MN91/30 sticking bolt

[mikedb]

I have a Tula MN 91/30 and the bolt sticks after firing.  All numbers match.  I have not tried different kind of ammo to see if it is ammo specific as yet.  Anything else to consider.? Headspace? 

[jack19512]

I had this problem also when using mil-surplus ammo but the problem went away as soon as I started reloading for my M/N's.  I don't think it is a headspace problem at least not on mine anyway.


http://www.russian-mosin-nagant.com/sticking_bolt.htm

http://www.surplusrifle.com/shooting2005/eliminatesbs/index.asp

[His lordship.]

I had this problem real bad with the steel cased Czech ammo.  As I clean my guns really well, the chamber sticking eased up some over time.  I also would recock my bolt before extraction of the fired case, this also helped alot.

Unfortunately the steel cased ammo will do this, but the Czech ammo shoots well in all my Mosins, so I continued to buy it.  I did not have a sticky bolt problem with the brass cased ammo. 

Some Mosin collectors have honed out their chambers using a 20 gauge shotgun cleaner brush, and using a slow rotation of the drill, and lots of cleaner to polish up the chamber.  It does not always cure the problem, and I never did it on any of my 7 Mosins.

The brass cased surplus ammo is not always easy to get, you could handload for it.  I have not done that as the cheap price of the surplus stuff is too hard to ignore.

[Robert357]

I have a Tula MN 91/30 and the bolt sticks after firing.  All numbers match.  I have not tried different kind of ammo to see if it is ammo specific as yet.  Anything else to consider.? Headspace? 

I too have a Tula 1891/30, but never had that problem, yet.  Of course I reload brass cases.  From what I have read there are really four things that can cause a sticking bolt....
(1) something in the chamber that needs to be cleaned out, cosmoline, lacqer from certain kinds of ammo, etc.
(2) metal burrs or rough spots in the chamber that need to be smoothed out
(3) certain kinds of steel ammo
(4) the extractor jamming against the rim on extraction

Usually, 1&2 can be fixed by using a light abrasive (say bore past) on a shotgun swab and then rotating slowly with a variable speed hand drill in the chamber; but do be careful not to get carried away.

(4) Involves a fairly simple adjustment of the extractor that is described in some other forums.

Also remember that the MN needs to feed ammo from the magazine to the chamber by moving the bolt, you should not insert the cartidges directly into the chamber if you want the bolt to grip them properly.

Good luck, the Tula MN 1891/30 is a great rifle once you solve your problem.

[mikedb]

I will be polishing away on this one.  My Izzy does not have his pb nor my m44.  I do shoot surplus ammo BTW.

[STexhunter]

Had the same problem.  Was doing some research on Mosin's and ran into an article that addressed this issue.  Come to find out some of the ammo cases have been sealed, coated or whatever you want to call it.  When the rifle is fired there is enough heat generated to cause this lacquer coating or whatever, to adhere to the bolt face and chamber as well.  I was shooting some steel case type ammo and checked this out.  Sure enough there was a coating on the cases.  I took a pocket knife and carefully scraped this coating off of the head of the shell and the problem went away, as long as I did a good enough job of getting the stuff off.  I'm not saying that this is your problem but, it could be, it was mine with this particular ammo.

[mikedb]

Had the same problem.  Was doing some research on Mosin's and ran into an article that addressed this issue.  Come to find out some of the ammo cases have been sealed, coated or whatever you want to call it.  When the rifle is fired there is enough heat generated to cause this lacquer coating or whatever, to adhere to the bolt face and chamber as well.  I was shooting some steel case type ammo and checked this out.  Sure enough there was a coating on the cases.  I took a pocket knife and carefully scraped this coating off of the head of the shell and the problem went away, as long as I did a good enough job of getting the stuff off.  I'm not saying that this is your problem but, it could be, it was mine with this particular ammo.

I need to take samples of all my ammo and shoot it with a recently cleaned chamber ( using a drill/dremel) then see what sticks and see if I can scrape some laquer off.  I think I will head down to the basement this evening and check over my ammo.  My other mosins did not have a problem but this one may have a slightly different chamber.  Thanks for the idea.