Would a Mosin be too much for home defense?

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shiftyer1 said:
It would work great if he was hiding in an old cast iron bath tub, that was behind a wall, which was next to the fridge, which sat next to the stove, in you neighbors house.
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Fixed it for you. :)

I'd use one if it's all I had, but if that was the case I'd load up some Trail Boss or Red Dot "The Load" loads. 150 Gr soft point moving at 1100 fps instead of at close to 3000 fps. Or load up some 32-cal pistol bullets with Trail Boss or Red Dot. Something like the 100 gr Hornady XTP 0.312" bullets. It would be more of a very long, very slow-to-cycle pistol... with a bayonet. Or you could find an Obrez. :) Then you'd really have a mosin pistol. :what:

If you're using full-power loads and have to fire, whoever regains their senses enough to stand first up wins. Especially if it's an M38 or M44.

Matt
 
A Mosin will blow through cinderblocks and keep going. That answer your question? Overpenetration is extreme with large rifle rounds like that.

As an upside, though, you don't necessarily have to shoot. You can bayonet them from across the room. ;-)
 
Unless you live in a really big house, like Cowboys Stadium :), I say no on the Mosin for home defense.

I second the suggestion on a used 12 Gauge Pump Shotgun loaded with 00 Buckshot.

Just my .02,
LeonCarr
 
It'd work okay, although it'd be kind of loud and unwieldy and obviously slower to fire then a semi-auto. Obviously you'd want to hunker down in a room and aim it at the door. For all it's weaknesses, rifle rounds tend to be much more effective man stoppers then handguns, so at least it has that going for it.

What would worry me would be missing (as it would with any bolt action). Overpenetration? Sheesh, don't build houses out of paper-mache ;)

However, a Mosin would defininitely be on the bottom of the list of "firearms well suited for home defense".
 
Hello all, just registered and wanted to jump into a few discussions to get to know people. This seemed like an interesting place to start, lol.

To the OP, I'm not sure if it's a matter of "too much" so much as just a matter of the wrong tool for the job. Depending on where you live, you could theoretically use a Mosin for HD with the right ammo, which you would of course have to handload. There are .30 caliber bullets designed not to overpenetrate, at least no more than some of the 12ga loads people use, and they do produce horrifically devastating wounds, on the level where the trauma alone might actually be enough to stop someone. I've seen discussions about using such loads in the SOCOM 16 for HD, and it seemed like something worth discussing.

The main problem as I see it is the unwieldyness of using a bolt action rifle indoors. At HD distances, you would likely only get one shot. In the time it would take you to rack another round in the chamber, even if you were fast, an intruder could be on you. And it just gets worse if the intruder is armed. Close quarters gunfights are won or lost in the first few seconds, so even if the intruder only had a 5 shot revolver he could still dominate the fight.

I agree with the others that the better option would be to pick up a used shotgun. If it were me, I would be looking for a Mossberg 500 with an 18 inch barrel. It's hard to go wrong with a 12ga with a tube full of 00 buckshot.
 
If a M1 was good enough for Clint Eastwood to defend his home with, 7.62x54r has pretty similar ballistics. :evil:

I'd favor the M44 due to the shorter length and bayonet. M38 as a second choice. M93-30 would only work if your house has a VERY open floorplan!
Be sure to get the soft point hunting ammo obviously.
And plan on needing hearing aids if you ever had to actually use it!

But, honestly, this is only if a Mosin is really truly your only gun. Find a Mossberg Maverick or an older Ruger 9mm pistol or something. There are plenty of other guns that are inexpensive, reliable and chambered in a much better HD caliber. Well, the Mosin is inexspensive and dead reliable also but caliber combined with being bolt action makes it far from ideal.
 
Unwieldiness, over-penetration and bolt action aside, you would never hear well again firing one of these indoors without ear protection.
 
People recommending a Hi Point or a cheap pump action are completely missing the mark. You could get a cheap katana for under $100 and have a better melee weapon than the Nagant.
 
There are some assumptions being made by most of the respondents.

OP, the 91/30 would be almost useless due to the length. The M44 Carbine, on the other hand, would be plenty handy.

FMJ would be overly penetrative. 7.62x54mm soft point ammunition from the M44, however, has almost ideal performance against aggressive humans.

Even cheap Brown Bear 203 grain SP penetrated a maximum of 14.2" in 10% gel.

Unfortunately, even fairly knowledgeable gun folks sometimes tend to spout off about things they don't actually know, when a few minutes of research would give real, definitive answers instead of useless conjecture.

Now, there are indeed "issues" with using even a carbine M-N. The laughable "safety" and poor sights are the main ones, since learning to rapidly work the bolt is just a training and practice challenge. There are many better candidates for home defense use, including used lever-action rifles with expanding ammunition and used shorter pump or bolt action rifles or a shotgun.

Despite being frequently touted as a home defense arm, the shotgun should really only be the "first choice" for shooters who already have one for other shooting sports and can't afford a dedicated defensive arm, or shooters who already shoot their shotguns so much they have become like an extension of them.

I hope that helps. If you have a M44, you'll need ear pro, expanding ammunition, and practice to use it for HD. If you don't already have one, and HD is a primary mission, look around for a good used more modern rifle, and again, load it with appropriate expanding ammunition. And use ear pro.

John
 
Schwing said:
Unwieldiness, over-penetration and bolt action aside, you would never hear well again firing one of these indoors without ear protection.
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You would suffer substantial short term hearing loss, but likely not noticeable long term loss unless you had other damage.
 
OP:

You could pull the bullet and replace it with a .310 Hornady 123 grain SST or some such. Might help minimize the overpenetration a good bit...

M
 
Take Stoky's Mosin SBR above, fix it up with a stock that's easier to hang on to for practical use and then thread the barrel for a quality suppressor, and you'd have quite the handy home-defense & truck gun in one package - and hearing-safe to boot.

Overpenetration concerns would appear to diminish too since the projectile's velocity loss from the shorter tube would be significant. Even then, you could always tailor handloads for it at subsonic levels.

And that's exactly what this enterprising dude did ... :eek: Check it out:

Suppressed Mosin SBR.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=E-dE_tknOgk

:cool:
 
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Seems like he could have built a pretty nice 300 BLK SBR for what it would cost to do that...
 
Seems like he could have built a pretty nice 300 BLK SBR for what it would cost to do that.
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Well, if you're referring to the YouTube dude's Mosin SBR, the cost of the can would be the same.

But, yes, as compared to the probable gun-smithing cost to chop and thread the Mosin's barrel and then make or fit a collapsible stock on it, that wouldn't be cheap if you're going to do it right.

For a .300 BLK, assuming he already owns a 5.56 AR, it would just be the cost of a new upper. In my case, with an LMT 5.56 MRP, it was just the cost of a .300 barrel; I already had the .30-cal can to run on it.
 
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Pump shotgun , faster than you can imagine. And have a backup like a semi auto handgun.
 
MistWolf said:
Let's say your at home, watching wrestling on the TV and suddenly, you realize some bad hombre has snuck past Ol' Blue, broken into your mobile home and is coming after you with a Taser, intent on finding out where you keep your prize collectible Cheetos.

Now, he's got that Taser so that means you can't close with him and give him a good Judy-chop. All you got left between you and the horror of losing your prize Cheetos (the crown jewel of the collection being the one that looks like General Lee) is the Mosin leaning against the wall near your lounge chair.

Only thing to do is grab your faithful Karate Rifle deploy the bayonet and use it to keep the Cheeto Burglar away until you can wrestle the bolt open, chamber a round and shoot. If you miss, continue stabbing at that Bad Hombre until you can fumble another round into the chamber or Ol' Blue magnets in to see what the ruckus is about and if your lucky, bites that Bad Hombre on the tucass
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That hit way too close to home for me, I had to go check on my rare and exotic Cheeto collection after reading your post. Luckily they were right where I left them, in their respective display cases. You've got me thinking though, I might need a mosin after all....
 
nathan said:
Pump shotgun , faster than you can imagine. And have a backup like a semi auto handgun.
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Or even just the handgun if you can't afford to have multiple guns. If I could only have one gun, then it would without a doubt be my Glock 19. You could pick up a used gen3 pretty cheap, and 9mm is very economical to shoot. Some will disagree with this statement, but I would have no problem shooting steel and aluminum case ammo in my Glocks for range practice, which makes for some cheap range training.

With all that said, even a used gen3 will likely be about 100 more than a good used 12ga 500, so the shotgun still wins if a Glock isn't in your budget and home defense is your only need (i.e. you don't have a CCW permit or you already have a pistol you didn't mention). I'm making the assumption that the Mosin is your only gun if you're thinking about using it for HD, so correct me if I'm wrong.
 
To make a Cost effective Home defense Mosin you need
1. hacksaw
2. Duct tape
3 flashlight.
4. bullets


1 Cut barrel, stock and all down to 17"
2. Duct tape flashlight to the bottom of the stock.
3. practice turning the flashlight on and off
4. load rifle...
:evil:
 
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