I started this build for my wife. I wanted it to be as light weight as possible with very little recoil, using the powerful and cheap 7.62x54R round.

I apologize for not taking pictures of the cutting down and threading process.

This is the starting point of this project for the purposes of this thread.





The muzzle break of my own design. I made it in my garage machine shop at my buddies house. I cut the barrel to 14.5" which is below the legal limit, so I could make the muzzle break bring it back to 16". This necessitates pinning and welding the break to make it permanent. Clocking the muzzle break required facing off the back of the break a bit at a time until it was timed just right at full torque. It has an 11 degree target crown.




Then I made my own stain from Rit Dye. It was just what my wife wanted!!!!



The only problem was that I used boiled linseed oil and the color faded to a darker red. That didn't go so well. I should have just put satin poly on it to lock the stain at the same color.

Then to the scope mount. This started out as a Brownells rail blank that I machined and powder coated. I used the rail underneath the rear sight just like most folks do. The only difference is that I drilled and tapped the rail instead of making a .22 rail type clamp mount. I really wanted the mount to be strong as hell and very low profile. Almost every mount out there is far too high and not very well executed. This is a better option if you have the capability.





This is the earlier finished project.


This picture shows the sight mounted and the pink starting to fade.




Well....my wife shot it well but hated it..... It became my rifle again! The pink wasn't cutting one bit so I had to start with sanding the heck out of the stock again! I cut 1.5" off the stock and installed a grind to fit butt pad and fitted it up.

I lathered some Sedona Red on the stock, about 3 coats, and then started rubbing in Tung Oil.... Well, the sheen was beautiful and felt great, but it looked horrible!



You will notice in the above picture how much I sanded off the stock. I really went at it with a random orbit sander and removed enough wood to make the finger grooves very shallow and I completely sanded off the inlays for the rear sling slot. The stock is much more elegant and less clunky feeling. I dumped the top hand guard.

This is Red Mahogany.


The result was much, much nicer. The sheen is wonderful and so sleek feeling.


I decided that I needed to sling up this bad boy for carrying in the field so I cut a new sling slot for the front end of the stock. I'm not very handy with a drill and a chisel.....




I really love the result. This rifle only shoots about 5" at 100 yards off the bench, but it feels great in the hand. I can hit a 6" plate every time at 100 yards off hand. I think it may shoot a touch better than it appears off the bench, but only more trigger time will tell. I can't imagine a 5 MOA rifle with a 6 MOA shooter holding it will nail a plate that consistently off hand unless it is doing better than I think. I bought a replica sling for it and now it's done.



This is 7 lbs right on the money. 35 3/8" over all. Trigger pull is 5 lbs and smooth as glass. The bolt is super smooth as well. The only issue is that the extractor resists snapping over the case rim. I think it will get smoother with use.


I did shim the thick part of the barrel a bit to free float it. I think that may shoot a bit better without the hand guard and free floated.


Every single person who has shot this rifle except my wife was left with a huge smile on their face. It is the most incredibly loud and obnoxious rifle to shoot, but it is a complete blast. It was great fun at the NE Ohio Arfcom shoot a couple years ago.

Very NICE!!!

You take fine weapon, defeater of fascist, you cut off material to make weight more suitable for weak arms.  You attach muzzle break as to make look like mighty DshK for small-budget John Rambo fantasy play.  It make short barrel even louder blast.  You put on cheap glow-site of walmart plastic package.  You glue on rubber pad to butt to take away kick pain from lacking weight.  You paint stock color of Leningrad whorehouse and say is for wife!  Ha! Is not for wife, is excuse so you can feel pretty while firing.  Your wife is woman of taste to reject rifle.  She like strong man who use real sized rifle.  Perhaps you send her to me, no?

You call rifle for "scout."  Scouts are hard men. Live on dried beets, vodka, and blood of enemies of motherland.  Have no need for such tarted up streetwalker rifles.  You need rifle of powerful cartridge, buy rifle and leave alone.  Shoot straight.  Kill fascists.  You need carbine for workings in vehicles and small quarters, buy carbine m44.  Is no need for chopped up shame rifle.

It's a mosin and there are plenty of them around. He can do whatever he wants.

Not sure if troll or serious?





+1,000. If it was some $1,500 collectors grade original PU sniper in perfect condition I'd shed a tear. There are so many mosins out there, who cares. Looks like an awesome project OP, great work!

In my head I read that with a bad Russian accent, I'm pretty sure that was a joke.

And well done!

Good work, but that is uglier than a bag of smashed assholes.

Didn't you say that about my last Scout?
It gets prettier when you shoot it!


I forgot to add to this thread. I shot it yesterday. The one and only benched group I shot was right at 3.5 MOA at 50 yards. Way better than my earlier attempts. It's weird that I can hit a 3" wide steel silhouette head over and over again with a rifle that should statistically miss once in a while but I hit it many times without missing.

I added a cleaning patch shim under the thick part of the barrel at the chamber to help support it against drawing down too much with the screw compression.

I tried to stain a mosin M39 pink for my wife. It ended up looking more lavender in some lights.

At some point it was reposted in an "ugliest worst thing you've ever seen done to a gun" thread.

lulz

In Soviet Russia, Mosin cut down you.

That's probably truer than you know.

OP, that is a pretty cool cut down job.

While true, have you ever seen a Mosin Nagant that struck you as pretty?

At least this one was done VERY well. The finished carbine doesn't look cobbled together, by any means.

Well, at least SOMEBODY gets it.

For the rest of you, I'm 99.99999998321% sure it's a satire of the below:

You put a lot of work in the inherent contradictions in your opening sentences.  Very nice work, other than the pink staining job, which started well, & ended well, but not pink.  Your muzzle brake looks like it would break ears.

Very nice Ivan impersonation.

While there are a ton of Mosins, I don't think I would have done that to one.

It's so ugly...I like it

congrats on the 7 pound weight

These scouts are the only thing at the range that gives the 50 bmg a run for the loudest rifle.

Safe1, a moderator in the Ohio hometown forum, said spotting for me was like getting slapped in the face each shot. He had to double up hearing protection to sit next to me.

No one shoots my scouts and walks away without a smile.

There is nothing contradictory about those goals. This rifle is 30 cal with the recoil of a 223 AR. The round is powerful and cheap. It loses a bit of velocity with the short barrels but I don't worry about that too much. It will still turn most normal trees into concealment.

Thank you for recognizing the thought that went into it.

Thinning out the stock helped to get rid of some of the clunky feel. The full sized rifles feel a lot like holding a thick stick instead of a rifle. The stock had the recesses for the pressed in steel inserts for the rear sling slot. I pried them out and sanded down enough to completely eliminate the recess. The whole stock is thinner over all.

Nice job, and it looks like some good machine work on the muzzle brake and rail!

Your 'scout' confuses this scout.

That thing would stand out so bad that our ancestors probably saw it in the future. That, plus being the exact opposite of QUIET, and not very effective at quickly suppressing an enemy to break away; makes that terrible for a scout.

Would be a sweet truck gun, if you keep something like Boeing Shield or some other rust preventative on it, and either clean it after every time it's fired OR only use non-corrosive ammo.

I am not military material so I don't really have to worry about being an actual "scout".

This "scout" doesn't have high capacity, but it is very quick handling for a mosin....or any bolt gun in general. It is small, light weight, and handy. The brake was a way to produce much lower recoil for faster handling and to allow my wife and daughters to shoot a 30 cal rifle without the pounding that they wouldn't take well at all. The trigger is the cleanest 5lbs I have felt in a military surplus rifle. It is most likely better than those 99% of the military uses right now.

Your criticisms are valid. The "scout" designation comes as much from the forward sight placement as anything else. I have seen rifles for sale that don't fulfill Coopers parameters for a "scout" rifle any better than this one does.

The proof is in the pudding. When you snap this rifle to your shoulder and pop the 6" square steel target at 100 yards with almost zero effort your mind might change on it's usefulness in a defensive role.

BTW: It's not pink anymore....

If you watch in slow mo the fireball almost comes back to even with the shooter. Crazy!

I like it.

Wow! I just saved that!

My step son.

I wouldn't want to be a really hairy fellow and fire it. That flame is amazing.

I would like to do one like this. Just need an accurate host.

It's just a little puff of warm air that you feel when shooting it. You don't get hot......LOL!

Wish I had the skills necessary to do something like that.  Good job!

I do feel kind of pretty firing it!

My wife wants pictures of studly Russian Bull!

How deep did you drill and tap for the rail?

The rifle looks great, but that kinda jumped out at me. The barrel looks pretty thin in profile there.

Just curious.

The work looks great!

I don't remember off the top of my head. Maybe 0.130"  or so. I made a bottoming tap out of a regular spiral tap to finish the holes to the bottom. I think I left around 0.050 to 0.075" of material at the bottom of the 8-32 hole.

Just measure the barrel and subtract the bore diameter and divide by 2. Then make sure you leave at least .050" to .075" or more wall thickness at the point of the drill bit.

Did you start with a 91/30 or use a 38 or 44 instead?

91/30's were  $79 when I made this. No way was I going to spend 3 times that for a beater project gun.

The 44 or 38 are both worth money and more desirable the way they come.