Mosin rifle and a Nagant rifle

[Vashper]

In modern gun literature somehow was accepted the designation as the Mosin rifle as "Mosin-Nagant". And this is wrong, these are two different rifles:

They took part in the competition for the Russian Imperial army, and both were accepted by the Commission, but only the Mosin rifle went into production. If we talk about the similarity of designs, the Mosin rifle has some similarities with the rifle Berdan-2, which 20 years was in service with the Russian army. Here's an article about Mosin and Nagant rifles written by a good friend of mine. It is in Russian, but you can see the pictures
https://litresp.ru/chitat/ru/Ч/chelnokov-sergej/mosin-vs-nagant





The reason for the loss of Nagant were two small screws. The military leadership considered that it was unacceptable for a military rifle. In the bolt Mosin no screws .
In Russian it sounds especially strange, because "Nagant" is in common parlance the name of not only revolvers, but also any short-barreled weapon, so revolver Nagan was widespread and popular.

 

[perttime]

That's interesting. Or strange.
Looks like "Mosin-Nagant" has very much stuck in everywhere except Russia? Mosin and Nagant were apparently rivals for the 1891 rifle design - and not collaborators.

 

[Vashper]

In Russia, this rifle is usually called "three-line", because of the caliber. In the world - Mosin's rifle, and Mosin's cartridge-here for example old French drawings.

The French passed the drawings to Finland, but for some reason without mentioning Mosin.

 

[Pheroze]

Thanks for posting! The Nagant had some nice styling to it. But, even just scrolling through the pictures it does seem that the Mosin is the simpler design for the bolt. Your friend seems to have done a very thorough job.

 

[Pondoro]

Vaspher...tell us about the russian Nagant revolvers, can you own them in Russia today as a private citizen..?

I understand that they where used up to about 2010 by railway-guards and police in remote districts in Russia..?

I own two of them, both are made before the revolution, a double action officers model from 1908 and a single action made 1915..

These are fun to own and shoot, I use russian made mil. ammo (made 1975) and Fiocchi ammo..

 

[Vashper]

No, Pondoro, "short arms" are still banned, so on sale there are all sorts of freaks, made of Stechkin pistols or revolvers Nagant, with the barrel longer than 50 cm (this is a requirement of the Law).

You can buy "Naganych" too, shooting rubber bullets, converted from combat.

Nagant himself is still in service, in the police, at least, and how is it in army - I do not know, maybe some of generals have them as service weapons. In the USSR military Nagant were double action only. However, there were sporting revolvers - those, it seems, were single action. Sports rounds were a little different. When I served, I loved to shoot from Nagant, but did not like to recharge it. Interesting weapons, 7 rounds, which could be a surprise moment in some situation. But as I remember, in Sweden and Norway, some Nagant, too, was in armee, wasn't it?

 

[Vashper]

Thanks for posting! The Nagant had some nice styling to it. But, even just scrolling through the pictures it does seem that the Mosin is the simpler design for the bolt. Your friend seems to have done a very thorough job.

Leon Nagant with his rifle participated in tenders in Europe, in Belgium in particular (but Paul Mauser won there). He had 300 rifles of very good quality. We have preserved some of them in museums, in particular, in the Artillery Museum in St. Petersburg. Why they are unknown in Europe, I do not understand.

 

[Hammergun]

My son has a Mosin that we occasionally shoot. We always discuss the ruggedness and simplicity of the design. It seems unbreakable!

 

[Shootist43]

Vashper, like Pheroze I cannot read a word in Russian. But from the pictures your friend included it is obvious that he made a fair comparison of the two rifles. Please convey our thanks to him. I am curious, was one rifle more accurate than the other? Or has that information been lost to history?

If you don't mind answering a personal question about you, what do you do for a living?

 

[Pondoro]

No, Pondoro, "short arms" are still banned, so on sale there are all sorts of freaks, made of Stechkin pistols or revolvers Nagant, with the barrel longer than 50 cm (this is a requirement of the Law).

View attachment 266298

You can buy "Naganych" too, shooting rubber bullets, converted from combat.

Nagant himself is still in service, in the police, at least, and how is it in army - I do not know, maybe some of generals have them as service weapons. In the USSR military Nagant were double action only. However, there were sporting revolvers - those, it seems, were single action. Sports rounds were a little different. When I served, I loved to shoot from Nagant, but did not like to recharge it. Interesting weapons, 7 rounds, which could be a surprise moment in some situation. But as I remember, in Sweden and Norway, some Nagant, too, was in armee, wasn't it?

Vaspher, you are quite right, both Norway (1893) and Sweden used Nagant revolvers, they are somewhat different as they dont have the gas seal cylinder and the cartridge is a different 7,5mm round, Norway got theirs mostly from Belgium but also bought some from Sweden who made them under license from Nagant..

I have one of them from the first shipment to our army of 6th July 1894..

 

[perttime]

Browsing a little more, I found that the 1891 rifle is a combination of Sergei Mosin's magazine design and Leon Nagant's action, so the "Mosin-Nagant" name makes some sense.

The "Three line rifle" (3/10 of an inch) designation is in use in Finnish, too, but it sounds like an old expression to me.

The 7.62 x 54R and the almost similar 7.62 x 53R (Finnish) are not always quite the same.
CIP Standards give 7.62 x 54R a cartridge length about 0.2mm longer than 53R, and barrel and bullet diameters are different. 7.62 x 54R bullet diameter should be 7.92 mm (0.312 in), while 7.62 x 53R specification is 7.85 mm (0.309 in): same as now common .308 Winchester diameter.

 

[sestoppelman]

I call it MosiNag for short. Think I will continue to...

 

[ChrisG]

I think they are functional firearms for the range and served their purpose in the 1930s and 40s, but for anything but taking to the range nowadays, they are about useless for anything else they are a gun if you couldn't afford a gun as they used to be $100. My brother has a Russian one and my brother in law has one made in Finland (the Mercedes Benz of mosins by the way... which isn't saying much). I would never hunt with one though. My neighbors cousin was killed while hunting with one. He had it on safe carrying through the woods when he slipped, the butt of the mosin hit the ground while the muzzle was inadvertently pointing at his head. Even on safe, the gun discharged killing him instantly. He was 14. After that my brother tried it with his and sure enough... with a bit of a blow to the buttstock, *click*. Not for me... they were made in an era where it was more a game of numbers than quality... the Russians didn't beat the Germans in WWII because of their overall amazing technology. They beat the Germans because for every Mauser the Germans produced, the Russians built 100 Mosins, for every Panther, the Russians made 20 T-34s.

 

[sestoppelman]

OK, we'll put you down as 'not a fan boy' then..LOL.

 

[Witold Krzyżanowski]

In Poland Mosin rifles were converted into hunting rifles cal. 7,62x54R .

 

[perttime]

In Poland Mosin rifles were converted into hunting rifles cal. 7,62x54R .

And elsewhere. Lots of Moose have fallen to more or less modified ones in Finland. Somebody might still be using one.

Some are are stock ones at reservist association heritage competitions.

Not sure if the Finnish military is still using the Mosin based 7,62 Tkiv 85, or if they have totally gone for modern sniper/marksman rifles. The one I tried in 1991 was plenty accurate. Image from Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7.62_Tkiv_85

 

[Vashper]

Perttime, I'm afraid there's some confusion in the source: the bolt undoubtedly belongs to Mosin, the article has a prototype - Mosin's single-shot rifle. And generally speaking, the system is called by the bolt usually.
About the standard - I do not know. In the French drawing, the diameter of the "Russian" bullet is 7.85. And I have in my cabinet the modern cartridges of state ammunition plants, which may have the diameter and 7.85, and 7.9.

 

[Vashper]

They beat the Germans because for every Mauser the Germans produced, the Russians built 100 Mosins, for every Panther, the Russians made 20 T-34s.

Yes, I admit; it was a little ungentlemanly.

 

[perttime]

There's often many different stories from the same actual events. Perhaps there's no complete agreement on the exact details of how the 1891 rifle came to be.

The standards that I quoted are not from my measurements, but CIP figures on how they think it is supposed to be. Real world might not always follow such ideas.

 

[Vashper]

I am curious, was one rifle more accurate than the other? Or has that information been lost to history?
If you don't mind answering a personal question about you, what do you do for a living?

I don't know. I can ask. But, most likely, Leon Nagan "brought to mind" his samples. No wonder his rifles liked the officers during the tests, despite the greater number of delays. However, Mosin rifles performed well at the world Championships and the Olympic games until these shooting disciplines were thrown out as too militaristic.

I do not hide my personal information, just too lazy to write a lot in the profile, but I even published a picture here in some tred here, and even the guys from the United States came to visit me . I am a retired military engineer (in our country it is not a high-end celebrity), after retirement I worked as a technical journalist and editor, wrote about photography, hunting optics, a little about weapons, etc.. I am the moderator of some sections of the most popular Russian-language weapons forum guns.ru.
Unfortunately, guns and hobby media industry has been severely degraded in recent years, under the pressure of the Internet, or for some another reason.
I am a member of the military hunting society and The Russian hunting and fishing Union, I hunt since 1980. Several years was on site huntamerica.com until it died, unfortunately.