Mosin-Nagant hard to chamber

[tlmkr38]

 I'm hoping someone here can point me in the right direction on this. I have 2 Mosin's , one a 1948 M44 carbine and the other a 1943 standard rifle. When chambering a shell the carbine is smooth and easy to lock while the other is hard to get the bolt rotated in the locked position. It will feed the shell all the way up fine but when you start to turn the bolt it is hard to turn.

 Any ideas on where to start looking to fix this? Is it fixable? Thanks!

[Mikey]

timkr:  being a mil-surp guy but certainly not the moderator of this forum, I have heard others complain about the same problem.  Some say - short chamber, others say quality and manufacture of ammo, others say bolt/extractor problem.  It has been recommended that you take a couple of rounds of ammo and cover those cases completely (shell casing) with a black magic marker, including the rim (front and back) and the bullet, then run them through your chambering/cycling process and see where the magic marker has been rubbed off.  If it has been rubbed off on the forward face of the rim it might be a tight extractor that needs smoothing or relieving.  If there is scoring on the rear face of the rim you may have the same problem and the extractor needs to be relieved a bit.  If you have a indent or scoring on the primer, your firing pin may extrude a bit too far.  If you have the magic marker removed on the shoulder of the cases then you may have a short chamber.  Either problem can be resolved with a trip to a gunsmith knowledgeable of the Mosin actions. 
 
A lot of the Mosins imported to this country appear, at least those I have seen, appear to have been refurbished at the/ or a factory or arsenal.  This simply means the rifle continues to meet the mil-spec requirements and any roughness in the action is something the factory would consider to be within mil-spec tolerances.  I have seen rough actions that still worked like a charm, diamonds in the rough some say, sights on crooked but still within mil-spec, and stocks that would have fit better if the action had been  mounted sideways, but they were still within mil-spec and worked they way they should have,just not smooth and easy. 
 
Run it through that test and see what you come up with.  Your particular rifle could also be ammo sensitive or maybe even short chambered and you will see that if you have any magic marker scored off the bullet.  Hope this helps.

[tlmkr38]

ok thanks! I'll try that and see what happens. Gun shoots great and doesn't seem to have any issues other than that but I know it was built during the war instead of before or after so the QC probably wasn't as good.  I'll tell ya too, the more I shoot those things the better I like them

[trotterlg]

Or, someone may have fired some of the ammo that is coated with some sort of preservative, it builds up in the chamber real fast and will give you just what you have.  I would find a brush that fits tight in the chamber and clean it out with acetone, I would find a way to run the brush in a drill motor.  Bet that fixes it up.  Larry

[Mikey]

Larry:  thanks, I shouldhave thought of that first.

[gunnut69]

You've covered the main parts,.. This kinda of thing requires trouble shooting.. I'd bet on the lacquere covered steel cased ammo being the issue but there are many possibilities though usually problems with fitting things such as extractors is not an issue as these are battle rifles and were used extensively..

[Ray Ford]

Let me relate one of my experiences with a Mosin-Nagant--a 91.30.  A dealer at a Tulsa gun show had a crate of the rifles.  I looked them over and could find only one in the box that had not been counter bored.  (This is a process where, when the end of the barrel is worn out of round by the steel cleaning rods, the end of the barrel is drilled out a couple of inches--drilled down to good rifling.)  A gun that has been counter bored has been used a good bit.  The rifle that I found appeared to be new and not used.  I bought it.
 
I took the gun to my club's range and fired it.  It shot great, but the hull would not extract.  I took it home and used a small oak dowell to drive the hull out.  The hull had scratches and indentations on it when it emerged from the chamber.  I looked, and there were machine burrs in the chamber.  I suspect this problem was why the rifle had not been used very much.
 
I took a new 5/16-inch round file, carefully ran it into the chamber at an angle until I felt one of the burrs, then hit the burr with the file.  I repeated this process until I had more-or-less removed the burrs.  I then took a 1/2-inch oak dowell, cut off about 10 inches, tapered the end of the piece to more-or-less fit the chamber, chucked the piece of dowell into a drill moter, and spun it in the chamber until it wore to fit the chamber.  I then put fine lapping compound on the spun-shaped dowell and polished the chamber.  The rifle, after this bit of shade-tree gun smithing, works beautifully.  (Lapping compound is a grease with an abrasive in it that was once used by shade-tree mechanics to grind, or seat, valves in a car motor.  Comes in fine and coarse.)
 
Remember, this was the rifle with which the Russians fought the Germans.  The 91.30's made before the war were much better machined--more carefully made.  Those made during the war were turned out as fast as possible.  Pretty guns were not the issue: survival was the issue.  I value my war-time 91.30's FOR the visible lathe marks on the barrel.  My experience with the M44's, and the M38's, suggests that they were produced with a little more care.
 
Incidentally, when putting a synthetic stock on a 91.30, you often have to shave out the inside of the new stock to allow that gizmo that has to do with the cartridges in the magazine to retract enough.  I've forgotten what that gizmo is called.  I want to say cartridge regulator, but that may not be right.  I'll be 73 next week, so I don't always remember what some things, and people, are called. 

[gunnut69]

Thats likely the ejector spring/feed interupter. In the attached link it's number 11.
 
http://stevespages.com/ipb-mosinnagant-1891.html

[Ray Ford]

You are very right about that.
 
Incidentally, I worked at cleaning out my garage today and, in the process, found a little booklet entitled "Mosin-Nagant Rifles" from Century International Arms Inc.  It indicated that the rifles, which were manufactured from 1891 to 1972 if my information is correct, include M1891, M91/30,
M27, M38, M39, and M44.  This caught my attention because I had wondered how "91.30" should be written.  I've always written it as I just did and as I did in my above post.  This booklet uses a slash between the year and the caliber.
 
May I add a story about the 91/30?  A friend of mine was at the Woodward, Oklahoma, range some time back.  Two boys showed up with a 5 gallon bucket, a 91/30, and a tin of ammo for the Russian rifle.  They used the bucket as their target--since that range does not have back boards.  Taking turns shooting the rifle, they used up all 440 rounds from the tin.  The gun, my friend said, was so hot that grease was boiling out of the wood stock, but they were still hitting that bucket!
 
You've got to respect a rifle which was manufactured for 80+ years with no change in the action.

[Ray Ford]

Sorry to keep carrying on, but I remembered an experience that I had with a Mosin-Nagant just a few years ago:  I shot the gun at my club's range, and, although the bolt had closed up fine, after firing, the bolt would not retract.  I put a good deal of hand pressure on it to no avail.  I carried it to the next gun show and showed it to Al Bolduc, a gunsmith from Siloan Springs, Arkansas.  He picked it up, hit the bolt handle hard with the heel of his hand, and the bolt popped open.
 
He explained that the lacquer coating on some of the surplus ammunition for the guns would often, when the cartridge was fired, glue the hull into the chamber so that a really sharp rap was needed to open the bolt.