Moison Trigger Improvements

The best way to improve the trigger on Moison Nagant M91/30, M38, M39, M44's, M53 and M91/56 is to:

Trigger and Trigger pin mod's:
Drill out trigger pin hole in trigger and receiver ears with a .165 drill, then cut the drill tang off (Dremel tool) to length for a trigger pin, this will insure .001 tolerances and make the trigger pull more consistent in weight from pull to pull.

Polish with a SQUARE fine hard Arkansas stone, the inside and the outside of the trigger bearing surfaces and the inside of the receiver ears to insure smooth movement and to remove any drilling burrs.

Sear Spring:
Too lower trigger poundage grind the back side (side viewed when assembled upside down) of the sear spring on a belt sander (being careful to cool and not burn metal) taking about .010 off (keeping thickness consistent/parallel) and then reassemble and test pull weight. Ideal weight is between 2.5 to 3.5 lbs for target shooting, add a pound if used for hunting.

Polish with a SQUARE fine hard Arkansas stone, the sear bearing surface (cocking piece bearing area) and square up the top surfaces (measure dimension parallel to bottom) for a sharp square edge.

Cocking piece:
Polish with a SQUARE fine hard Arkansas stone, the sear bearing surface removing any indentations or galling, square up and polish top surface to improve bearing surface to a sharp corner.

Some firing pins and bolt bodies are loose fitting and when you pull the trigger the cocking piece moves downward and you get a mushy first stage. I weld a small 1/16" diameter or smaller bead where shown and then grind/polish down till the pin/cocking piece does not bind with the bolt body, this greatly improves the crispness of the first stage.

Finnish M39 trigger:
The best way to get a really nice two stage trigger is to find/buy a Finnish M39 trigger and proceed with the above mods assembling and testing first and second stages.

Some trigger pulls may be too long and you can remove .010 off the top of the sear spring sear surface to reduce final stage/sear engagement and retest for engagement and pull weight.. Some may be too short and you may need a replacement sear spring but you may already know that before you start this whole process.

Final note:
After the above mods most all triggers will now drag on the stock or trigger guard, you could bed the action forcing it into the center of the trigger guard while it cures, or you can open up the trigger guard trigger slot with a file or on a milling machine, this insures no trigger contact and you end up with a consistent pull and release.

I hope this helps unravel the mysteries of the Moison.

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That is some nice work, but I have never had any accuracy issues w/ mine! I tend to adapt to the Mil-surp rifle rather than alter it. Please! this is no way a flame, but why alter, especially a 39 Finn which is a great shooter and tightened up way beyond the 91/30? I don't shoot off a bench and am very happy w/ 3" groups at 100 yards out of these rifles as is. They don't seem to open up until you hit 400 yards. So what is the benefit of altering them? I must add that I have not shot off a bench in 4 or 5 years. The off hand skill is lost. Jim

Jim, I compete with all my milsurps in silouette (offhand)and Military rifle silouette (prone) 200-500 meters, I also do long range prone matches to 1000 yards with my milsurps.

I mod them because I want to have the best/reasonably light (2.5-3.5Lbs) clean trigger pulls/releases.

I do not/will not live with the typical milsurp trigger, in most cases the difference between winning/placing and losing is the trigger pull.

I am not wrapped up in the emotional overvaluing of owning a so called collectable (6-30 Million production) milsurps, most of mine are previously sporterized and made into replica snipers or are non-discript plane jane rifles with Very Good + bores/shooters that shoot 1-1.5MOA.

Thats why I mod/shoot them, and not collect them.

6mm, I can respect that! We both seem to try to achieve the same result through different means! I do agree that a $75.00 rifle is the best place to start a project. A great Barreled action is what I look for, but I tend to approach it differently after that. Maybe when my two youngest get a little older I can start shooting seriously again. I do keep my surplus rifles in original condition, but again I do collect them. Shooting clays on a burm at 200 yards standing, offhand is ok w/ me right now. I have sold some perfect pieces over the years for the simple fact they would not shoot without modifications. I wish I had them now for the $. I truly found your modifications very interesting and ingenious. I will say the phrase 1/sub Moa is thrown around by too many folks these days. I do wonder if half the people out there understand what it means. I have a few "collectables" left, but I strive to find Shooters! Do you have any Swede's or a K31? All of my Swede's have 1 part that is not matching, 2 of those are 1 sequential # off of the serial #. To a real serious collector they are not matching, but they are shooters. I wish you did live closer, so you and I could get together. I bet we have more in common than differences. As I stated in my 1st response, I mean no flame. I must ask, why did you not shoot in the Postal? I would have loved the addition! Jim

Hey Jim,
I thought you extended the Postal until the end of this month. Or did you do that just for me? The water has gone down and the range is once again open but the ground is still wet. Probably end up shooting off-hand. No lieing in the mud you know. I am going Wed. to shoot the K31 and I'll send you my targets. Would you PM me your address for the targets?
That would give 6mm time to still enter right? The more the merrier!
Greg

Greg, You are correct! If 6mm wants to shoot he has till the end of the month. You should do what Mike suggested, use a mattress! :) Jim

Jim,
I'll see if my wife will let me use our mattress. I wonder if she will notice the mud and water, nah! I could use my sons, he would never know the difference!
Greg

Jim/John, I downloaded some postal targets but did not get a chance to shoot them (as I left them home)last week at the 100 range (Irons?) while shooting BP. A friend introduced me to MN's a year ago and the Finn M39 in particular, always thought they were junk but got an unissued 1968 sneak and have never looked back, make my own scope mounts for PU bases for modern scopes and that really helps in serious long range shooting and accuracy testing along with a good trigger and or bedding.

My problem is that Im shooting every weekend, Gonzales Swiss rifle club Sat 200-500meters Sil, Sunday Chabot Castro valley 200 yard Sil, this Sunday going out to Sacramento valley shooting center to shoot a 1000 yard match with a friend and we will both be shooting out Finn M39's in F class off bags with 174MK and 46 varget. May get a chance to shoot 100 postal

Then in two weeks Sac Valley for Mil Sil 200-500 off bags.

Used to shoot lots of highpower in the 80's-90's, peaked in 95 when I won state master class match rifle with a 774-31x with a new 6mm-intl rem 700. Stpooed HP in 98 and have been shooting Sil and BPCR and now Milsurp Sil.

Turned 3 of my 4 HP 6mm-intls into longe range/Sil and tactical rifles, play with the one 6mm and a 223 for longe range with irons.

Shoot the Swiss qualification at least once a year in Gonzales.

Also playing around with 3 Swiss Vetterli's, part time gunsmith and M1/M1A rifle builder for the local crowd.

Too busy playing since retirement though my hobby is becoming work.

Too busy playing since retirement though my hobby is becoming work.


I can relate to that! I backed off about 8 years ago for just that reason. I am at the other end of life, kinda. I have 3 boys from 7 to 17. I spend my time shooting w/ them most of the time. Lots of smallbore. My oldest loves his 91/30 and M44. I built 2 91/30's and gave him one. The Finn's are the top of the Mosin class. I've seen ones like yours go for $250.00 to 400.00 depending on the receiver and barrel. I just bought dies to reload. I am still sitting on 800 or so rounds of Soviet (Barneul) ammo I bought 10 years ago. Most folks don't understand the difference between bench, and shooting offhand, each has it's challenges. I feel like I'm cheating when I use my Bipod on my .308 HB. I changed out the scope for a 3x12 42mm from a 6x24 40mm. We don't have ranges that make it feasible for a real long range rifle. I wanted to use it for hunting also. The Nashua gun club is the only 700 yard range around here and it is way to expensive for a once a month shoot, 6 months a year. Most ranges here are 200 yards max. I always laughed at guys w/ their super stainless, lamiate stocked rigs shooting the 50 yard range. Most could not even hit the target w/ a $1200.00 rifle and scope. Some would also get mad when you offered help, like boresighting! Being bordered by Mass. creates problems transporting. They require a permit to transport. No permit, you get caught, you loose your firearms and spend a year in jail. I applied for 4 years strait to no avail! The option is to drive through Vermont to get to shoots in Pa. and NY. Just a few hundred miles extra. Good luck shooting, Jim