Mosin Nagant Reloading Questions

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Anyone reload using lead for the Mosin?

Is Mosin brass berdan primed? I guess most of the mil surp stuff is?

I looks like I can use my 311291 (170 gr) or 311284 (205 gr) bullets for this if I can get some brass.

I was thinking about 2400 as a powder.

If you know of a place that will ship Mosin boxer primed brass let me know by way of a PM or email, not in this thread. Thanks.
 
Ive heard of some guys reloading 7.62x54R, but thats for some fine tuned target or suped-up hunting rounds.

Surplus is berdan primed. You can reload berdan primed rounds - but finding berdan primers commercially will be a challenge. You can find large-rifle boxer 7.62x54 brass at familiar sources, but then the question really is, why?

Surplus is still available, cheap and effective enough for most of the time.
 
I have a 198 grain spire point has checked mold. I can send you some bullets to mess with if you move forward with this.
Slug the bore. They can run very big. I think my mold drops at 312 or so. If that works you can just pan lube some.
 
I have a 198 grain spire point has checked mold. I can send you some bullets to mess with if you move forward with this.
Slug the bore. They can run very big. I think my mold drops at 312 or so. If that works you can just pan lube some.

I have slugged the bore. Believe it or not, it slugs to .308". I mentioned the two aforementioned moulds as that is what I use for my 30-06 and I expected that
i was going to have to buy another sizer for my Star but it looks like my 310" sizer is just fine. That 198 grain of yours is close in weight to my 205 gr so as
soon as I get my hands on some reloading brass I will be off to the races. Anyone use 2400 powder?

311284_zpse0519ce2.jpg
 
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For surplus cases,
You'll have to pop the primer out with water and drill a a hole in the center for the new style of primer and make a space to make the new primer fit. Kinda like making a sleeve. The large primers are not wide enough.

The other option from what I was told Is to drill the old primer with a drill bit the same width as the primers your gonna use then drill the center hole.



Or you can just buy brass cased rounds for 90¢ a rd and reload them once you shoot them or pull the bullets .

The other option is 54r lupa brass for 100 cases for 100$


I'm just saving up brass cases I buy so I can try custom hand loads when I get my psl built .
 
berdan primers are available from time to time, we had mini group by a while back. Not sure where, but we got small and large berdans to reload x39 and x54r.
 
Cast boolit forums is the place to go. I scored 200 new lapua cases for 38 cents each delivered from heads up on posted on cast boolits.

As for powder 2400 is like the "magic" powder for cast boolits. I reload 54r because my mosin shoots surplus @minute of burm.....my fmj reloads cost me .69 ea for the first load. I consider the brass free after that.( box of ppu with reloadable boxer brass runs 18.00+ to get the brass) I have been working on loads and so far got it down to 4moa. Don't think it will get much better though. As for my cast loads. My lead is free. It cost me almost nothing for my smelting gear and I processed 500+ lbs of wheel weights for the price of a propane fill. I use a Lyman 314299 which drops a 200 gn bullet at. 314 my bore slugger at. 313
I use 2400 powder and its a blast to lob these babies down range at 1200 fps. These are giving me under 4" groups from a rest
And I think there's room for better results.
The point is because we can.......I know many people who would say....what's the point of buying a 50 yr old pos rifle and cheap shifty ammo only to get piss poor accuracy? Its all fun right. I also have had decent results loading some reduced loads with h4895 for the M44...


http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?13425-Cast-Bullet-Loads-for-Military-Rifles-Article

Good right up for cast boolits for military guns
 
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The point is because we can.......I know many people who would say....what's the point of buying a 50 yr old pos rifle and cheap shifty ammo only to get piss poor accuracy? Its all fun right. I also have had decent results loading some reduced loads with h4895 for the M44...


I doubt they made Mosins after 1963, this rifle had been in service for over 100 years and still fights on.
 
I doubt they made Mosins after 1963, this rifle had been in service for over 100 years and still fights on.
I should have said 50+ maybe....my point is there is no point. Its what we like/want to do that matters.
I don't know if they are available state side but there are mosins in production now are there not? I am not sure if they are built of surplus recievers or not....

I'm not questioning the historical aspect or the long in service time
I say this with the thinking of logistics and economics. I think the Russian went with this design for 2 reasons. It worked good enough and would cost to much for little gain in its intended use to replace....

The only point is go out shoot at will and have fun.
 
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As was already mentioned 2400 powder - 16 grains to be exact - is one of the go to loads for cast bullets in milsurp rifles. It is the load I use in my '03A3 behind a 180 grain round nose gas check bullet from a Lyman mold. Very mild and very accurate. The only thing I am not sure of is the capacity of the 7.62x54R case compared to a .30-06 case. If it is a lot less I might start a grain or two less to be safe. Good luck - Dan
 
Well,

I decided to give my barrel another cleaning after I did the battery thing the other day and fried the batteries and the flashlight.
I built a low voltage power supply from a bunch of spare parts I had hanging around. It's just a 5 volt regulator and it's powered
from a hair dryer transformer that put out 9V @ 300ma. I think I need to get a bigger transformer though.

Anyway here are a few pics from my day trying to get this barrel sparkling clean.

My home made 5V power supply.
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The surplus hair dryer transformer and my jar of cleaning fluid.
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My Setup (the camera glitched on me)
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The first pass. I did a second pass and got little, if any, crud from doing it again. There was quite a
bit on this pass. This is just what bubbled up into the funnel.
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A few dozen more attempts and this bore might be sparkling clean. As of now it's not too shabby.
 
I thought I got my mosin pretty clean. Till I came across my dads diy electrobore cleaner in a bin of stuff removed from the garage. I gave it a whirl on the "clean" mosin. Nasty goo came out. Now I know its clean.
 
anothef reason to reload for a mosin

Or any other larger Cal military or modern rifle is reduced loads for younger shooters or anyone whoxwould benift from lower recoil.
the reduced loads useing hodgdon H4895 and trailboss give mild recoil with the benifit of shooting a old war dog.....my mosin/1903a3 are now fun to shoot for the smaller folks. I load for both in a 1500-1800 fps range.
 
As was already mentioned 2400 powder - 16 grains to be exact - is one of the go to loads for cast bullets in milsurp rifles. It is the load I use in my '03A3 behind a 180 grain round nose gas check bullet from a Lyman mold. Very mild and very accurate. The only thing I am not sure of is the capacity of the 7.62x54R case compared to a .30-06 case. If it is a lot less I might start a grain or two less to be safe. Good luck - Dan

I was going to post this myself. 16 gr 2400 works very well in all the milsurps I reload cast bullets for.

That includes 30-40 Krag, which has smaller volume than 30-06 and 7.52x54R. So you'll be ok w/ 16 grains.
 
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