I'm the happy owner of 3 Mosin Nagants (and many other firearms).
These are the following reasons why I decided to buy them rather than an Enfield, Mauser or other military rifles (from the non strictly antique collectors perspective...I am a "practical shooting" collector)
- Price. You cannot beat it at $ 75..the cheapest Enfield or Mauser I can find at the moment are well over $ 200...for that price I can easily buy an used Savage, Stevens, Remington or a nice sporterized and "scope ready" Mauser all of them in excellent conditions and chambered in the popular 30-06. Sometimes at that price you get those rifles even with a decent scope.
A Springfield 03 is chambered in 30-06 but cost wise it is on a different ballpark with prices often exceeding those in brand new quality rifles.
- Ammunition. Ammo for the Mosin are cheap, even the civilian hunting ammo (I never shoot surplus). I can easily buy a box of 7,62 X 54R for less than $10.
For the 8 mm Mauser (the anemic American version) or the 303 British instead, you need to fork out more than $25 a box unless you buy surplus (in rapidly decreasing supply)
Furthermore, ammo for the Mosin nowdays are more easily found than the 8 mm Mauser or the 303. I'm not a reloader.
Because the 54R is stil in use in modern military weapons in major mlitary forces, I suppose this cartridge will be around for very long time almost surely outliving 8 mm Mauser and 303 British.
The economic cost is stacked against sporterizing one of my Mosin....as I mentioned before I can get a very good used sporter or modern rifle in 06, maybe even with a scope for the price of buying a sporter stock and gunsmith costs for scope base installation.
My reasoning make sense to you???
Regards
P.S.
Last year for few weeks Big 5 had a batch of Yugo Mauser in very good conditions a $89....at that price even considering the ammo shortcomings (price and availability, American anemic version) I would have bought it.
I lost that train....
These are the following reasons why I decided to buy them rather than an Enfield, Mauser or other military rifles (from the non strictly antique collectors perspective...I am a "practical shooting" collector)
- Price. You cannot beat it at $ 75..the cheapest Enfield or Mauser I can find at the moment are well over $ 200...for that price I can easily buy an used Savage, Stevens, Remington or a nice sporterized and "scope ready" Mauser all of them in excellent conditions and chambered in the popular 30-06. Sometimes at that price you get those rifles even with a decent scope.
A Springfield 03 is chambered in 30-06 but cost wise it is on a different ballpark with prices often exceeding those in brand new quality rifles.
- Ammunition. Ammo for the Mosin are cheap, even the civilian hunting ammo (I never shoot surplus). I can easily buy a box of 7,62 X 54R for less than $10.
For the 8 mm Mauser (the anemic American version) or the 303 British instead, you need to fork out more than $25 a box unless you buy surplus (in rapidly decreasing supply)
Furthermore, ammo for the Mosin nowdays are more easily found than the 8 mm Mauser or the 303. I'm not a reloader.
Because the 54R is stil in use in modern military weapons in major mlitary forces, I suppose this cartridge will be around for very long time almost surely outliving 8 mm Mauser and 303 British.
The economic cost is stacked against sporterizing one of my Mosin....as I mentioned before I can get a very good used sporter or modern rifle in 06, maybe even with a scope for the price of buying a sporter stock and gunsmith costs for scope base installation.
My reasoning make sense to you???
Regards
P.S.
Last year for few weeks Big 5 had a batch of Yugo Mauser in very good conditions a $89....at that price even considering the ammo shortcomings (price and availability, American anemic version) I would have bought it.
I lost that train....
