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| Article Written by: Ryan Jones | |||||||||
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While most so called “Scout” rifles do not fill the total number of these requirements, some do come very close. The closest true scout rifle is made by Steyr. The Steyr Scout was made under the direction of Cooper himself and has been used throughout the world for a number of years now in several hunting situations and (in the Bosnian conflict on a limited basis) combat. The only problem with this particular rifle is the cost. If you want one, save your pennies and buy one, by all means. For the rest of us, the Mosin-Nagant can be a very economical alternative to the Steyr Scout and still fulfill about 80 to 90% of the total requirements of the scout rifle concept. This is where the subject of this article comes in. While this article will give you a general idea of the rifle’s features and how the work was done, it is not a step by step article on how to do it yourself, as it would be a book. Instead it is a guide on the basic steps and some ideas on how such a conversion can be done for a minimum of cost and trouble. I would encourage anyone reading this article to consider this for your next project, as it is a rifle that is truly unique and “custom” not just another 10/22 with a bull barrel attached. | |||||||||
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It also should be noted that most of the modifications
for this project can be non-permanent, though on my
particular rifle, some are. I am a collector of the
Mosin-Nagant rifle family and for me, this originally
was somewhat important, however as the project
progressed, I found the rifle much more useful and fun
as a “Scout” and my plans for it became permanent. So the question then becomes, why the Mosin-Nagant? Why not use a Mauser? The answer is two fold, first the Romanian M44 used here was in fair condition and, well, available to me. Second, as the project progressed, I noted that Mauser sporters are very common, while Mosin-Nagant sporters are not. The Mosin-Nagant doesn’t look like a sporting rifle, the Mauser does. One of the great things about building your own rifle is that you don’t have to follow all the rules. If you want to build a Mauser scout rifle, by all means do it. However the only real advantages to a Mauser over the Mosin-Nagant for a scout type rifle is that the Mauser can be converted to .308 Winchester relatively easily and the Mauser safety is easier to manipulate. A note on the 7.62x54r caliber should also be added here. As Mosin-Nagants continue to flood the market, more and more commercial loads are becoming available for it. Reloading components are also easily obtained. While you generally can’t go to Wall-Mart to pick up a few boxes of cartridges for your Mosin-Nagant, you shouldn’t have to go any farther that the local gun shop to get them. The cartridge is also ballistically similar to .308 Winchester, and easily meets the “Scout” caliber requirement. So with the rifle selected, the first step is to get the optics mounted forward of the action. The Mosin-Nagant family of rifles have a strait bolt handle and as such, several companies are now offering “Scout Type” scope mounts for it that attach to between the rear sight “Ears” using screws. For this project, I literally went through three different scope mounts, two of which failed. I will not mention the ones that didn’t work (for me at least) but will simply say this, buy a mount that will adjust for elevation, and that SECURES to the rear sight block. The one shown is hand made by a machinist named Darrell Harrison. He has a website and can be E-mailed at M39scout@bellsouth.net; Harrison also makes mounts of this type for several other Military Surplus rifles. I purchased the mount directly from him for around fifty dollars. It is milled from a solid block of aluminum and attaches securely to the rear sight block using EIGHT non-marring brass set screws. It uses a two piece Weaver-type base attached to the milled flat top of the mount and can be shimmed if necessary, rings are not included, however due to the mounts design, low or extra low rings are recommended by Harrison and me. |
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I actually found that the mount had a tendency to work
loose slightly, over time, due to the screws working
loose. To alleviate this problem, I decided to drill two
shallow holes into the sides of the sight leaf where the
two front locking screws make contact and then securing
them in place with a bit longer stainless steel
set-screws. With this done, I have fired several hundred
rounds through the rifle, as well as having the
occasional hard knock come it’s way, without further
incident.
As for the scope itself, I chose a Bushnell Trophy 2x32mm pistol scope. Most authorities on this subject will say that one should use an actual “Scout Scope” with the eye relief set up for a scout rifle instead of a pistol scope. I have never encountered any real problem with using a pistol scope, though others might have eye relief issues relating to this. I chose a fixed power scope as opposed to a variable because I wanted to get as close as possible to the original scout requirements. Also in my opinion, fixed scopes are more durable. The Trophy line is Bushnell’s “middle of the road” scopes and feature a one piece, aluminum main tube, multicoated lenses, positive click adjustments and a lifetime warranty. I have dealt with Bushnell’s warranty department and found them to be very professional and willing to correct mistakes, either theirs or yours. I highly recommend them. Butler Creek “Blizzard” scope caps and Weaver LOW rings were also selected. The cost of the scope, rings and caps was around $125. This setup, once the bugs were worked out, works very well for me. Sighting in however, is to put it mildly, a learning experience. I learned that bore sighting at the range with all of the tools to disassemble the mount is very necessary. I also learned that initial sight in should be conducted at 25 yards, with further adjustments at fifty and then one hundred yards. Once it is all locked into place, leave it be and be happy with it. I also noted that with the scope setting forward of the action, it was easily brought to the eye, and the whole setup seemed very natural, like it should have been that way from the beginning. So now that optics are mounted, on to the setting up the rifle stock. While the original Mosin-Nagant stock will work just fine with the optics setup and a raised cheek piece of some type, I wanted something more. I chose an ATI Monte Carlo type synthetic stock for this rifle. I chose this stock because it is more durable and MUCH lighter than a wood stock, again going back to the original scout rifle requirements; the weight of the completed rifle is an issue. Installation instructions and evaluations for this stock are elsewhere on this website. With the stock installed, we move on to some type of on-board ammunition carriers. A butt stock cuff holding rifle cartridges will work fine. The one shown is a Koplin brand cuff made primarily of elastic and nylon. Installation required me to remove the rear sling swivel from the stock by unscrewing it and then, placing a small hole in the cuff once it was slid on to the stock, screwing the swivel back in. This was due to the cuff covering the swivel when properly installed. After almost three years of using this cuff, I have yet to have it tear at the swivel point. The only problem with this setup is that the elasticity of the cartridge loops themselves tend to get weaker. Luckily, these cuffs are commonly available and can be had for as little as $10 at virtually any retailer that sells gun accessories. The butt stock cuff also serves double duty as a raised cheek piece. The only thing I had to do here was go out to the Army surplus store and buy a used GI foam sleeping mat for five bucks, cut a few small pieces out of it, and stuff them under the cuff until the stock felt correct. The sling swivel holds the whole thing together very well and I have never had the pieces of foam fall out. Incidentally, most police and military snipers use the same foam sleeping mat and 100 mile per hour tape to get the proper cheek weld on their very expensive sniper rifles. I think my method looks better though. Well, with all of the above mentioned modifications complete, I could have called it a day, and proclaimed to the world that my scout rifle was complete, but I couldn’t do that and be truly happy. |
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| While several gunsmiths and
shops specialize in making period correct
Mosin-Nagant bent bolt handles for use in sniper
conversions, I wanted a more “sporting” look.
The bolt handle here was purchased from
Brownell’s for around twelve dollars. It comes
as a completely unpolished and rough casting.
The handle was filed for the proper look, the
old handle cut off, and the new one welded in
its place. Any gunsmith can perform this service
if you have your reservations about it, but
lucky for me I have a friend and shooting
partner knows his way around a welder and did
the job in about twenty minutes. Once complete,
the handle was polished and filed for several
hours with 350 grit sandpaper and a new single
cut mill file until the proper shape was
achieved.
A few things of note should be added on the bolt handle modification. First, disassemble the bolt fully and work only with the bolt body when doing any kind of work that involves heat, also heat control paste, available from Brownell’s or Midway USA should be used when welding or heating on any bolt component . The last thing that you want to do is work on the bolt assembled, as the firing pin and locking components can become brittle, this could ultimately cause the bolt to fail during firing, and blow the bolt components, hot powder and other shrapnel back in your (or whoever is unlucky enough to be the shooter at the time) face. Another thing to keep in mind is that, while the standard bolt handle can be heated up and bent down, it is way too short and is far from an advantage, trust me on this, I tried that first and found it worse than just having a strait bolt handle. The bore on this particular M44 was excellent; however, the rifle’s crown appeared to have been damaged due to cleaning from the muzzle end. I personally have always wondered why so many surplus rifles where the bolt can be easily removed show this wear. Because of this, I re-crowned the muzzle of the rifle. | |||||||||
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| The original M44’s two stage trigger was
perfectly serviceable, but I was looking for a
better pull. I chose to do the trigger work
myself, converting the two stage system to a
single stage trigger with virtually no creep.
This was done before I knew about the
Huber
concepts anti-friction ball trigger, which I
would have used instead. I will not go into the
trigger work here and advise anyone interested
in it to take a gunsmithing course, buy a video,
or read up on how triggers work and how to
modify them. I have not worked with the Huber Concepts unit, so I cannot comment on it, but I will say that when the trigger work was complete for my rifle, it had a HUGE amount of over-travel. Over-travel is when the trigger has already “broken” but the trigger continues to move rearward. Any hobbyist can correct this relatively easily by adding an over-travel stop to either the trigger guard or the trigger itself. An over-travel stop is as simple as a screw that is threaded into one of these two components and is adjusted to the proper setting before being pinned or locked into place. On my rifle, this was easily accomplished by simply drilling and tapping the rear of the trigger guard with a 10-32 hole and then inserting a screw. Turn the screw until the cocked (and unloaded of course) rifle will not dry fire. Now back the screw off until the rifle does dry fire. Dry fire a few times for good measure to make sure you have the right spot, and then mark the screw somehow (I used my wife’s lipstick and coated the end of the screw not threaded through the hole). Back the screw out and cut it at the marked point leaving a little bit of extra screw. Now re-insert the screw into the hole and test again. If everything is OK, take a pointed punch and hit the area where the screw and threads meet on the cut side (this is called “Peening”). | |||||||||
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| The last thing that I did to
this rifle was add a three point sling system.
This is a lesser-known type of sling setup but
is commonly associated with the scout rifle.
Essentially it involves an addition of a third
swivel stud mounted just forward of the rifle’s
action. Attached to this stud is a shorter piece
of material that connects to the body of the
conventional sling. With this system, the sling is more than just a simple carry strap and becomes a valuable shooting aid. The shooter places his support arm within the large loop created by the third piece of material that hangs from the middle of the rifle, about up to the bicep and then brings the rifle into the shooting position. This stabilizes the rifle and aids in steadier shooting. While it is not as good as a conventional shooting sling, it takes less than a second to “sling up” and really helps in the sitting or offhand position. | |||||||||
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| The last thing I did was add a stop to the longer sling so that the shorter part would engage it. This was done by simply putting to screws through the nylon and then adding the appropriate nuts to them. I applied Loc-Tite to hold them in place and then ground off the excess screw. I also used a lighter to melt the nylon of the sling around the two screws, sealing them in place. The only real downside to this technique is that when the buckle and the stop make contact, they make noise. I suppose this will one day be corrected by either coming up with something else, or buying a three point sling. | |||||||||
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With all that, the rifle is complete. I found it to be a
very enjoyable project and consider it well worth the
effort. Everywhere I have taken it, people have asked me
what it was and how I did it. It may get the occasional
odd look, but most people seem enthusiastic about it.
As I stated before, I tried to as close as possible to the scout rifle concept without braking the bank with this project. Let’s take a step back and see how I did.
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Another picture of the complete rifle, note the scope, mount, stock, sling swivels, sling, raised cheek piece, butt stock cuff, bolt handle and over travel stop. |
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| One final note here is that as you may have guessed the rifle is never really finished. You may have noticed from the pictures that the stock appears rough; this is because I intend to fill the checkering and bolt handle cut out with epoxy and re-finish it with crinkle type paint. Also I do not like the step in the front of the barrel and am considering what to do next. As you may have guessed, when you start a project, you find that it is never really finished. But that’s OK, getting there is half of the fun. | |||||||||
| Article Written by: Ryan Jones |
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