The Mosin Nagant- The LAST Great Deal In SHTF Firearms

Here is a quick review of the Mosin. Inexpensive, reliable, accurate, and fun are some terms that can be used to describe the Mosin Nagant 91/30. It is currently the last great deal in military surplus firearms. but buying a rifle with a 125 year old design is not without it's drawbacks. This video explains what makes it fun, what it doesn't do well, what to expect and where to buy it.

(Also back by popular demand is more "Bunker Cam")

The mosin is a great bolt gun....for the price you cant beat em.
Another great SHTF rifle is the sks....ive owned russian yugo and chinese versions, even the cheapo copies of the russian version are good reliable guns.
The world is littered with these cheap good russian surplus firearms.....thank the lord for russian paranoia

Oh btw, if your the real liberty's teeth from YT.....Keep Up The Good Work

Originally posted by shaneslaughta
The mosin is a great bolt gun....for the price you cant beat em.
Another great SHTF rifle is the sks....ive owned russian yugo and chinese versions, even the cheapo copies of the russian version are good reliable guns.
The world is littered with these cheap good russian surplus firearms.....thank the lord for russian paranoia

Oh btw, if your the real liberty's teeth from YT.....Keep Up The Good Work

edit on 2-6-2013 by shaneslaughta because: (no reason given)

Yes, the SKS and AK and numerous other guns are great SHTF weapons. The issue is to try and find one at a decent price. Both the SKS and AK's could be bought in the past for $100..now the the SKS's are $400+ and the AK's are 6, 7, $800. And the ammo has seen the same rise. You used to be able to get 1000 rounds of 7.62x39 for less than a $100, now, good luck finding it for less than $300. The point is you can get a gun and ammo for about 200 bucks and start practicing.

And yes, I am the "real" (lol) Liberty's Teeth, thanks for the compliment.

reply to post by LibertysTeeth

Stop telling everyone you do-gooder.

Youre gonna push their prices higher.

But S & F cause its a MN.

reply to post by LibertysTeeth


I recently sold mine. The biggest issue I had was the ammo; it’s all old surplus ammo with many inconsistencies. The other issue was the size. The Mosin is a LONG rifle. Have you ever tried walking through a doorway while it’s slung on your shoulder (don’t try it). It’s old, slow and a bit much to lug around. I must admit, it is pretty accurate though.

Bottom line for me – The cons outweighed the pros and I sold it for $100. I’d suggest a cheap Savage from Walmart if you want a truly inexpensive, reliable, accurate, easy to handle and fun firearm.

Just my $.02

Originally posted by seabag
reply to post by LibertysTeeth

 

I recently sold mine. The biggest issue I had was the ammo; it’s all old surplus ammo with many inconsistencies. The other issue was the size. The Mosin is a LONG rifle. Have you ever tried walking through a doorway while it’s slung on your shoulder (don’t try it). It’s old, slow and a bit much to lug around. I must admit, it is pretty accurate though.

Bottom line for me – The cons outweighed the pros and I sold it for $100. I’d suggest a cheap Savage from Walmart if you want a truly inexpensive, reliable, accurate, easy to handle and fun firearm.

Just my $.02

While I can't disagree with anything you've said, I still think it is a great way to cut your teeth on a higher powered rifle. I wouldn't use it for self defense, but I would use it for hunting if I had to. The main point is you can buy the rifle and stock up on ammo pretty inexpensively.

While there's definitely some cons to owning and using mosin nagants right now in most of the country you can actually get ammunition for this old warhorse for cheaper than you can buy .22lr ammunition! And one thing I can guarantee is that a mosin nagant, even with the worst of the worst surplus ammo, will vastly outshoot a .22lr at beyond 50 yards in the hands of even a fairly inexperienced shooter.

And realistically most factory off the shelf new manufacture guns made now all suffer from the same weak link when it comes to being fired accurately and consistently... THE SHOOTER!

Yes folks! That's right! When it comes right down to it unless you are hunting to feed your family and have to make EVERY SINGLE SHELL COUNT YOU yourself are most likely the single most unreliable and inconsistent component in the loop!

While most mosin rifles are FAR from match grade, what they are is dirt cheap to own and operate! And when it comes to learning to shoot quantity has a quality all it's own! (Yes I am aware that only PERFECT practice makes for PERFECT performance when it actually counts, but that does not detract from my point in any way)
Put bluntly when you can fire between 3 and 8 mosin rounds for what you'd pay for a single round to use in pretty much any other rifle in it's power class that's a pretty big quantitative jump in the sheer amount of practice the average shooter can AFFORD!

My position is that the mosin is something that every gun owner should have at least one or two of laying around along with an 880 round spam can of mid grade surplus ammo. Just because it probably won't be the firearm you reach for in a crisis doesn't mean it's not still an INSANELY valuable piece of equipment to have in your toolbox. And if you are a new shooter a mosin nagant is right up there with a 12 gauge shotgun for sheer bang for your buck value! Plus as a new shooter you can afford enough ammo to actually get an amount of trigger time sufficient to build up muscle memory on things like proper trigger discipline and shooting posture which is HUGE for if the fur were ever to actually start to fly!

The Mosin Nagant's used to be extremely cheap, I used to buy them out of the Shotgun News paper for $79-$100 now if you can find one they're up to about $150-$175 but that's still a good price for a good dependable and accurate gun. And yes they are accurate, this is the gun that was largely responsible for the eventual Russian victory over the Germans in the battle for Stalingrad and was made famous by Vassili Zaitsev when he eventually hunted down and killed Erwin Konig, who was perhaps Germany's top sniper and the head of the German sniper academy. .

I happen to have several, 2 91/30's and a M59 Carbine and with some work and practice the 91/30 is a very viable rifle out to 1000 meters. My "long range" 91/30 sports an ATI Monte Carlo stock, bedded and reworked receiver, custom build flash suppressor, Harris bipod, and a Leupold VX-3L 6.5-20x56 scope which I admit is overkill but it was a take off from my .300 winmag when I upgraded. I can shoot a consistent 1000 meter pattern within about .75 MOA however this is with self loads, not surplus steel case ammo.

I purchased this gun about 15 years ago for $50 at a gun show and with the work ive put into it minus the scope I have about $300 in the gun. My other 91/30 is a stock octagon receiver gun and the only thing Ive done to it is clean it and bed and lap the receiver and even with low grade Nikkon optics it is accurate to 600 meters easy.

I also own several SKS rifles of various models and love shooting them, they used to be a good low priced gun but sadly I have seen the prices of Norinco's going for upwards of $700.

All in all both of these rifles are good SHTF rifles. Being the gun lover that I am I have quite a collection of firearms ranging from AK's, AR's, and M4's and am just as happy with my Mosins and SKS's as I am with my higher priced modern rifles.

It's just too bad that the prices have went so drastically high right along with the ammo.

Good for history, not for much else. You'd be trying to bag some game and it'd blow your hand off. Would the use mousetraps/cat traps for small game and a bear trap for things like deer and moose work?

The MN can be sportarized or can be turned in to an bullpup . Archangel has a nice stock for the MN with a detachable mag and cbrps has a stock for a drop in bullpup. But im with seabags the ammo its rough and corrosive as all get out. But as for a cheap stand by it cant be beat they are going for $175 at my local shop.