MosinNagant stiff at releasing from battery.
Gun shoots great, but you have to beat it out of battery.
Any common cause for this?
Originally Posted By wsix:
Gun shoots great, but you have to beat it out of battery.
Any common cause for this?
sticky bolt?
if yes...
http://7.62x54r.net/MosinID/MosinCleaning.htm#StickyWhen? All the time, or only after shooting? It's common for the laquer on steel case ammo to get hot and cause the bolt to stick. My buddy has an m44 that locks up tight. Really have to try to get it open after shooting a couple dozen rounds. My m91/30 never sticks as bad. Granted it has a much smoother action all together. Not sure why. If it is sticking from hot steel cases, I don't think there is much you can do about it.
Clean the chamber really well. More than likely you have cosmoline still in there. Follow the 7.62x54r.net instruction above. While you are at it, clean the inside of the bolt again as well.
Or
Does your spent cases have a deep scratch on them? Some chambers have a bur that makes extraction very hard..
I have found that lacquered cases are not the main cause of problems. Most of the time, rifles that have really hard times with steel cases also have some dried up cosmoline in the chamber as well.
If it feels kind of spongy when your attempting to open the action after firing a few rounds then it is probably sticky bolt. If it just opens very hard and stiff that is actually rather common issue on mosins. Mosins cock when opening the bolt so they have a lot of resistance to begin with. Factor in Russian quality standards, and the random mix and matching of bolt parts from their service time or refurbishing and you can get some rather hard to action bolts. Easiest thing to do with that is start swapping rear bolt half, aka cocking piece, until you find one that matches your guns specs better. Also on occasion you will get a gun where the head space will not pass a Go Gage, that will act the same way as a stiff bolt but the action will be very hard to close as well.
Thanks for all the info.
The bolt works really smooth with no cartridges in the weapon. It gets stuck with a fired round. I inspected the shells and they looked fine; no bulges.
I will follow the advice and report back after I hit the range.
Those links address every concern I could have. Thanks.
Cleaned the chamber out with a nitro solvent soak, slapped a brush in the drill and polished the hell out of it. Went to the range and it was better but if it got hot it would still happen.
It's a great shooter. For $80? An amazing bargain and fun to shoot.
what ammo are you shooting with?
Mosin bolts do expand when they get hot from firing, I have one that was too tight, I went to youtube and looked at Mosin bolt polishing video's and followed the directions. On the video, the guy shows where to put grinding compound, and how to work the bolt. Another shows how to cut the spring. I didn't cut the spring, yet.
Not sure this relates to yours, I would suggest gauges before you modify.
