Mosin Nagant Safety Question

FPrice

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My son has been cleaning and fiddling around with his Mosin and discovered something which he thinks might be a kind of safety.

With the bolt cocked and in the fire position, he could pull on the mushroom-shaped knob on the back of the bolt and then rotate it to the left side to catch on a part of the receiver which seems to be relieved to hold that part of the bolt.

Update: As I was typing this I was also doing some googling on Mosin parts and found the YouTube video below by Hickok45. It is a safety as shown at about 9:20 in the clip.

 
Also has a decocker of sorts; if you close the bolt, but don't put it all of the way down in to battery and pull the trigger - it drops the bolt without firing. Don't try initial tests with a round chambered.:D
 
The "mushroom-shaped knob" is a cocking piece and safety device that can be used to cock the rifle manually or switched over to the left of the receiver as a safety. The safety feature works by making it impossible for the cocking piece from engaging with the sear and dropping the sear. If you don't fully engage the safety and let it sit partially on the side of the receiver, its possible to bump the safety off by accident somewhat easily. There are D-ring shaped aftermarket rings to make engaging the cocking piece easier available in addition to SMLE-style aftermarket safeties.

Because the safety isn't actually a safety and is instead a cocking piece that can be used to "decock" the rifle (but not really, because when you take the rifle off safe, its still cocked), I didn't use the safety that much when I owned a M91/30. I basically treated the M91/30 like a giant Glock where the best safety was me.

Most military guns from the late 1880s and early 1890s had visual ways to see the rifle's status to allow officers and NCOs to make sure troops weren't running around with cocked, loaded, and off-safe guns. The Mosin has this cocking piece + safety, the SMLE has a cocking piece and a separate safety, the Mauser has the three-position safety, and the French trained troops to not chamber a round in the Lebel until ordered to do so.
 
Yes it is a safety.
Aftermarket add-ons exist to make it easier to engage. You can also pull that park of the bolt back prior to cycling the handle on a dropped firing pin in order to make it easier to cycle the bolt.
Using that cocking knob before cycling the bolt does make the rifle easier to cycle. I do use it on one of my mosins that has a very stiff action.
 
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