I'm guessing a lot of people have looked at the Mosin Nagant "ex-sniper" rifles that have been kicking around recently, and thought, "I'll bet I could cobble a rifle together." The idea was particularly attractive to me, because I happened to have a PU scope and mount I picked up years ago.

So I ordered one of Samco's "Original Mosin-Nagant M91/30 Bent Bolt with 2 holes/2 pin on receiver for PU Scope and mount." The rifle I received is a 1944 dated Izhevsk, imported from Yugoslavia.

I've pondered why there so many ex-snipers floating around without optics. I don't know whether there was a shortage of optics and the Russkies tried to keep them in-country, or they didn't want to put built-up snipers in the hands of countries with whom the alliance was shaky (like Yugoslavia).

My particular rifle was rated "Special Select Condition", which SAMCO defines as "80% of original metal finish. Some dings & dents on wood, Clean Bore: pitting". The finish is actually much better than 80%. Numbers all match (not forced), except the butt plate. Wood has dings and dents, although still in decent condition with a lot of interesting markings. Those include a circular Soviet CCCP, a "10" in a circle (Bulgarian?), "BP 124" in triangle (which I understand is a Yugoslavian Military Workshop 124 refurbishment mark) and some hard to read characters in small parallelograms (one of them may be "51"). There are none of the ubiquitous Soviet rebuild marks (rectangle with slash).

The bore was slightly frosted, but the rifling is very strong. Several trips to the range followed by careful cleaning resulted in a bright and shiny bore.

The first attempt to mount the scope made it clear this was not going to be a quick or simple job. The pins protruding from the receiver did not match up with the pin holes in base plate. I had assumed all of these dimensions would be standard. But Henry Ford's miracle of mass production and interchangeable parts apparently did not completely catch up with the Soviets, at least as far as scope mounts are concerned.

I realized I should have ordered the rifle with four holes, rather than two holes/two pins. But I had to work with what I had. I tried to drive the pins out, but they wouldn't budge. In looking the situation over carefully, I ascertained that the front pin would line up correctly, so I carefully removed the rear pin with a Dremel tool, grinding the remnants of the pin flush with the receiver, so that the base plate would lay flat on the receiver.

Assuming I was over the worst of it, I prepared to install the two screws which hold the base in place on the receiver. But I quickly discovered that the distance between the screw holes in the receiver was different than the holes in the scope base plate. Again the miracle of mass production and interchangeability apparently didn't make it to war-torn Russia.

Some browsing on the web confirmed that original mounts might have a variation of as much as 2 mm between the screw holes. Mine wasn't ever going to work on that rifle.

Fortunately, I discovered that ACCUMOUNT (accumounts.com) makes bases with three different distances between centers on the screws. I measured the spacing on my receiver, and ordered closest one from ACCUMOUNT.

When it arrived, I held my breath as I slid the new base over the remaining pin, and snuggled it down onto the receiver. Although the distance between centers on the screw holes was now correct, the holes in the base did not line up with holes in the receiver. It was clear that the remaining pin was now a problem. So off she came, as had previously been the case with the rear pin.

Now it was possible to snug the base up to the receiver. Had to do some modifications to the mounting screws, as the inlets for the set-screws did not line up correctly, but that was accomplished without too much trouble. With the base plate now firmly secured on the receiver, it was apparent that the alignment on what had been the front pin was now very close. So I carefully drilled out the remainder of pin, and gently tapped a new pin through the base mount into the receiver, and it all tightened up nicely. Still one pin short of the original configuration, but everything seem secure.

I then mated the scope bracket to the base. There is a great article by Paul Oats about this process at http://www.owrpc.co.uk/images/mnpu.pdf.

Each rifle had to have the scope bracket individually machined to the base in order for the rifle to be set at a true zero. This involves shooting a few rounds, removing the bracket, and filing (presumably very small amounts) from the bracket. Unlike most scopes, the PU scope's field of view is fixed, and the adjustment turrets actually move the entire reticle within the field of view. You first center the pattern by filing the bracket, and then move the reticle to the centered pattern by adjusting the turrets. Then the turrets can be indexed (set for zero windage and correct elevation) and subsequent fine adjustments can then be made using the turrets.

The articles I read suggested the grinding process would amount to removing small amounts of metal. In the case of my mount, it turned out to be a lot of grinding. The pattern started off way to the left in the scope's field of view (which is where you want it to begin with). I fired a few rounds to warm the barrel up, then three rounds at 100 yards to get a pattern. Then I removed the bracket, filed the bracket to adjust the point of impact, and reassembled it to fire again.

You want to keep the barrel at a fairly constant temperature or the point of impact wanders around. Which means you can only work on it for a relatively short time at a stretch. If you get the barrel too hot, the patterns aren't good. You can sit around at the range and let the thing cool off, or you can go do something else. Easier for a busy person to go do something else, so I made numerous trips to the range over many days. Fire, file, fire file. I went slow, because if you grind too much, the pattern will end up to the right of center, and then you've got a problem which can only be resolved by shimming. Didn't want to go there.

Once the pattern was very nearly centered, I made the fine adjustments with the turrets and indexed them at 100 yards. At this point I was getting consistent MOA groups at 100 yards.

Then the acid test. I moved the targets out to 200+ yards and prayed that the point of impact wouldn't shift left or right. If you've done the grinding correctly the scope should be dead center over the barrel, and windage should remain constant at all ranges. If not, the problem shows up right away at 200 yards. Bingo! I was lucky - everything was perfect. First two shot straddled the vertical center line on my target. Last thing I did was cold-blue the places I had filed and ground.

I have two other Mosin Nagant snipers which are original. One I have never shot (it's an unissued post-WW2 arsenal rebuild). The other one goes to the range quite a bit. My restoration shoots a gnat's ass better than my regular shooter. In one string I had 4 out of 6 shots touching at 100yd.

Believe me, after having spent at least 20 hours on this job, I have a lot more respect for the guys who were setting these rifles up while the enemy was at the gates. Crude process by modern standards, but nonetheless effective. I'm sure the learning curve improves with experience, but there was still a lot of work to bring each individual rifle up to sniper standard. it's a far cry from modern weapon systems.

I realize that I now have a rifle that is not completely "original", and thus not particularly collectible. But it's my favorite of the three Mosin Nagant snipers I own. Why? The others will always be there - one in pristine condition. They have their own histories. Mine is a bit of a mutt - well in fact they all are - but this one was put together far from its home long after the battles it was originally meant to fight. But this one has given me a deep appreciation of what was going on in midst of a desperate war many decades ago. And there is a lot of me invested in this particular rifle. So when rounds go down range, I know what was involved during Великая Отечественная война - the Great Patriotic War. And even when I'm shooting my original sniper, the work I have done on this restoration helps me feel a tiny connection to the craftsmen who helped keep the Nazi hordes at bay more than half a century ago.