Weapons of War: The Mosin-Nagant M1891 Rifle

By James Patton

The Russo-Ottoman War of 1877–1878 lasted just 10 months. The Turks had purchased 50,000 44 caliber Winchester 1866 seven shot repeating rifles, while the Russians were using single-shot 46 caliber Berdans. The siege of Plevna (in modern Bulgaria), where the outnumbered Turks inflicted heavy casualties on the Russians, awakened interest in repeating rifles throughout Europe. 

In 1889 Russia solicited designs and a prize of 200,000 rubles was announced for the winner. Two ordnance officers, Captains Mosin and Zinoviev, each produced a design in the popular 30 caliber. Surprisingly the Belgian firm Fabrique d'armes Émile et Léon Nagant entered a 35 caliber design. 

After two years there was no consensus between the Mosin and the Nagant designs. It was time to start over. Only Mosin and Nagant were invited to try again. After several rounds of testing the commission found this Mosin design met its needs the best, although during the trials it was discovered that it was susceptible to double feeding of cartridges, which jammed the rifle. The Nagant design had an interrupter as a part of the extractor—a feature that Nagant had actually copied from a previous Mosin design. The committee added this interrupter to the current Mosin—voilà, problem solved. 

Not so fast; Nagant had patented his design and threatened suit for infringment (even though it had been Mosin’s idea first he couldn’t patent it because he was employed by the government). So both Mosin and Nagant were awarded prizes of 200,000 rubles. It is said that a furious Tsar Alexander III ordered that both names to be stricken from the record. The official designation was "3-line rifle M1891" (трёхлинейная винтовка образца 1891 года). Nevertheless, due to the western proclivity to name weapons after their designer or manufacturer, it became known as the Mosin-Nagant rifle.

Mosin borrowed from others besides Nagant. Like the Mauser 71, the Mosin rifle locks up via two relatively large lugs, with a third safety lug being the root of the bolt handle, although Mosin’s lugs lock horizontally instead of vertically. Like the Lee-Metford, the head portion of the bolt is interchangeable. 

The Mosin-Nagant M1891 has a milled, single-column, non-detachable five-round magazine with a floorplate that can be opened via a latch on its bottom. Some modern variants have a detachable ten-shot box instead. Relatively heavy, the Mosin-Nagant weighs 8.8 lbs unloaded (the Mauser 98 weighs 7.9 lbs). It has a three part bolt that is more time consuming to make and requires a screwdriver to field strip as two screws must be removed. The magazine is usually loaded via stripper clips.  The rimmed cartridges must be carefully inserted into the clip, as the rim of each cartridge must lie ahead of the rim of the cartridge below it. The cartridges will be slightly askew in the clip, and to use the clip properly, the cartridges must be loaded into the magazine with the bullets in the downward position. 

The Mosin-Nagant safety uses a knob on the back of the bolt to pull the firing-pin assembly away from the trigger and hold it in a depression milled into the bolt body. It’s very positive, but slow to operate. The flip-up rear sight is adjustable to 2000 meters but since the front sight is fixed it’s doubtful that anything close to this range could be achieved. 

It has been chambered for four different cartridges, but by far the most prevalent is the original 7.62x54 mm R. The muzzle velocity from the 28.7 inch barrel is rated at 2838 fps, higher than all of its contemporaries except the Mauser 98 (2881 fps). Due to its high power the scoped Mosin-Nagant has an excellent reputation for long-range accuracy, and is in use to this day as a sniper rifle.

The estimated production of the Mosin-Nagant is over 37 million rifles. Most were produced by the Russian armories at Tula, Izhevsk, and Sestroryetsk; prior to WWI, 500,000 were made in France by Manufacture Nationale d’Armes de Châtellerault (MAC). 

In 1915 a total of 3.3 million were ordered from the American firms Remington and Westinghouse. The Bolsheviks cancelled these orders before completion and the production numbers vary; officially the Russians received 469,951 from the American contractors and about 280,000 were unsold. Extant rifles have serial numbers that indicate much greater production, e.g. Remington 636,122 and Westinghouse 828,084. 

The U.S. government bought the unsold rifles to prevent bankruptcies, and called them "U.S. Rifle, 7.62mm, Model of 1916." Some were used by the post-war American and British expeditionary forces in Russia and some were sent to the Czech Legion. Later some were issued to National Guard and ROTC units and the rest were sold to the public for $3.00 apiece. 

During WWI, the Germans and Austrians captured many M1891s which were re-issued to rear-echelon units; in the 1920’s most of these were sold to Finland. In the 1930s, the Soviets sent many to arm the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War. 

About 19.8 million were produced by Soviet industry during WWII, and at least nine other countries have manufactured them. There are 45 known variants used by 64 forces in at least 46 conflicts including the current Ukraine-Russia one. As of now, no other rifle has been service longer than the Mosin-Nagant, but the Mauser 98 is still in production at Kraguevic, Serbia. 

The Mosin-Nagant is a typical Russian firearm: simple in design, easy to make, rugged and very dependable. Today WWI models of the Mosin-Nagant sell for over $1,500. The carbines from the WWII-era are trés cute; the best is the rare Finnish-made Model M39. 

Sources include The American Rifleman magazine