Anyone owned a rechambered Mosin Nagant??

[Ronald_55]

Anyone here ever owned a rechambered Mosin Nagant Rifle?

If so what caliber was it chambered for? I know a bunch were officially redone to 30.06 in the 20s by a company. Mixed opinions as to if that is a good thing.

I see info about lots of other one offs. Then there are the crazy wildcat rechamberings some guys did back when the rifles were "buy one get 3 free" style surplus. 

[Beltfed]

Orginial chambering for that rifle is 7.62x54R.

Edited January 5, 2021 by Beltfed

[Ronald_55]

53 minutes ago, Beltfed said:

Orginial chambering for that rifle is 7.62x54R.

Yep I have 3 in the original chambering. 

[gregintenn]

Mausers and 03 Springfields were sporterized and often rechambered. Their design lent themselves more readily to this than does the Mosin Nagant.

[Ronald_55]

@gregintenn Yep, but people still did it. 

I have an example I am working on right now. Why I wondered if anyone else did. 

Edited January 5, 2021 by Ronald_55

[Beltfed]

I believe a problem with the 7.62x54R vs .30-06 is the chamber on the 54R is 54mm and the 06 is 51mm.  That makes the 54R bigger.

[gregintenn]

4 minutes ago, Beltfed said:

I believe a problem with the 7.62x54R vs .30-06 is the chamber on the 54R is 54mm and the 06 is 51mm.  That makes the 54R bigger.

Then you have the rimmed versus rimless cases.

It works, but let's face it....the Mosin Nagant action ain't all that great.

[Ronald_55]

Nope I agree that there are better actions. I would never rechamber one (or any rifle) myself, but the one I have gotten already is. Other modifications to the fixed mag and such means that simply replacing the barrel would not be enough to get it back to the original chambering.

Back when 54R ammo was impossible to get in the US, some guys cut some off the receiver end of the barrel and redid the chamber. I am sure they did it because they could. Same reason Mausers were redone.

So does no one else have one hiding away shamefully in a closet?

[Garufa]

So @Ronald_55 tell us what it is that you have.  It is one of those old Bannerman conversions to .30-06 from the ‘20’s or something more exotic?

Edited January 5, 2021 by Garufa

[gregintenn]

1 hour ago, Garufa said:

So @Ronald_55 tell us what it is that you have.  It is one of those old Bannerman conversions to .30-06 from the ‘20’s or something more exotic?

Wouldn’t it be great if companies like Bannerman’s and Herter’s were still in business?

[Garufa]

5 minutes ago, gregintenn said:

Wouldn’t it be great if companies like Bannerman’s and Herter’s were still in business?

If they were still selling surplus rifles and pistols, yes.  If in it for bubbaing, no.

I know things were what they were back in the day, but now run of the mill Mosins, our generation’s cheap milsurps, are going for over $350 and more.  That is only going to go up as there are no more to be had.

Point is, there is no more supply of military rifles for importers to ruin.

[Ronald_55]

@Garufa

I will try to get some pics and details up a bit later tonight. 

[Quavodus]

Bannerman did a bunch in .30-06. I'm sure it wasn't fun. They silver soldered  basicly a washer in the bolt face to make a .473 style bolt face. Altered the extractor and ejector. And cut the chamber area of back of barrel off and reamed to .30-06. Yeah, woah!

[Quavodus]

20 hours ago, Ronald_55 said:

Anyone here ever owned a rechambered Mosin Nagant Rifle?

If so what caliber was it chambered for? I know a bunch were officially redone to 30.06 in the 20s by a company. Mixed opinions as to if that is a good thing.

I see info about lots of other one offs. Then there are the crazy wildcat rechamberings some guys did back when the rifles were "buy one get 3 free" style surplus. 

They've been rechambered to a lot of different cartridges. Sometimes a lot of work though.

[Ronald_55]

@Garufa

 

So here is what I have... Try not to cry....

I have a Remington made 1891 model Mosin Nagant that has seen several modifications. If Remington Mosin Nagant does not ring a bell for anyone, you can find some details here:  https://www.ammoland.com/2020/04/the-remington-mosin-nagant-an-all-american-pre-soviet-rifle/#axzz6ijlhHPdC

Here it is in all its sporterized glory. Actually not a terrible job. A bit more finesse than a kitchen table Bubba job.

 

Here is what it should have looked like new

 

Why do I theorize it has been rechambered? See the pic of the receiver end of the barrel. It has been cut off so far up as to remove part of the Remington name and serial number. 

 

The bolt face also no longer fits the 54R's rim size.

 

 

Also the fixed mag has been modified. The openings around the floorplate to the left of the red should not be there in a standard Mosin Nagant. 

 

 

Other changes made 

 

Front Sight

 

Rear sight removed and replaced with a 3/8s (I think) dovetail mount.

 

Someone spliced in a piece to fill in the cleaning rod slot that was exposed when they cut back the stock.

 

 

And a recoil pad added

 

I held out some hope that this was a Bannerman conversion since it checked a lot of the boxes. I do see some black on the bolt head which is the way they did them. Sadly, nowhere can I find the 30.06 caliber engraving that should be on a Bannerman.  So I think this is a small batch or one-off conversion. 

Drop a piece of 30.06 brass in the chamber and the bolt will close...but not terribly easily and the brass will not eject. I tried some other brass I had (yes 54R too) .308, 30-30, 7mm Mauser. So far of those, 7mm Mauser was the only one that seemed to chamber correctly and would extract. So this leaves me in a guessing game of the actual caliber since there are multiple calibers that might fit that chamber including a 8mm Mauser. 

My next step I guess is to break down a buy some Cerrosafe and cast the chamber to get a good picture of it. This will be my first time doing that. Guess I finally need to get some calibers too. My retired machinist dad probably got a chill just from me admitting I do not have any. lol

So I knew going into this that the barrel had been cut indicating a rechamber. That is not a surprise. I just hoped it was a cut and dried 30.06 and move on. 

 

So thoughts guys?

 

[MacGyver]

I say this as someone whose superpower is not being particularly afraid of screwing stuff up.

That said, calipers and castings aside, I’d sure as heck take it to someone who knew what they were doing before I pulled that trigger. 

[KahrMan]

27 minutes ago, MacGyver said:

I say this as someone whose superpower is not being particularly afraid of screwing stuff up.

That said, calipers and castings aside, I’d sure as heck take it to someone who knew what they were doing before I pulled that trigger. 

Where is the fun in that. I will not pull the trigger but I will be standing close by to watch someone else pull the trigger.

[peejman]

Cool rifle, shame its been modified. If you were closer, I would be happy to handle the chamber and bolt face measurements. 

[gregintenn]

If it is an 8mm, a .308 bullet should freely drop through the bore.

30-06 and 7x57 have nearly the same rim diameter. I would think that if an extractor would pick up a 7x57, it should also grab an '06.

I fancy myself a hearty soul, but that thing looks a might scary to me.

Edited January 6, 2021 by gregintenn

[Ronald_55]

1 hour ago, peejman said:

Cool rifle, shame its been modified. If you were closer, I would be happy to handle the chamber and bolt face measurements. 

Yeah, not every day you see one of tge Remington ones.

Thanks. I have been been meaning to get calipers for a while anyway. I had a cheap pair years ago, but they must have walked off. 

Do you have a way to measure the chamber besides casting it?

[MP5_Rizzo]

13 hours ago, KahrMan said:

Where is the fun in that. I will not pull the trigger but I will be standing close by to watch someone else pull the trigger.

A good length of none stretch string, a berm or backstop, an old tire, couple or 3 sand bags and I will load anything you want into this ol' shootin' iron.  I will even set up the GoPro for slomo video results.

[peejman]

2 hours ago, Ronald_55 said:

Yeah, not every day you see one of tge Remington ones.

Thanks. I have been been meaning to get calipers for a while anyway. I had a cheap pair years ago, but they must have walked off. 

Do you have a way to measure the chamber besides casting it?

We have reprorubber and an optical comparator at work. Same basic idea as cerrosafe, but without the molten metal.  

[Ronald_55]

Despite whatever I find out, the first trigger pull might involve zip ties, a 2x4, and a long string....

 

@peejman Some people have all the cool toys.... That reprorubber looks cool if it was not twice the cost of cerrosafe. I assume is is not reusable. That is one upside of cerrosafe. 

@gregintenn Thanks for the tip. No a .308 projectile will not drop down the barrel. The extractor does grab the '06, but the 06 does not seem to fully seat into the chamber with out a bit of a push, so then it is stuck and will not eject. I have been comparing other similar base size calibers to see what the rest look like. I may try to slug the barrel too.  

 

My worst fear is that this is some crazy wildcat caliber that I will never be able to match. 

Edited January 6, 2021 by Ronald_55

[peejman]

45 minutes ago, Ronald_55 said:

Despite whatever I find out, the first trigger pull might involve zip ties, a 2x4, and a long string....

 

@peejman Some people have all the cool toys.... That reprorubber looks cool if it was not twice the cost of cerrosafe. I assume is is not reusable. That is one upside of cerrosafe. 

@gregintenn Thanks for the tip. No a .308 projectile will not drop down the barrel. The extractor does grab the '06, but the 06 does not seem to fully seat into the chamber with out a bit of a push, so then it is stuck and will not eject. I have been comparing other similar base size calibers to see what the rest look like. I may try to slug the barrel too.  

 

My worst fear is that this is some crazy wildcat caliber that I will never be able to match. 

No, it's not reusable. But it does a good job of capturing geometry that's hard to do otherwise. 

[No_0ne]

During WWI, the Austrians converted a number of captured Mosn Nagants to 8x57mm Mauser, as well as the 8x50mm Austrian cartridge.  In Europe, it was fairly common to convert them over to 6.5mm or 9.3mm chamberings, to match bullets that were available there.  I do agree that the barrel setback looks like the typical 30-06 conversion, many of the features look a lot like some of the Bannerman conversion as well.  Bannerman bought a lot of them as surplus after WWI, once the US government began surplusing out the many hundreds of thousand of these rifles purchased from Remington and New England Westinghouse during the war.  The Czarist government had contracted with these 2 companies to produce approximately 3.3 million Mosin Nagants for the Russian infantry after their heavy losses during the early part of the war.  Many of these were awaiting shipment in early 1917 when the Tsar was overthrown and the Kerensky government essentially voided the contract by refusing payment.  With these companies facing bankruptcy, the US government stepped in with a "bailout", buying all of the extra and even ordering several thousand more, which were then used by reserve, National Guard and cadet academies before being phased out in the '20's.  They were also available to the public, at a cost of about $3.50 per rifle, and many were subsequently converted over after stocks of 7.62x54r cartridges ran out in the US.  Some of these were well-done, others not so much ...