For everyone purchasing Finland Mosins, check the barrel in front of the receiver. If it has a D on the barrel, It means the bore is .310 and uses the Russian “heavy” bullets .311 to .313 diameter. If the barrel does not have a D, you can use .308 diameter bullets. For the .308 barrels, the original load was a very moderate load. Using recommended load data with Vitavori extruded powder most often produces the best results.
Aaron Buckmaster that is true on most Finnish Mosins, but all M39s are made for the .310....it was the standard from the design. Some have the D mark due to institutional inertia, it it wasn’t a requirement since the standard size of the M39 is .310. So if your M39 isn’t marked D, it will still be .310
D CS it is true that most all were re barreled, but if the receiver on the barrel has a D on it, the bore will be .313. I’ve seen D rifles cause people fits until the bore diameter was explained, and they loaded accordingly. The real headaches are the 7.62X39 mini 14’s. They have a tapered bore from 313 to 308. Some work better with 308, some work better with 313 and some work better with 310. Those barrels have caused people some headaches.
@@johnniemac173 oh yeah. The Finnish ammunition is great. That was mostly for people who reload. Most of the “D” barrels were changed out. The Finns really are a shooting culture, and they know what they’re doing. I have Russian Mosin that papers from the battle for Stalingrad and very likely made it into Germany, but I’d give it up in a heartbeat for a Finnish Mosin.
@@johnniemac173 originally.... your fin rifle was chambered for 7.62x53r...... yup...1mm shorter case . now, the fins designed it to be able to shoot 54r..... so they could use captured ammo . but using the longer rounds (54r) might be the reason for any sticky bolts, bad accuracy, and shortened brass life
@@aaronbuckmaster7063 my un issued1944 M39 D chamber slugged out at about .310, been ages since I went through the process but from that I determined that was the reason it shot the .308 poorly. when I got some of the D166 projectiles which are .310. it shot beautifully. I have not considered larger projectiles but since I saw the .311 projectiles being run here I might try some myself.
Cold outside, its 02/2020 and I just watched this video. Made me laugh when he killed the plate on the saw horse. Man I can't get enough of these videos. Just laughing till my stomach aches.
I think that M39 is friggin beautiful.... I think you scored and your change of perception is warranted. Also...Very informative video. I learned a lot and that's what I'm in this for.
Great Job on this video, I loved seeing the transition from the hand loading to the range. Beautiful Rifle also, I like the patina and character of Your rifle. Great shooting also Sir.
Oh yeah! I also used murpheys oil and hot water to clean my stock, but I made up some "gunny paste" (qual parts 1/3 pure beeswax, 1/3 turpintine, 1/3 boiled linseed oil). It moisturized the stock a lot (it's dry here in West Texas) and gives it a more muted but conditioned look and took away the ashyness of the wood. I made 1/2 a cup of each in my first batch of paste and have probably 80% left. A little goes a looooong way. If you're looking for something to help out, I highly suggest it.
Johnny, Good stuff dude. I have to be conservative because Budget is the key word. Not knowing what your Budget is considered So bare with me, I would do this in steps, (A) I would choose a place to pour a 12X12 concrete pad with the thickness of a sidewalk as is will never hold any real weight. (B) when Budget allows, I would gather the materials for building a covered Lean Too roofed area. I would construct a sturdy bench and set it off to one side and make a shooting shack, one area for shooting prone, sitting or standing, and then the bench area for accuracy testing. You have a Range in your Backyard. You could set up netting on one side to catch your brass making clean up a snap. It could be a selling point if you were to sell your house also as a foundation for a Lawn equipment shed. Dave.
I'm doing about this - using a cheap utility shed from Home Depot (they run about $200) and am still debating on either a concrete pad or a wooden deck. The area is a bit hard to get a delivery of concrete to so just some posts concreted into the ground and a wooden deck may be more efficient (and cheaper). The brass will generally stay inside the shed and the rain or snow will stay out.
this rifle was made to shoot X53r...... 1mm shorter than x54r (duh) . but the fins were not stupid.... and its close enough that captured X54r will work however, for best accuracy, easy cycling, and brass life.... cut ~1mm off that 54r case . idk if anyone even makes 53r brass and/or dies....
The cosmoline goes on after theres no bluing or gun black. Bores are gone. The older and newer Russian 91/30and Polish carbines are better looking guns.
I got mine from Classic as well. And I opted for the “hand select” also. But mine was in good shape....except for the bore. I expected some wear due to corrosion from the type of ammo used at the time. Even with that and my 60 year old eyes I managed very good groups @ 50 & 100 yds. I shot surplus 148 gr FMJ Silver Tip (made in Bulgaria in the 1980’s, I believe).
Thanks for making this video! I just got mine last week. It was in the same condition as you described. Except that it had a lot of sand in the inside or between the stocks and barrel and receiver. I still haven't started cleaning it. It might take me a while to shoot it. The bore grooves are a bit worn out.
My m39 SKY with a straight stock had awesome bluing and the bore was bright and had real strong amount of rifling. I'm just starting to reload for it now. Cool that someone else is doing it and sharing some high quality videos for it. I stumbled upon your channel last night and may have watched all of the videos... good stuff!
Ya, I got my M39 from Classic and was disappointed with the rifle that I received. It showed up looking nice, but was missing a few parts like the rear sight, bolt stop (bolt pulled right out of the receiver), and some trigger parts. They were happy to let me return it and sent me a different rifle (had to pay a 2nd transfer fee) and that one was also missing trigger parts. I ordered the parts and fixed it, but you'd think they could take 2 seconds to cycle the bolt and dry fire it. I'm sure M39's will be worth $1k in 10 years or less, very nice rifles.
You have a Finnish model which is one of the better ones, the hand chosen was probably what got you the Hex receiver which is what makes the gun special. The Hex are the early production and more valued than the latter models when war was raging and they stop taking the time to do this machining and went to the round receiver. Hang on to that, you have a good gun! Fortune Cookie 45 would love that gun. You also have nice markings on the stock from the gun being serviced.
No, i have the Russian 91/30. In fact I have 6, two round receivers, two Hex and two Carbine. Thank you for the information on the Finnish, I will look for one :-)
As far as I know all m39 rifles were built on hex receivers. The Finn's never actually made receivers for their mosins and mostly used old hex reciever rifles to build their service rifles from.
If you use linseed oil, it has to be boiled linseed oil. Check out info on woodworking finishes and techniques. Consider your rifle stock as fine wood furniture. An ever better choice might be tung oil. It should stand up to temperatures over 100°F better and not ooze oil. In either case; sand down the finish with fine grit sandpaper folllowed by fine and very fine steel wool. Wipe clean and remove all dust and debris. Of course, the stock is removed from the rest of the rifle when doing this. You need to condition the entire stock. At least two to three light but thorough coats of oil, let sink into the wood, hand rub entire stock vigorously and thoroughly, let dry and absorb oil between coats, then resand with extra fine steel wool to roughen and expose the wood grain for better absorption between coats and reapply the oil. No need to resand with steel wool after final heavy oiling. Then, each time doing a cleaning, put a few drops of oil on the stock and hand rub into entire exposed surface. Should give you a varnished like appearance with resistance to humidity, high head and drying out in severe cold. Just consistently do the full hand rub with a few drops of oil at each cleaning and the finish will keep getting better. This assumes you regularly and frequently clean your weapon and store it in decent conditions. Take care of your weapon and it will take care of you. Assume a sergeant is looking over your shoulder to make sure you do a proper job.
My son has one.........shots sub moa at 100 and 200m (scout scope fitted no-drill mount). Amazing gun, but it did take a LOT of cleaning on the barrel before we could shoot it (long term storage gunk). We havent even tuned our hand loads, just used a starter load from a manual ( ADI powders Australia). Amazing guns.
That's a nice M39. As far as Classic goes, you did pretty well because some of the "hand selects" that got sent out were really bad. Yours is a typical "very good" example of a M39 as far as metal but your stock is above average condition. Most of the wartime stocks are much more beat up, so you did good. The people Classic bought that huge batch of M39's from used to sell about 10 of them a week on their own website. Pat Burns was her name. You could pick the one you want and see a series of pics of each one with bore condition listed and everything. I got all mine that way. I was sad when they sold all the rest to Classic because I knew they would overstate the condition (they always do) and you wouldn't have any idea about bore condition nor be able to see pics of the actual rifle. They also bumped the prices up. But the typical M39 has pretty worn metal like that. No big deal, it's part of the charm. They are amazing rifles and one with a good bore will hang with any other bolt actions of the era in accuracy. Most of the rifles from that batch had a interesting preservative on them that was quite hard to clean off. All four of mine had it. It was almost like pine tar, which I know they used on the stocks. But, it kept the metal from rusting so I don't mind. I believe the people who imported them got a batch of around 20,000. Not sure how many they had left when they sold out to Classic.... Classic sold all the worst ones first, and screwed a ton of people over. There was a thread on gunboards where everyone was posting their pics...rusted rifles, cracked stocks. The forum mods had to close the thread because Classic is a board sponsor and people were totally pissed off at Classic. The owner ended up getting on there and apologizing. It was a mess. Classic's hand select fee is a scam and I have not only seen this from several of my own purchases, but was told by an employee over the phone that he didn't even take my SKS out of the plastic to look at it before he shipped it to me, and I paid hand select. It was rusted so badly it wasn't safe to shoot. It had wet sand between the stock and the metal, yet was listed as "the best shipment we have ever received!" and I paid 20 bucks for hand select. Buy from SouthernOhioGun if you can....they are honest on their condition description and their hand select is real, and only 10 bucks. SOG had a tiny batch of M39's that showed up randomly one day...listed as "good to very good" but a great price, so I jumped and got one. It looks unissued. I scored big time on that one. This was after Classic sold most of theirs and only had the really rough ones left.
Boiled linseed oil on the stock then gunny paste is you best friend. I cleaned my stock first ( disassembled) with krud cutter and steel wool. It looks amazing now. Just a tip from someone who has been there.
I bought pure tung oil for my M1 Garand stock so that's what I've been using. Not really doing proper coats...just lightly rubbing a little on the surface. Seems to be working okay so far. I just want to knock the dryness off of it. Thanks for sharing your experience.
Tung oil is ok I have used it for modern rifle woods I like its gloss. It is way more water resistant that BLO. But for the classic historic flat look for me BLO does the job. But there are so may threads of BLO vs Tung oil in the forums it would make your head spin. Good luck with your M-39 from Classic Firearms... mine I bought was in great condition but I didn't buy a Sky so I can't speak to that.
JRB - Congrats on your M39..!! Seems that de-Cosmolening Mosins are part of the fun of ownership. It's not surprising that the Sako guns are not only accurate, but well sighted in - they just shoot into the black at 100 yards from sandbags all day long with surplus ammo. Continued good shooting' to ya... FC Steve
Nice mosin and nice group. Man I need to track one of these down. Making me want to pull the 9130's and shoot them more. Of course after 50 or so rounds I'm ready to put them back in the safe.
I love to shoot surplus centerfire but after a day my shoulder hurts. Even with a buttpad. The Bulgarian 180 gr. heavy ball is the hardest on me. I can shoot 100 rds. and I'm done
I was having issues with my 54r FL sizing. The Lee die wasn't touching the shell holder no matter how I adjusted it. I took it all apart and couldn't see anything wrong. I've probably run about 1,000 cases through it. I bought a RCBS neck sizing die with no problems. The die and holder touch. I speculate that I wasn't using enough lube inside the neck, and it eventually deformed the die. I'm keeping the FL die to prep a new case. After the case has formed to the chamber, then I'll use the neck die and save wear on the case.
Love my M-39 Sako it looks like a fence post compared to the 1 you have , but i paid $65.00 for it back in 1997, its a great shooter ,need to do some custom loads for it .
good vid bro, i purchased "a few" m39's direct from mrs. pat burns when you could exam them before you purchase them well before they folded up and dumped their remaining stock on classic firearms. my m39's seem to love 200 or 203 grain ammo, i normally use wold wpa 200gr fmj match extra ammo in mine it works great and it dont shoot annoyingly high like when you shoot 147 grain ammo.
That is more than acceptable for 100 yards. A newly manufactured M1 Garand from any factory with a new barrel has to be acceptable at 8 inches both windage and elevation at that distance to be accepted for service at the minimum with battle sights. I am sure the Finns made their rifles to accept better accuracy than the Americans. I have both a M39 with a bent bolt who ever made the modification either the Finns or the owner and a Rock Island M1903 with a 1942 SA barrel. These rifles are my prized rifles because with adjustable sights on both they shoot the same just using standard Russian and American factory surplus ammo either old or newly manufactured brass. On average my Finn M39 with using vey careful time using Russian, Bulgarian, Czech, Warsaw Pact ammo 147 grain at 4- 6 inches at 100 yards with battle sights. Both rifles even though they are old are a true rifleman's rifle. The individual Finn soldier have maintained these rifles superbly after WWII like the Swiss and are par with the Swiss marksmanship. My M39 is easy to adjust the sights like my M1903 than my Swiss K31.
My m39 (with handloads) is good up to 400 meters for ringing 30cm plates. More to do with my eyesight than the gun, the gun is not the limiting factor.
Great vid JRB, and great shooting. The first 5 shoots looked like they landed within 2-3 inches. Is your Mosin Counterbored or does it still have the original crown? Either way it looks like a good shooter. Thanks for the vid.
I paid for an excellent condition M39 and got totally shafted. Maybe 60% bluing, several cracks throughout, including one in the bolt(!), why the hell did I pay an extra $60 for a "Fair" condition rifle?
That group with iron sights is as good or better than my PSA .223 upper shooting with a scope at 100 yards. I am following your barrel change for your AR and will likely go the same route.
Try a shorter oal when you have a long jump to rifling; I E seat the bullet where the base of bearing surface is even with base of neck ; the best support is the most accurate in this scenario 👍👍👍👍👍
good video sir. classic firearms got all of their finnish m39 mosins direct from Pat Burns. i believe she and her biz imported the whole lot of finnish mosins into usa in the late 90's early 2000's if i recall correctly. she apparently wanted to close her business and classic firearms purchased the remaining stock of rifles she had left and most of them were in "ok to average" shape/condition or as i would say "bottom of the barrel" condition. when she had her biz. website active you could actually see the individual rifles she had for sale, when i purchased my finnish m39's from her website (gunsnammo.com/) back in 2009-2011 when the prices were actually quite good since there was not a super high demand for them at that time period since we had a large quantity of russian mosins in the us gun market.
I think i got 1 of the "ok " guns i call her " Old Ugly " , but she sure can shoot , ill never sell it bought it from Daves Guns Spokane { 9 mile falls actually} for $65.00 back in 1997 i believe , what a deal .
Johnny, cause of your videos i got into reloading and subbed you. thanks. BTW, in a M-39 is 42.5 grs. of R-15 still your best load for your beautiful rifle ?...................
There is a steel target company based out of Ohio called Toxic Targets, they make some cool designs like coyotes or bottles even silhouettes. Check them out if you get the chance I've talked to the owner through Instagram and they seem like a good bunch of dudes! Some fancy AR500 steel would go great on your range!
You're right, though 7.62x53r and 7.62x54r are actually the same cartridge. The length is something like 53.5mm so the Finns rounded down to 53mm while the russians rounded up and called it 54mm. So they're the same round, just called different things.
53R is actually Lapua's design bullet to be more accurate so it's different shape than 54R. It was their 1st own design and kind of starting point to company design own ammo.
Its a war surplus rifle, & mot certainly saw combat by the date proofing. You ask me, that only ads value. Not gonna find a 'pristine' war-time rifle that saw two wars. (Winter war & the Continuation.) You get what you pay for.
Mine too, I got a swedish mauser, no parts matched, the bluing could be confused with chrome, the stock was cracked, the straight bolt was swapped for an angled, and someone cut the handguard band in half to engrave the barrel for import.
When I heard him talking about how he wasn’t happy with the condition, I looked at all my surplus rifles and thought....wow his M39 looks pretty damn good.
Hey Johnny. Another off the wall question, but how do you like the Gempro 250 scale. I've been contemplating on buying one. It would be nice to weigh loads to .01 grains.
People r stripping the authenticity off the rifles by scrubbing the stocks down.the men that carried those rifles put pine tar on them to preserve r stop them from being so slick r maybe camo. I read about it n a M-39 article.but whatever it is.that black color is pine tar.if u want to keep it authentic and worth more don't scrub it off.
If you happen to have a D stamped on the barrel or receiver, it was ment to shoot this bullet www.midwayusa.com/product/721823/lapua-bullets-762x54mm-rimmed-russian-762x53mm-rimmed-310-diameter-200-grain-full-metal-jacket-boat-tail-box-of-100 the kind people from lapua stil make them :) For non D chambers its the D46 www.lapua.com/en/reloading-components/bullets/d46 Then again i also had good groups with www.midwayusa.com/product/1270570188/lapua-scenar-bullets-30-caliber-308-diameter-167-grain-jacketed-hollow-point-boat-tail My experience is that they like heavy pills atleast
glock17games the D signifies it is best suited to D166, but will also chamber Russian rounds without issue as well. B barrels were more in line with the m28 barrel and made on contract so do not handle 54r particularly well.
Oh they will eat about all you can throw in it no problem. But lapua and VithaVouri stil make the brass, bullets and even powder they used back in the day. So its fun to try to copy the old cartridge :) Vithavouri used a powder back in the day that they based their N140 on. And they shoot well tbh, then again i dont think ive ever shot a bad Lapua bullet. But like i said in the first post. They also like Scenars and even SMK will do fine in it. Heck even PRVI Partizan ones will get you half decent groups.
glock17games have you tried the poor mans D166 from Hornady? I bought a couple boxes of their 3105 176gr stuff but haven't had the chance. Partially still bitter about getting screwed from classic so I've neglected my other m39.
Cant say that i have, i do use A max for .308 win sometimes, but Hornady costs about the same as Lapua on this side of the pond. So i cant really call it a poor mans choice over here :) Poor mans choice would be PRVI Partizan or Sellier & Bellot. PRVI (PPU) offers a few fair priced bullets for .303 which i use for my Tulla Mosin sniper :) The Fin Captured mosin however seems to prefer the food its new masters provide :)
Ah, well over here Lapua is roughly twice the price of anything else. I wish Hornady would put out 54R brass cause the options are Lapua, Norma, S&B/Winchester, or PPU. While reloading PPU is a pretty easy task buying it is pretty hard when nobody typically stocks it. I usually just reload fired PPU brass though I may try some 53R brass sometime. As for the bullets, Lapua is easily twice the price of Sierra Gamekings and still way more than Matchkings or these www.hornady.com/store/.3105-303-CAL. Those Hornadys ran me $31/100, matchkings were 34. Last time I saw a box of lapua bullets in stock they were going for $60. If I ever plan to hit something at a mile, I'll spring for it... Maybe.
I was looking at M39's last night on classics website. They are all cracked but was still interested in grabbing one up if the bore was good. Do you have buyers remorse with classic? Would you do it differently now? Or should I just say the hell with it and grab a K31 from gunbroker...
I have ordered several guns from Classic and have no complaints about how they do business. Shipping was fast and it was easy to find my local FFL on their site. Five stars, would do business with again. HOWEVER, they are the gun community's version of sleazy used car salesmen. Every shipment of guns they get are advertised as being ULTRA RARE, LAST SHIPMENT EVER, GREATEST GUN IN THE HISTORY OF FIREARMS, ACT NOW BECAUSE THESE WILL BE SOLD OUT IN 10 MINUTES!!! If you drove my their warehouse I bet they have a wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube man out front. As long as you shop them with that kept in mind, they are a great place to buy from! I don't really know anything about stock repairs or the aftermarket stocks that might be available so I can't offer much advice on that. If they are down to only selling cracked stocks now, they must have sold a bunch. You might see if they are showing up on gunbroker now.
I bought the VEPR 23" AK from them last November and it cost $95 to ship to Hawaii. I didn't see the 23" VEPR before nor since so I had to pull the trigger on the purchase. Also, Hawaii has a 10 round limit on pistols but CF can't distinguish between pistols and rifles so I have to call them to override the order block if ordering a rifle with a 30 round clip. Modern technology I guess...
Nothing clear. There are two "3" stamps on opposite sides of the tang and a circular mark near the middle that I can't identify. I've seen other places where Izhevsks sometimes have weird 3 marks. I might go closer into the markings in a future video.
It is a Redfield Rampage 20-60x60. amzn.to/2sMPxOR It is one of the cheapest spotting scopes out there and it is not very good. The clarity is just not very good. I have successfully spotted 6.5mm bullet holes at 400 yards with it, but the light has to be perfect for that. It spots 22 holes at 100 and 200 yards no problem, though...so if that's all you need it's not bad.
Tossa tulee vielä se ruudinkäyttö ja muu työnjälki mukaan, kun itte tekevät patruunat. Ei nyt ehkä vielä 100 metrillä tai yardilla, mut pitemmillä etäisyyksillä. Ja voishan se olla kulunu luuskakin, vaik ei sellasia pahemmin myydä kai virallisia kanavia. Jokin maakellarissa maannu epävirallinen ase vois olla huonossa kunnossa. Ja - olen siinä samaa mieltä, että yleensä se tumpelo on siinä pyssyn takana kiskomassa liipasinta :)
m/39 a.k.a Pystykorva or Ukko-Pekka, have best iron sights ever. If somebody don`t agree, i call him a liar... or just ignorant. Shooting at 50 yards range is an insult to the gun, and the spectators.
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The dimple on top of the receiver is the russian czar's eagle emblem ground off.
So the receiver is over 100 years old.
For everyone purchasing Finland Mosins, check the barrel in front of the receiver. If it has a D on the barrel, It means the bore is .310 and uses the Russian “heavy” bullets .311 to .313 diameter. If the barrel does not have a D, you can use .308 diameter bullets. For the .308 barrels, the original load was a very moderate load. Using recommended load data with Vitavori extruded powder most often produces the best results.
Aaron Buckmaster that is true on most Finnish Mosins, but all M39s are made for the .310....it was the standard from the design. Some have the D mark due to institutional inertia, it it wasn’t a requirement since the standard size of the M39 is .310. So if your M39 isn’t marked D, it will still be .310
D CS it is true that most all were re barreled, but if the receiver on the barrel has a D on it, the bore will be .313. I’ve seen D rifles cause people fits until the bore diameter was explained, and they loaded accordingly. The real headaches are the 7.62X39 mini 14’s. They have a tapered bore from 313 to 308. Some work better with 308, some work better with 313 and some work better with 310. Those barrels have caused people some headaches.
@@johnniemac173 oh yeah. The Finnish ammunition is great. That was mostly for people who reload. Most of the “D” barrels were changed out. The Finns really are a shooting culture, and they know what they’re doing. I have Russian Mosin that papers from the battle for Stalingrad and very likely made it into Germany, but I’d give it up in a heartbeat for a Finnish Mosin.
@@johnniemac173 originally.... your fin rifle was chambered for 7.62x53r......
yup...1mm shorter case
.
now, the fins designed it to be able to shoot 54r..... so they could use captured ammo
.
but using the longer rounds (54r) might be the reason for any sticky bolts, bad accuracy, and shortened brass life
@@aaronbuckmaster7063 my un issued1944 M39 D chamber slugged out at about .310, been ages since I went through the process but from that I determined that was the reason it shot the .308 poorly. when I got some of the D166 projectiles which are .310. it shot beautifully. I have not considered larger projectiles but since I saw the .311 projectiles being run here I might try some myself.
the finnish mosin nagant was made to fire a 200 grain bullet at around 2300 fps and the bores are slightly tighter then other mosins
So it sounds a lot like a 7.92/57mm bullet. I believe 8mm Mauser uses a 197 grain bullet.
You are continuing the saga of a worthy firearm. I have been scouting for one of these. Great share, great vid.
"If something happens;Pray for me"---I love that!
Cold outside, its 02/2020 and I just watched this video. Made me laugh when he killed the plate on the saw horse. Man I can't get enough of these videos. Just laughing till my stomach aches.
I think that M39 is friggin beautiful....
I think you scored and your change of perception is warranted.
Also...Very informative video. I learned a lot and that's what I'm in this for.
sakos are built well..you have a very good rifle...
It' looks great! I have several and they all look like that!
Love Finnish Mosins and I am interested in reloading. Your video was very fun and informative. Keep it up!
Great Job on this video, I loved seeing the transition from the hand loading to the range. Beautiful Rifle also, I like the patina and character of Your rifle. Great shooting also Sir.
the barrel has a a chamber/throat meant for a 200 grain bullet.
Lapua D166 to be exact
Oh yeah! I also used murpheys oil and hot water to clean my stock, but I made up some "gunny paste" (qual parts 1/3 pure beeswax, 1/3 turpintine, 1/3 boiled linseed oil). It moisturized the stock a lot (it's dry here in West Texas) and gives it a more muted but conditioned look and took away the ashyness of the wood. I made 1/2 a cup of each in my first batch of paste and have probably 80% left. A little goes a looooong way. If you're looking for something to help out, I highly suggest it.
Nice vid on a nice 🇫🇮 gun Thanks for showing it! Best regards from 🇫🇮
Johnny, Good stuff dude. I have to be conservative because Budget is the key word. Not knowing what your Budget is considered So bare with me, I would do this in steps, (A) I would choose a place to pour a 12X12 concrete pad with the thickness of a sidewalk as is will never hold any real weight. (B) when Budget allows, I would gather the materials for building a covered Lean Too roofed area. I would construct a sturdy bench and set it off to one side and make a shooting shack, one area for shooting prone, sitting or standing, and then the bench area for accuracy testing. You have a Range in your Backyard. You could set up netting on one side to catch your brass making clean up a snap. It could be a selling point if you were to sell your house also as a foundation for a Lawn equipment shed. Dave.
I'm doing about this - using a cheap utility shed from Home Depot (they run about $200) and am still debating on either a concrete pad or a wooden deck. The area is a bit hard to get a delivery of concrete to so just some posts concreted into the ground and a wooden deck may be more efficient (and cheaper). The brass will generally stay inside the shed and the rain or snow will stay out.
this rifle was made to shoot X53r...... 1mm shorter than x54r (duh)
.
but the fins were not stupid.... and its close enough that captured X54r will work
however, for best accuracy, easy cycling, and brass life.... cut ~1mm off that 54r case
.
idk if anyone even makes 53r brass and/or dies....
Been missing your content, great to see you are back!
I clicked on this video because of the M39, but was surprised by how much interesting content you included with the reloading as well. Sub earned!
Please do more videos with this gun. Especially a hunting round! I'll thank you forever
IV8888 has some great vids on mosins. Even covers how to clean off all the storage grease they used. Great buy
He's a dipshit and shill for sweaty ben.
@@762gunr pretty much, yeap
@@burrco3086 Damn sweaty ben.
The cosmoline goes on after theres no bluing or gun black. Bores are gone. The older and newer Russian 91/30and Polish carbines are better looking guns.
I got mine from Classic as well. And I opted for the “hand select” also. But mine was in good shape....except for the bore. I expected some wear due to corrosion from the type of ammo used at the time. Even with that and my 60 year old eyes I managed very good groups @ 50 & 100 yds. I shot surplus 148 gr FMJ Silver Tip (made in Bulgaria in the 1980’s, I believe).
Thanks for making this video! I just got mine last week. It was in the same condition as you described. Except that it had a lot of sand in the inside or between the stocks and barrel and receiver. I still haven't started cleaning it. It might take me a while to shoot it. The bore grooves are a bit worn out.
My m39 SKY with a straight stock had awesome bluing and the bore was bright and had real strong amount of rifling. I'm just starting to reload for it now. Cool that someone else is doing it and sharing some high quality videos for it. I stumbled upon your channel last night and may have watched all of the videos... good stuff!
Glad to see some Mosin action back on the channel. While you are waiting on that barrel you could always dust off that 6.5 Grendel. Just sayin.
Ya, I got my M39 from Classic and was disappointed with the rifle that I received. It showed up looking nice, but was missing a few parts like the rear sight, bolt stop (bolt pulled right out of the receiver), and some trigger parts. They were happy to let me return it and sent me a different rifle (had to pay a 2nd transfer fee) and that one was also missing trigger parts. I ordered the parts and fixed it, but you'd think they could take 2 seconds to cycle the bolt and dry fire it. I'm sure M39's will be worth $1k in 10 years or less, very nice rifles.
Great M39 video 👍👍I am from Finland
You have a Finnish model which is one of the better ones, the hand chosen was probably what got you the Hex receiver which is what makes the gun special. The Hex are the early production and more valued than the latter models when war was raging and they stop taking the time to do this machining and went to the round receiver. Hang on to that, you have a good gun! Fortune Cookie 45 would love that gun. You also have nice markings on the stock from the gun being serviced.
Nick J , if you have an m39 with a round receiver you have very rare and very expensive rifle.
No, i have the Russian 91/30. In fact I have 6, two round receivers, two Hex and two Carbine. Thank you for the information on the Finnish, I will look for one :-)
As far as I know all m39 rifles were built on hex receivers. The Finn's never actually made receivers for their mosins and mostly used old hex reciever rifles to build their service rifles from.
Rub some linseed oil on it. Several coats! Light coats. Heavy linseed application will never dry.
If you use linseed oil, it has to be boiled linseed oil. Check out info on woodworking finishes and techniques. Consider your rifle stock as fine wood furniture. An ever better choice might be tung oil. It should stand up to temperatures over 100°F better and not ooze oil. In either case; sand down the finish with fine grit sandpaper folllowed by fine and very fine steel wool. Wipe clean and remove all dust and debris. Of course, the stock is removed from the rest of the rifle when doing this. You need to condition the entire stock. At least two to three light but thorough coats of oil, let sink into the wood, hand rub entire stock vigorously and thoroughly, let dry and absorb oil between coats, then resand with extra fine steel wool to roughen and expose the wood grain for better absorption between coats and reapply the oil. No need to resand with steel wool after final heavy oiling. Then, each time doing a cleaning, put a few drops of oil on the stock and hand rub into entire exposed surface. Should give you a varnished like appearance with resistance to humidity, high head and drying out in severe cold. Just consistently do the full hand rub with a few drops of oil at each cleaning and the finish will keep getting better. This assumes you regularly and frequently clean your weapon and store it in decent conditions. Take care of your weapon and it will take care of you. Assume a sergeant is looking over your shoulder to make sure you do a proper job.
as someone who reloads for a 9130 and an m39, I hope you're looking forward to tracking two brass lineages
Simo Häyhä drop over 500 russian winter war and iron sights!!!.. greetings from Finland!!🇫🇮🦌🦌🌲🦌🌲🌲
Go Finland! My Finnish M39 is one of my highly prized rifles. I have great admiration for the heart of the Finnish people!!! 🇫🇮!!!!
A hell of a shooter . The bad guys are afraid of any one who can use it well.
I shoot a Finnish M91 Tikka, 1942. It is amazing!!
All hail simo häyhä
He didn't use the m93
My son has one.........shots sub moa at 100 and 200m (scout scope fitted no-drill mount). Amazing gun, but it did take a LOT of cleaning on the barrel before we could shoot it (long term storage gunk). We havent even tuned our hand loads, just used a starter load from a manual ( ADI powders Australia). Amazing guns.
That's a nice M39. As far as Classic goes, you did pretty well because some of the "hand selects" that got sent out were really bad. Yours is a typical "very good" example of a M39 as far as metal but your stock is above average condition. Most of the wartime stocks are much more beat up, so you did good.
The people Classic bought that huge batch of M39's from used to sell about 10 of them a week on their own website. Pat Burns was her name. You could pick the one you want and see a series of pics of each one with bore condition listed and everything. I got all mine that way. I was sad when they sold all the rest to Classic because I knew they would overstate the condition (they always do) and you wouldn't have any idea about bore condition nor be able to see pics of the actual rifle. They also bumped the prices up.
But the typical M39 has pretty worn metal like that. No big deal, it's part of the charm. They are amazing rifles and one with a good bore will hang with any other bolt actions of the era in accuracy.
Most of the rifles from that batch had a interesting preservative on them that was quite hard to clean off. All four of mine had it. It was almost like pine tar, which I know they used on the stocks. But, it kept the metal from rusting so I don't mind.
I believe the people who imported them got a batch of around 20,000. Not sure how many they had left when they sold out to Classic.... Classic sold all the worst ones first, and screwed a ton of people over. There was a thread on gunboards where everyone was posting their pics...rusted rifles, cracked stocks. The forum mods had to close the thread because Classic is a board sponsor and people were totally pissed off at Classic. The owner ended up getting on there and apologizing. It was a mess.
Classic's hand select fee is a scam and I have not only seen this from several of my own purchases, but was told by an employee over the phone that he didn't even take my SKS out of the plastic to look at it before he shipped it to me, and I paid hand select. It was rusted so badly it wasn't safe to shoot. It had wet sand between the stock and the metal, yet was listed as "the best shipment we have ever received!" and I paid 20 bucks for hand select.
Buy from SouthernOhioGun if you can....they are honest on their condition description and their hand select is real, and only 10 bucks. SOG had a tiny batch of M39's that showed up randomly one day...listed as "good to very good" but a great price, so I jumped and got one. It looks unissued. I scored big time on that one. This was after Classic sold most of theirs and only had the really rough ones left.
That gunn looks pretty good id sayd def hand select
Boiled linseed oil on the stock then gunny paste is you best friend. I cleaned my stock first ( disassembled) with krud cutter and steel wool. It looks amazing now. Just a tip from someone who has been there.
I bought pure tung oil for my M1 Garand stock so that's what I've been using. Not really doing proper coats...just lightly rubbing a little on the surface. Seems to be working okay so far. I just want to knock the dryness off of it. Thanks for sharing your experience.
Tung oil is ok I have used it for modern rifle woods I like its gloss. It is way more water resistant that BLO. But for the classic historic flat look for me BLO does the job. But there are so may threads of BLO vs Tung oil in the forums it would make your head spin. Good luck with your M-39 from Classic Firearms... mine I bought was in great condition but I didn't buy a Sky so I can't speak to that.
Vengenace Early did that take away any of the stock finish?
JRB - Congrats on your M39..!! Seems that de-Cosmolening Mosins are part of the fun of ownership. It's not surprising that the Sako guns are not only accurate, but well sighted in - they just shoot into the black at 100 yards from sandbags all day long with surplus ammo. Continued good shooting' to ya... FC Steve
Nice mosin and nice group. Man I need to track one of these down. Making me want to pull the 9130's and shoot them more. Of course after 50 or so rounds I'm ready to put them back in the safe.
I love to shoot surplus centerfire but after a day my shoulder hurts. Even with a buttpad. The Bulgarian 180 gr. heavy ball is the hardest on me. I can shoot 100 rds. and I'm done
Y'all not pinning the rifle to the shoulders.
The stock seems to be in a good condition though
for the stock use some blo or tung then finish off with some toms 1/3 mix, I have used it on multiple M91 Finn'd mosins with great results
I was having issues with my 54r FL sizing. The Lee die wasn't touching the shell holder no matter how I adjusted it. I took it all apart and couldn't see anything wrong. I've probably run about 1,000 cases through it. I bought a RCBS neck sizing die with no problems. The die and holder touch. I speculate that I wasn't using enough lube inside the neck, and it eventually deformed the die. I'm keeping the FL die to prep a new case. After the case has formed to the chamber, then I'll use the neck die and save wear on the case.
Love my M-39 Sako it looks like a fence post compared to the 1 you have , but i paid $65.00 for it back in 1997, its a great shooter ,need to do some custom loads for it .
Some of those might have been stored in a hurry post war situation...
Great mosin video, keep them coming :)
Joel Atkins Its not Mosin-Nagant anymore... Its m/39.
good vid bro, i purchased "a few" m39's direct from mrs. pat burns when you could exam them before you purchase them well before they folded up and dumped their remaining stock on classic firearms. my m39's seem to love 200 or 203 grain ammo, i normally use wold wpa 200gr fmj match extra ammo in mine it works great and it dont shoot annoyingly high like when you shoot 147 grain ammo.
Pick mine up next week. I've had several 91/30's but they never really did anything for me... so I've heard the m39 is THE mosin to get so will see.
was it any good?
Great video like always.
That is more than acceptable for 100 yards. A newly manufactured M1 Garand from any factory with a new barrel has to be acceptable at 8 inches both windage and elevation at that distance to be accepted for service at the minimum with battle sights. I am sure the Finns made their rifles to accept better accuracy than the Americans. I have both a M39 with a bent bolt who ever made the modification either the Finns or the owner and a Rock Island M1903 with a 1942 SA barrel. These rifles are my prized rifles because with adjustable sights on both they shoot the same just using standard Russian and American factory surplus ammo either old or newly manufactured brass. On average my Finn M39 with using vey careful time using Russian, Bulgarian, Czech, Warsaw Pact ammo 147 grain at 4- 6 inches at 100 yards with battle sights. Both rifles even though they are old are a true rifleman's rifle. The individual Finn soldier have maintained these rifles superbly after WWII like the Swiss and are par with the Swiss marksmanship. My M39 is easy to adjust the sights like my M1903 than my Swiss K31.
My m39 (with handloads) is good up to 400 meters for ringing 30cm plates. More to do with my eyesight than the gun, the gun is not the limiting factor.
Great vid JRB, and great shooting. The first 5 shoots looked like they landed within 2-3 inches.
Is your Mosin Counterbored or does it still have the original crown? Either way it looks like a good shooter. Thanks for the vid.
Mine is a Tikka. I just started to clean it up .
I paid for an excellent condition M39 and got totally shafted. Maybe 60% bluing, several cracks throughout, including one in the bolt(!), why the hell did I pay an extra $60 for a "Fair" condition rifle?
Omalla kiväärillä jos ammun ulkomaalaisia patruunoita niin S&B 11,7g luoti tekee 100 metriin ihan mukavan kasan.. hirvi jahdissa käytän SAKON 13g hammerhead paukkuja..
nice vid, thanks. i got to shoot my mosin more often, but i got surplus ammo for it. I mode it and need to buy good scope for it. maybe 3x9x50?!
That group with iron sights is as good or better than my PSA .223 upper shooting with a scope at 100 yards. I am following your barrel change for your AR and will likely go the same route.
I feel your pain, brother.
damn that hits hard asf. 19:02
Try a shorter oal when you have a long jump to rifling; I E seat the bullet where the base of bearing surface is even with base of neck ; the best support is the most accurate in this scenario 👍👍👍👍👍
good video sir. classic firearms got all of their finnish m39 mosins direct from Pat Burns. i believe she and her biz imported the whole lot of finnish mosins into usa in the late 90's early 2000's if i recall correctly. she apparently wanted to close her business and classic firearms purchased the remaining stock of rifles she had left and most of them were in "ok to average" shape/condition or as i would say "bottom of the barrel" condition. when she had her biz. website active you could actually see the individual rifles she had for sale, when i purchased my finnish m39's from her website (gunsnammo.com/) back in 2009-2011 when the prices were actually quite good since there was not a super high demand for them at that time period since we had a large quantity of russian mosins in the us gun market.
I think i got 1 of the "ok " guns i call her " Old Ugly " , but she sure can shoot , ill never sell it bought it from Daves Guns Spokane { 9 mile falls actually} for $65.00 back in 1997 i believe , what a deal .
I remember when the gun was like 70$$$ a good investment not that long ago !!!
Johnny, cause of your videos i got into reloading and subbed you. thanks. BTW, in a M-39 is 42.5 grs. of R-15 still your best load for your beautiful rifle ?...................
also if the bolt starts to stick when it warms up its cosmoline in the barrel
There is a steel target company based out of Ohio called Toxic Targets, they make some cool designs like coyotes or bottles even silhouettes. Check them out if you get the chance I've talked to the owner through Instagram and they seem like a good bunch of dudes! Some fancy AR500 steel would go great on your range!
I heard m39 uses 7.62x53R optimally
You're right, though 7.62x53r and 7.62x54r are actually the same cartridge. The length is something like 53.5mm so the Finns rounded down to 53mm while the russians rounded up and called it 54mm. So they're the same round, just called different things.
53R is actually Lapua's design bullet to be more accurate so it's different shape than 54R. It was their 1st own design and kind of starting point to company design own ammo.
M39 is officially 7.63×53r, but its bore is not as tight as m28-30.
It was designed to use Soviet 54r rounds.
You will love it i have one
This is not Mosin. This is m39! Twin.
Its a war surplus rifle, & mot certainly saw combat by the date proofing. You ask me, that only ads value. Not gonna find a 'pristine' war-time rifle that saw two wars. (Winter war & the Continuation.) You get what you pay for.
How about a review on the Enfield 7.672X51 Not only shooting but disassembly.
Should be 7.92X51.
best of the nagants..
the finnish mosin was setup and calibrated for heavy ball D166 bullet 200 grain fmj/bt ammo.
Cool vid. I'm going to the range. See ya!
typical condition from Classic.
Mine too, I got a swedish mauser, no parts matched, the bluing could be confused with chrome, the stock was cracked, the straight bolt was swapped for an angled,
and someone cut the handguard band in half to engrave the barrel for import.
I must've gotten lucky because the one I got was really nice so I dunno
Classic buys guns by the ton.
When I heard him talking about how he wasn’t happy with the condition, I looked at all my surplus rifles and thought....wow his M39 looks pretty damn good.
Finnish mosins are in 7.62/53R ...
How tight/lose is your front band screw?
Hey Johnny. Another off the wall question, but how do you like the Gempro 250 scale. I've been contemplating on buying one. It would be nice to weigh loads to .01 grains.
So you can shoot commercial 7.62x54r ammo? I was looking for 7.62x53r ammo but I couldn't find any only 54r. I'm thinking about getting one. Thanks
People r stripping the authenticity off the rifles by scrubbing the stocks down.the men that carried those rifles put pine tar on them to preserve r stop them from being so slick r maybe camo. I read about it n a M-39 article.but whatever it is.that black color is pine tar.if u want to keep it authentic and worth more don't scrub it off.
promising.
If you happen to have a D stamped on the barrel or receiver, it was ment to shoot this bullet
www.midwayusa.com/product/721823/lapua-bullets-762x54mm-rimmed-russian-762x53mm-rimmed-310-diameter-200-grain-full-metal-jacket-boat-tail-box-of-100
the kind people from lapua stil make them :)
For non D chambers its the D46 www.lapua.com/en/reloading-components/bullets/d46
Then again i also had good groups with www.midwayusa.com/product/1270570188/lapua-scenar-bullets-30-caliber-308-diameter-167-grain-jacketed-hollow-point-boat-tail
My experience is that they like heavy pills atleast
glock17games the D signifies it is best suited to D166, but will also chamber Russian rounds without issue as well. B barrels were more in line with the m28 barrel and made on contract so do not handle 54r particularly well.
Oh they will eat about all you can throw in it no problem.
But lapua and VithaVouri stil make the brass, bullets and even powder they used back in the day. So its fun to try to copy the old cartridge :)
Vithavouri used a powder back in the day that they based their N140 on.
And they shoot well tbh, then again i dont think ive ever shot a bad Lapua bullet.
But like i said in the first post. They also like Scenars and even SMK will do fine in it. Heck even PRVI Partizan ones will get you half decent groups.
glock17games have you tried the poor mans D166 from Hornady? I bought a couple boxes of their 3105 176gr stuff but haven't had the chance. Partially still bitter about getting screwed from classic so I've neglected my other m39.
Cant say that i have, i do use A max for .308 win sometimes, but Hornady costs about the same as Lapua on this side of the pond. So i cant really call it a poor mans choice over here :)
Poor mans choice would be PRVI Partizan or Sellier & Bellot.
PRVI (PPU) offers a few fair priced bullets for .303 which i use for my Tulla Mosin sniper :)
The Fin Captured mosin however seems to prefer the food its new masters provide :)
Ah, well over here Lapua is roughly twice the price of anything else. I wish Hornady would put out 54R brass cause the options are Lapua, Norma, S&B/Winchester, or PPU. While reloading PPU is a pretty easy task buying it is pretty hard when nobody typically stocks it. I usually just reload fired PPU brass though I may try some 53R brass sometime. As for the bullets, Lapua is easily twice the price of Sierra Gamekings and still way more than Matchkings or these www.hornady.com/store/.3105-303-CAL. Those Hornadys ran me $31/100, matchkings were 34. Last time I saw a box of lapua bullets in stock they were going for $60.
If I ever plan to hit something at a mile, I'll spring for it... Maybe.
I was looking at M39's last night on classics website. They are all cracked but was still interested in grabbing one up if the bore was good. Do you have buyers remorse with classic? Would you do it differently now? Or should I just say the hell with it and grab a K31 from gunbroker...
I have ordered several guns from Classic and have no complaints about how they do business. Shipping was fast and it was easy to find my local FFL on their site. Five stars, would do business with again.
HOWEVER, they are the gun community's version of sleazy used car salesmen. Every shipment of guns they get are advertised as being ULTRA RARE, LAST SHIPMENT EVER, GREATEST GUN IN THE HISTORY OF FIREARMS, ACT NOW BECAUSE THESE WILL BE SOLD OUT IN 10 MINUTES!!! If you drove my their warehouse I bet they have a wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube man out front. As long as you shop them with that kept in mind, they are a great place to buy from!
I don't really know anything about stock repairs or the aftermarket stocks that might be available so I can't offer much advice on that. If they are down to only selling cracked stocks now, they must have sold a bunch. You might see if they are showing up on gunbroker now.
I bought the VEPR 23" AK from them last November and it cost $95 to ship to Hawaii. I didn't see the 23" VEPR before nor since so I had to pull the trigger on the purchase. Also, Hawaii has a 10 round limit on pistols but CF can't distinguish between pistols and rifles so I have to call them to override the order block if ordering a rifle with a 30 round clip. Modern technology I guess...
being a rebarrled gun, what's the tang date?
Nothing clear. There are two "3" stamps on opposite sides of the tang and a circular mark near the middle that I can't identify. I've seen other places where Izhevsks sometimes have weird 3 marks. I might go closer into the markings in a future video.
Finnish Mosin - Nagant 7,62x 53r
What do you have for a spotting scope Johnny. And how do you like it. I've been shopping around. So many options out there.
It is a Redfield Rampage 20-60x60. amzn.to/2sMPxOR
It is one of the cheapest spotting scopes out there and it is not very good. The clarity is just not very good. I have successfully spotted 6.5mm bullet holes at 400 yards with it, but the light has to be perfect for that. It spots 22 holes at 100 and 200 yards no problem, though...so if that's all you need it's not bad.
Thanks. Yeah I need something for 500+ yards. That is one I was looking at. Thanks for the info.
Se on perän takana jos et osu 🤡🇫🇮
Tossa tulee vielä se ruudinkäyttö ja muu työnjälki mukaan, kun itte tekevät patruunat. Ei nyt ehkä vielä 100 metrillä tai yardilla, mut pitemmillä etäisyyksillä.
Ja voishan se olla kulunu luuskakin, vaik ei sellasia pahemmin myydä kai virallisia kanavia. Jokin maakellarissa maannu epävirallinen ase vois olla huonossa kunnossa.
Ja - olen siinä samaa mieltä, että yleensä se tumpelo on siinä pyssyn takana kiskomassa liipasinta :)
I'd bet if moved that bullet out and were at 3.00 COL your would cut that group in half. Nice shooting though. 👌
Lapua D166
Is this Finish Mosin made by Tikka ?
Tolla kiväärillä ei saa hyvää kasaa pitkiltämatkoilta jos luodin paino on alle 11,7 g..
No Hickock45,that's for sure!LOL
Gotta have SISU to fire that.
Its called "pystykorva".
No it's not. The civil guard m28-30 was called pystykorva, the m39 was called Ukko-Pekka.
Interesting that US army uses millimeters but amateurs use inches.
Yes WW2 was a shitty war. It's not a barbie it is a wartime rifle.
m/39 a.k.a Pystykorva or Ukko-Pekka, have best iron sights ever. If somebody don`t agree, i call
him a liar... or just ignorant. Shooting at 50 yards range is an insult to the gun, and the spectators.