Main thing I had to try out was a Mosin-Nagant Model 38
If you're not familiar with the family, a Russian officer name Mosin took a magazine design by Nagant- the same man who designed the 1895 Nagant revolver- and used it to complete his design for what became the mainstay of the Russian and then Soviet army for many years, the Model 1891. Standard type for the time, with a loooong barrel, and- unique to this rifle I believe- a long bayonet that was not issued with a scabbard; unless you would be spending a lot of time indoors, you were supposed to keep it fixed at all times. This rifle had a hexagonal receiver and the sight was calibrated in a Russian measurement called the arshin, about .71 meter. Then in 1930 the rifle was modified, mainly in two ways; the receiver was changed to round for ease of manufacture, and the sights were changed, the front becoming a hooded post and the rear being calibrated in meters. This was known as the (surprise!) model 91/30. Then, they decided that the long barrel was not needed for infantry use for range or power, and a shorter barrel would be easier to carry/use, and they cut the 29" barrel down to 20"(no, these are not exact measurements, if you're worried about to-the-fraction numbers, go look it up). The model 38 did not have an issue bayonet from what I understand; in 1944 the design was changed to included a permanent mount on the barrel that held a swiveling bayonet.
All used the 7.62x54R cartridge. In European standards, the bullet diameter(7.62mm), the length of the case(54mm) and the 'R' meant rimmed. It's roughly comparable to the .30-06 in power, and widely available in surplus and commercial ammo ranging from 150 grain bullets up to 200. Most of the surplus stuff is corrosive primed, so clean accordingly. I was using 150 grain Czech silvertip.
One of the things you'll notice is the short bolt handle. That means that if you have a sticky case in the chamber, you may have to swat it upward with the heel of your hand. It's a cock-on-opening design, so you're pushing against both the mainspring and the sticky case when this happens. A lot of the surplus ammo is steel-cased and laquer-coated, so when it gets hot in firing the laquer can stick to the chamber walls. The sniper rifles made of the 91 and 91/30 had and longer, turned-down handle.
Front sight is a hooded post, rear has a wide U notch. And in standard European fashion when you have the sight set at 100 meters, it's actually sighted for 300, meaning it hits high at 100; about 6" in this case. I'm not going to quote group size, because with the rear notch I had trouble keeping a solid sight picture. I had also run off without my front and rear sandbags, so I'll just say it kept them in a 6" circle at 100. This is one of the times I wish I had a lot of free cash, on rifles like this I'd buy a scout-scope mount that replaces the rear sight and stick a scope on it to test ammo and accuracy. One thing that did help was the trigger. Pulls on these rifles range from pretty good to downright awful; this one was pretty good, just a little creep that wasn't really noticeable when shooting.
One thing you might expect from a barrel shortened this much is an impressive amount of noise, and you'd be right to. It gives a serious boom, and I'm told the fireball at the muzzle is real impressive in dim light.
Overall, it's a pretty good rifle. The bore was nice & shiny, with strong rifling; it wasn't perfect, but for a rifle made in 1943 it's not bad. The exterior finish is a bit rough, mainly on the receiver. Again, for made in the Soviet Union in the middle of WWII, not bad. It would make a good car rifle to keep handy just in case, and I imagine the model 45 would be equally so(and it has a bayonet to scare the GFWs). Ammo is inexpensive(remember about the corrosive priming unless you buy commercial stuff), so you can shoot it a lot without costing a fortune.
The other thing I want to mention is a really handy devise: the Muzzle Mate
It's a plastic bottle with removeable ends. One end has a hole and a padded clamp; stick the muzzle in and clamp it on. Now when a brush comes out the end and sprays solvent, the bottle catches it, and it catches the oily, dirty patches that fall off the end of the cleaning rod. It works nicely, and I wish I'd bought one a long time ago. Someone used to make an adapter that stuck on the barrel and held a coke bottle, but I haven't seen one of those in a while. In any case, this is an accessory I can wholeheartedly recommend.
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