybe a truck gun for one? We will have to see. All I know is that I am REALLY happy to have them on the road to useful and out of my closet.

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Mosin Nagant Scope Installation

by Woodsbum

A couple of years ago I purchased what I would call a “box of guns.” In that box were 2 Mosin Nagants that were lacking several pieces with the stocks being the main part needed to finish the rifle. Because of the multitude of various rifles and configurations I already I had, I was not too sure how these would fit into my gun library. I have finally decided that I will turn these two into variations of the Scout rifle.

The first thing I will end up having to purchase will be stocks of some sort. Once I get that figured out I will create a post about that as well as the final build. What I wanted to post about today was one of the hardest parts of the upcoming Mosin build: mounting a scope.

Today I some ran into a couple videos about drilling and mounting scopes on the Mosin. The first couple are about the old PU scope. This scope relies upon a side mount system to clear the straight handle on the bolt. This guy does a fairly decent job explaining what he is doing and how he drilled the mounting holes in the hardened steel receiver.


The next video shows the installation of an ATI scope mount kit. It includes the bits, taps, screws and baseplate. He uses hex receiver style Mosins, but you can see how he does the install. I like the idea of having the scope top mounted rather than side mounted.

At this time I am really unsure as to what exactly I will do for a scope mount. Ultimately, I would love to find some sort of scout style setup or engineer my own if I have to. If I could find something that allowed see-thru rings I would be even happier. I am going to have to do some serious searching for what I want, but this at least gives everyone an idea of how easy it really is to drill and tap your Mosin to accept a scope.

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