Wait, Wait, Wait here were comparing apples to donuts here. These are two different rifles in quality for sure I think the swiss k31, finnish M39 mosin and the swede mausers are in a class by themselves. I think in a benchrest competition we may find out the three of the rifles will shoot pretty much the same there that close in accuracy.
Now with the 98k mauser and 91/30 mosin I believe from all that i have read about when most shooters do there own shoot off and compare them the 91/30 mosin shoots just a tad better over the 8mm mauser. This has been a pretty constant on going story. Lets look at both rifles before we get into a hassle here.
The Russian 91/30 Mosin is not exactly your top shelf quality looking manufactured rifle. But we also have to look at the way it was manufactured during WW2 too. These manufacturing plants were constantly on the move as the germans pushed the russians back. I think under the pressure the russians were under they did a great job in manufacturing the mosin, well they did as good as they could. The bottomline is I think the accuracy of the mosin is do to the longer barrel over the mauser. Even though the action is like a cheap bolt action 22lr rifle a little crude but it works flawless like i said its not your top shelf quality but it shoots good. Lets face it the russians aren't into making a rifle do anything more than what its designed to do meaning they get by with a bare minimum basic rifle that works thats it there's no frills its a plain jane.
The 98k 8mm german mauser is a top quality german manufactured rifle and probably the best the germans had to offer at the time too. Nothing can match the smoothness of the bolt too on the german 98k. The look, the feel screams about the quality of the german manufacturing even though its not as accurate as the mosin is, it can still hold its own.
The way i look at it we have to remember too these were made for man sized targets too. With the more accurate ones being made into sniper rifles.
Now with handloading I believe any rifle with a decent bore can be made accurate after we figure out what load works for that rifle accuracy isn't a given when reloading. Some rifles can be finiky and some aren't. There are a lot of variables in figuring out a load for your rifle too. We must consider bullet weight, powder burn rate for the twist of the barrel and how much powder to use too. When there not accurate it can be a tough go i have been there and figured it out. And yes its easy to sell it rather than accept the challange to figure it out but its getting the experience and i find it fun "now" to do too. My very first rifle wasn't fun but i kept my cool and figured it out and failure wasn't an option I just knew it would shoot good in the end.
So whats good accuracy with a military surplus gun using surplus ammo. Lets talk about that is 2" groups at 100yds acceptable. I think anything 2" and under is acceptable and awesome for these old gals. While some shoot 3" groups that isn't that bad because we don't know what these rifles have been through too. Most of the time a touch up of the crown can sure make a difference in accuracy if we have a good looking bore and its not that accurate. Even some of the swiss rifles needed the crowns touched up too. I have seen some little shiney rings on the some of the swiss rifles on the crowns where they have been touched up already.
Now with that said I wonder if anyone has compared all the different 8mm mausers in an accuracy contest? I wonder which one would out shoot all the rest. I wonder how the german 8mm, the czech 8mm, the turk 8mm and the yugo 8mm's compare when it comes to accuracy. If we compared all the 23" barrels together and the 29" barrels seperate so its a fair test. I wonder if its ever been done.
