Found this cool video, and thought I’d share:
As much as I love to collect and shoot Mosin Nagant rifles, I do NOT keep them around as practical rifles. This may be selling some of my workhorse guns rather short, as they are reasonably accurate rifles, plenty powerful, and while a bit of an oddball caliber in America, soft point hunting ammunition can be found with little trouble.
Still they’re clunky rifles compared to other more elegant guns, and as the above video shows the safeties are ugly to operate. Furthermore on one of the few occasions I was fiddling with the safety on my Mosin, I had the entire bolt disassemble in my hand. Dunno if this was a fluke, but it turned me off on ever using the gun like any other rifle. I think if I was ever in need to lug one of my Mosins in the woods I’d simply load the magazine with 4 rounds, and simply ride the bolt over the magazine and close it on an empty chamber, and take my chances racking a round into the chamber before I fire.
That being said the mod jobs listed in the video seem like good ideas if that’s what you’re going to do, all the best if you don’t end up damaging the original parts of the gun. The best mods on military guns are ones where you can quickly return the gun to stock configuration.
Also somebody in the comments mentions Timney Triggers which appears to solve two major problems of the Mosin Nagant rifle. The silly safety (by adding a cross-bolt safety) and the ugly trigger pull. And it appears that no modifications are necessary, so the gun isn’t devalued in the upgrade!
