AkhunterTeen

I am looking into buying one of these for a medium game hunting rifle, and am looking for any info that you guys have on it, (id much rather have info than opinion, but will take both if i have to)
i figure it would be a great gun for 100$
whatdya think?

Aught Six

There are threerelative weaknesses that stand out in my mind: the stock does not fit large framed shooters well, the sights can be difficult to zero properly without modification (and scope mount kits are expensive), and decent hunting ammo can be hard to come by if you don't special order and stock up.

As far as capability to take medium game, it'll get the job done fine. Ballistically the 7.62x54R is pretty close to the .308, which is plenty for deer and the like.

Another milsurp you might want to consider is the Swiss K31. Shoots the 7.5x55 Swisscartridge, which is in the same ballpark of the .308. Hunting ammo isn't much easier to find, but the rifle is made with excellent quality and shoot very nicely.

Tony Orlando and Dawn

The 91/30 would be fine for a budget hunting rifle. The K31 that Aught Six mentioned are great rifles, but the 7.62x54R hunting ammo will be much easier to find and usually a lot cheaper.

Red Lion

So you want to buy commie, huh?

AkhunterTeen

a gun is a gun, commie made or not, and for a surplus rifle under 100$ it looks like a pretty nice, it will be a numbers matching arsenally refinished rifle, and looks like it will fit right in with my hunting style

Red Lion

I was not saying that there was anything wrong with buying any firearm. Get whatever you like.

AkhunterTeen

my cousin is looking into a Swiss K31, so maybe ill wait, and see how he likes his before i get mine, i like the straight bolt action on that gun, looks cool, i wonder why no one else makes a straight bolt like that

ConstructionWorker

The safety has always been my issue with the Mosin. I do own one and consider it to be very cumbersome when hunting with it. Although it is much lighter than my Garand. Another problem I have had with them is sometimes the rifle is not as forgiving when ammo is not so carefully inserted in the magazine. A good scout mount and scope would make a fine rig if that is what you want.

Briman

I have 6 of them right now, from my experience, I offer the following guidelines for buying a Mosin:

1: The carbines aren't all that accurate. The M38s were built during wartime and tend tohave rough barrels. The M44s made during wartime have the same problem. If you want to get a carbine version, buy a post-war dated M44.
2: Finnish Mosin Nagants are by the far the best and most accurate Mosins out there- unfortunately you won't touch one for anything near $100.
3: 91/30s can vary from really good to crap. The best ones were built before the Soviet Union was invaded. Rifles dated 1940 or earlier are going to be the best. Rifles dated 1941 and later are going to be roughly machined, poorly fitted, will have varying degrees of accuracy, and won't likely be zero'd correctly- they usually shoot high, which is kind of difficult to fix. Any rifle made at the Tula factory is going to be a cut above those made at the Iveshk factory, though they are rarer (the Tula built rifles will have a large star on the barrel shank, Ishevsk rifles have a triangle with an arrow in it on the barrelshank.) FWIW, my best shooting M-N is a 1938 Ishevsk 91/30.
4:A lot of the recent and commonly seen M-Ns for sale are 'rearsenalled to excellent condition.' Some of these are like-new rifles, others have just had the stock replaced and still have a bad bore. Inspect the bore before buying- it should be bright and shiny.
5: Make sure the serial number on the bolt matches the serial number on the barrel shank- if it doesn't match- DO NOT BUY IT. Note- due to recent BATFE rules, the importer needs to assign a serial number to each rifle- it will be obvious as to which is an importer engraving and which is the original factory serial.
6: Don't buy on impulse. There were only about 30 million M-Ns made- most of them of common models. Hold out for one with a perfect bore that is a pre-war 91/30 or a post-war M44.
7. Counterbored barrels- if you don't see any rifling at the end of the barrel, its been counterbored to extend the life of the barrel. They can shoot good, but for the most part won't shoot as good as a rifle with a new barrel.

Wolf, Igman, and Sellier&Bellot both make hunting ammunition for 7.62x54r- for around $14/box. You can also buy surplus ammo in 300-800 rd 'spam cans' for about 10 cents a round or less.

Briman

I would buy a K-31 right away if you are interested in one. They won't be around for very long. 5 years ago, they couldn't give these rifles away because noone knew anything about them or where to get ammo for them, in the last 2 years or so, they have become very popular and I doubt that wholesalers will even have them available a year from now- even the surplus ammunition for them is vary hard to find.

The K-31s are very accurate rifles, capable of shooting as good as or better than any factory remchester on the market right now with a few tweaks or modifications. Even the surplus 7.5x55 ammunition is match grade and is capable of shooting 1moa or better with these rifles.

As to why straight pull rifles aren't commonly made, is that they are more expensive to make, are more mechanically complicated than, and don't offer any great advantages over a standard bolt action rifle. There were a few other straight-pull rifles made- 1889, 1911 Schmidt-Rubins (the ancestors of the K-31) Steyr Mannlichers, Canadian Ross', and a more recent rifle known as the Mauser model 96 (not to confused with the Mauser 1896). The Schmidt Rubin/K-31 series of rifles were by far the most mechanically complex and precisely made out of the whole bunch- noone could afford to build rifles like this anymore- or more likely, noone would be able to afford a rifle made like the Schmidt-Rubins/K-31s if they were made today.