Mysterious fired casing

M

Montana Pete

Guest
I was at the range and found a fired casing in the grass that seemed very odd.

It is a bottleneck rifle case with a good sized rim. The rim is pronounced, and when looking at the base the rim is dished away from one's view.

Interior case mouth is 7.81 mm. Remember, this is the fired case, not the bullet.

Overall case length is 2.113 in.

Headstamp is tiny characters: 62 on one side, DN* on the opposite side. Very hard to read because of tiny size.

Head measurement just above rim: 0.484 inches.

I leafed through my reloading manuals and could not find it.

Any ideas of what this was, or is?
 
It seems to fit the Finnish variant in the article more than the Russian variant.

I checked with my caliper. The overall cartridge length is 53.44 mm, whereas the article cites 53.50.

The case mouth measures 7.81 mm whereas the bullet dia. is 7.83.

Holding up the fired case, which is in my hand, it is very very similar to the silhouette on the article page.

The rim dia is a little off, but not by much, and probably within manufacturing variances.

Apparently someone was shooting a Mosin-Nagant rifle out at the range. Fired case was only 20 yds from the targets, and nowhere near the firing line. Odder and odder.

Does anyone know if many of the Mosin-Nagant rifles were sold in the USA, and whether many were sporterized?

A big thank-you, and the Sherlock Holmes award, to Mr. Dennis Sorensen.
 
Bunches of them.

Moisin-Nagant (sp?) rifles are fairly common in the surplus/C&R circles in the USA. I believe that you can still find them in the $100 range. Sporterizing and semi-sporterizing these rifles is pretty popular.

I'm not up to speed on these rifles, but they really seem to have gained popularity in the last 5-10 years or so. I guess a bunch of former soviet-bloc countries have sold off their surplus rifles during this period.

SteveM.
 
The're CHEAP

Ammo for them use to be cheap also, I don't know about now. I have some good cases I reload for the one I have. I find mine to be very un-exciting. I also have a Swiss straight pull rifle that is made very well and shoots TNT's superbly. The chamber has very little freebore in it so the short bullets work nicely. Apparently the twis right for 125g bullets.The biggest problem for me now is fuzzy sights. I don't understand why I have never been able to keep the fuzz off them!

What I see more of at the ranges is the m-16 folks burning up ammo. It amazes me how folks can get such a charge out of dumping clips of ammo until the thing siezes up! I don't get the whole M-16 thing at all. I much prefer the M-1 carbine and the Garand I have.
 
The Mosin Nagant was also Manufactured in the US by Remington and Westinghouse.
After the Czar fell the US Archangel Expedition formed of professional soldiers just returned from WW! invaded Russia to seize US manufactured war materials bought by the Czar on credit and which the Red Army had no intention of paying for. US soldiers ended up being issued the Mosin Nagant because of supply problems. They also freed Czech POWs and armed them with the repo'ed Nagants to guard the rail lines while the seized war materials were rounded up and loaded on freighters.

The Mosin Nagant is an excellent design partly based on an earlier single shot designed by Berdan of our Civil War "Berdans Sharpshooters" fame. He also invented the primer that bears his name. Most of the rest of the redesign came from a Scandinavian inventor.

The cartridge is powerful and if properly manufactured it is highly accurate.
unfortunately most Soviet ammo used an undersized bullet and most bores were oversized. Bores vary from .309 to .316 with most on the loose side.

The rifle has been customized endlessly by Finn hunters with many wildcat variations of the cartridge.

Its ruggedness is legendary.

Some US long range match shooters had the bolt modified to place the handle behind the charger bridge. There are numerous modified versions.


Some were rechambered to .30/06. If done properly by setting the barrel back a few threads before cutting the new chamber these are safe, if not done properly they can be dangerous to shoot.
Those with oversize bores require bullets in the same range as the .303, 7.7mm Japanese ,or 7.65 Mauser.
 
The ones being sold now

Old Gunner said:
The Mosin Nagant was also Manufactured in the US by Remington and Westinghouse.
After the Czar fell the US Archangel Expedition formed of professional soldiers just returned from WW! invaded Russia to seize US manufactured war materials bought by the Czar on credit and which the Red Army had no intention of paying for. US soldiers ended up being issued the Mosin Nagant because of supply problems. They also freed Czech POWs and armed them with the repo'ed Nagants to guard the rail lines while the seized war materials were rounded up and loaded on freighters.

The Mosin Nagant is an excellent design partly based on an earlier single shot designed by Berdan of our Civil War "Berdans Sharpshooters" fame. He also invented the primer that bears his name. Most of the rest of the redesign came from a Scandinavian inventor.

The cartridge is powerful and if properly manufactured it is highly accurate.
unfortunately most Soviet ammo used an undersized bullet and most bores were oversized. Bores vary from .309 to .316 with most on the loose side.

The rifle has been customized endlessly by Finn hunters with many wildcat variations of the cartridge.

Its ruggedness is legendary.

Some US long range match shooters had the bolt modified to place the handle behind the charger bridge. There are numerous modified versions.


Some were rechambered to .30/06. If done properly by setting the barrel back a few threads before cutting the new chamber these are safe, if not done properly they can be dangerous to shoot.
Those with oversize bores require bullets in the same range as the .303, 7.7mm Japanese ,or 7.65 Mauser.
Click to expand...

Were made by Igor in Transylvania with a hammer and file and are absolutely unexciting. I know the North Vietnamese snipers used them BUTTTTT
 
Pete writes, What I see more of at the ranges is the m-16 folks burning up ammo. It amazes me how folks can get such a charge out of dumping clips of ammo until the thing siezes up! I don't get the whole M-16 thing at all. I much prefer the M-1 carbine and the Garand I have.
Click to expand...

I think of them as the "pop" "pop" "pop" "pop" crowd, because that's what their firing sounds like.

I have to be careful -- I'm a senior citizen who cut my teeth in a different world, and I can be a little intolerant.

One explanation can be that the shooting sports have tended to follow whatever mainstream rifle is in the hands of American soldiers. The black "tactical" rifles are where it is right now.

Ammo is also surprisingly cheap for these rifles.

There are competitions set up for these rifles where people fire around barriers, race from concealment to concealment, and where the farthest targets seem like no more than 40 yds. So that answers the question, "what do people do with them." Note: I am not trying to put down these competitions.

On a different forum, questions come up with some frequency about "how do you hunt deer with them?" That's one problem, since the .223 is not a very ideal hunting caliber for larger animals. The vast number of the black rifles out there will bring more tendency to use them where they are far from ideal.

Anyway, like I said, I have my doubts that I want or need one, but I am trying to understand their appeal and not be too "old fashioned" and obstinate.

Best to all--
 
Many of those competitions are three-gun.......

matches, where the rifle, pistol & handgun are involved. For an eye-opener, look at the Benelli "tactical competition" shotgun. A friend of mine had gotten his son interested in these "competitions", and the boy was quite good, shooting his father's AUG, & eventually had two AR-15s of his own. When he went in the Army, he was Ranger qual-ed, & sent to Afghanistan & he saw the M-16s there were failing to extract/eject properly, & told the powers that be, that the rifles didn't have the proper extractor spring in them. He was told, yes they did, he maintained the spring was silver, it was supposed to be gold. Long story short, they were going to Court-Martial him for taking out the extractor, he wasn't qualified, etc. He finally told them, "Look, I have TWO AR-15s at home, I do this all the time, and, I can prove this isn't the right spring." He then whipped out a copy of a 2003-04 comic-book manual page, one of six he had laminated, where the old Sarge said the proper spring WAS gold, and the NSN, etc. etc. He wound up as the armorer for his company of Rangers in Afganistan. BINGO! No more problems with their rifles. If any of you have loved ones over there, send them a couple gold extractor springs from Brownell's & a punch. I did this for my brother when he was in Iraq, & the guys in his company said, "Man, you really got some good $_)(*&^(T! And it works ALL the time!!" The first thing he did when he was issued a rifle, was to look for the spring, & his needed replacement, which he did, I also sent him nine of Brownell's magazines, too. Didn't want to hijack the thread, thought I could give y'all a little background on how some of these competitions can help SAVE lives. They ain't just for youngsters, either, some of us older shooters can learn something that just may help out in the UNcertain future. Just a thought. :D:D;)
 
Just from reading back over......

the other posts, Pete, another friend has a Mosin sniper he got 10-12yrs ago, before they put import marks on them, this was one of the re-conditioned WWII rifles. The 'scope is only a 3.5X, but its BDC, and I was amazed at the clarity on small objects at 200yds. And, with good ammo, I was surprised at the accuracy level of such a rifle. The Draganov isn't such a hot rifle either, but I was told it was effective because the operators were so familiar with it. The Spetsnaz would get up in the morning, do PT, go to the range for an hr. or so, then go to chow, then hit the barracks to get squared away, then, back to the range, then noon chow, then mail call, then an hr. off, then some other duties. Then, maybe night-firing. I doubt the training is so intense now, w/the financial situation, but I was told back in the 70-80s their training routines were quite rigorous. Also, a good around-the-house load for your Carbine, is: the brass, primer, powder YOU want, and the Hornady Short-Jacket(my favorite), or Speer "Plinker". Either of these bullets change things dramatically. If you want to see for yourself, take about four 1-gallon milk jugs filled w/water, lined up @ 100yds. Also, tie some newsprint into 12 inch bundles, then soak those bundles for a week, ten days. Fire 4-5rds. at a bundle, try one behind the other. Line up 4 jugs in two different lines, then when you've fired at one line, let someone else(after he confirms where its shooting for him)fire at the other, then YOU watch. It will change your mind about the "worthless" little carbine, trust me!! ;) :D:D
 
Theres a hidden problem of the M1 Carbine thats seldom mentioned these days, probably the condition has been dealt with as far as most surviving GI carbines are concerned.

Heres my experiance with it and my field expediance fix.

A gunshop owner had a GI carbine that had been sold and returned several times due to jamming.
He gave me the carbine and several boxes of ammo to test it out and find out why it was jamming so often and so tightly that you had to kick the op handle to open it.

It jammed just the way he said an average of one in every six rounds fired.

I examined the fired cases and one in six were significantly longer than the rest.

I then remembered having read that in order to prevent the action from flying open from inertia when dropped on the butt, and sometimes when a soldier dismounted quickly from a vehicle, they'd added a tiny lump to the right hand locking surface with a dimple in the right hand locking lug.
Sure enough this carbine had that modification.

When a carbine was fired more than a few times the lump would be worn down slightly and if ammo was within strict specs it didn't cause a problem anyway.
Unfortunately much of the .30 Carbine ammo available at the time displayed some variation in case length. Softer than normal cases would also stretch.

I used a white arkansas whet rock to smooth out the right hand locking surface and the Carbine no longer jammed.

I've seen this sort of problem only once, out of several carbines I've fired including commercial types, but others have reported having the same type of jam in combat using GI issue ammunition.
 
I bought a pair of Mosin Nagants last year from a Big 5 Sporting goods store here in town. I think they were on sale for $79 each. Looks to be a sturdy rifle. Haven't had the time to go out and fire them. I really bought them for my son and I to shoot at the range(informal competition, father-son stuff) but since he got sent to Iraq,the plans got derailed. Oh well, I have plenty of ammo and I guess we will get to them later this year.

Best,
Dan Batko

"Where are we going and why am I in this basket?"
 
A word from die-hard member of the "pop" "pop" "pop" crowd; the ARs flat outshoot. I can't work up a thrill for blasting away like Pete describes either, but I've used the ARs in Service Rifle competition for well over a decade now. I earned about half my points towards my Distinguished Rifleman badge with an M14, so I've been at this a while. And yes, I was shooting at Perry when the M14 ruled the line, there were M1s aplenty, and the sight of an AR would have been cause for a serious second (questioning) glance. You don't see the M14s there anymore, aside from a small handful of hard corps holdouts. The reason is simple; the ARs have evolved far beyond the M14s, and are now clearly the superior match rifle for HP competition. In other words, don't knock 'em until you've tried 'em! You have every right to expect a match built AR to shoot a righteous 1/2 MOA. Ballistically, they give up virtually nothing to the M14s since the development of the heavy weight match bullets, and are so clearly an advantage at 200 and 300 yard RF stages that it's not even a fair comparison. Scores that would have gotten you leg points back when the M14 was THE Service Rifle, won't even get you close enough to smell any points today.

I don't shoot three-gun matches, but I've shot HP across-the-course competition for over 30 years now. I can assure you, there are some very serious shooters out here who use the ARs as their primary competitive hardware. Swing by Camp Perry this August if you don't believe me . . .

Kevin Thomas
Berger Bullets
 
K Thomas--

Thank you very much. I've learned something.

Lots of what you stated I did not know.

Fascinating stuff.

I had no idea a .223 could hold its own in matches against .308s.

Appreciated your taking the time to post your message--
 
There's a Mosin Nagant site --

www.mosinnagant.net/

History, markings, variants, specs. etc. I bought a M-44 and then a Mauser. Things snow-balled from there. I have a 91-30 and a couple Mausers still. And a Makarov for that matter . . .

I like the old military stuff.
 
HP across the course in the 80's them Ar were hard to beat, properly set up they tended to rule the 200 and 300 yard lines ( recoil recovery), 600 yd at that time, you had a chance to catch up. Always liked a nice twichy breeze at 600 as it would play havoc with the little pills. We added golf tee's to the pits for spoting purposes as the standard spotters were too big for the tiny holes/groups during rapid fire. Just an old bolt slapper and M1 guy here.
Added note one shooter was using an AR platform but 6mm bore, 6/223 I think, he called it his mouse gun. this was in early 80's.
 
Hey Pete,

My pleasure I assure you. Seems like we all get comfy in our own little niche, and often don't see what else is going on in the firearms community. Since the ARs are under such intense attack from our elected officials, I tend to try to enlighten folks whenever I can. Benchresters need to work with hunters, who need to work with skeet shooters, who need to work with pistol shooters who need to work with Service rifle shooters, etc.. I think it was Ben Franklin who made the observation that "if we don not hang together, we most assuredly shall hang separately."

Now, help me off this soap box before I fall . . ..

Kevin Thomas
Berger Bullets
 
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