Deer power

Guns Magazine, Nov, 2008 by Jeff John

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Q: I recently bought a Mosin-Nagant rifle and wonder if the 7.62x54R is powerful enough for deer hunting? Also. what would the biggest game could it be used for? What would the range limit be for one? When I got it, it had been arsenal refurbished and still in the grease. I have not yet fired it and am wondering if it has any collector's value. It was made in 1938 and reworked at the Tula arsenal. Any info you can tell me would be helpful.

Mike Nowack

Carol Stream, Illinois

A: Your Russian Mosin-Nagant and its 7.62x54R cartridge is certainly powerful enough for deer and most other big-game in North America, except for perhaps the grizzly, but I'd rather have your rifle than a lot of others faced by a big bruin. Norma makes hunting amino for your Nagant topped with a 180-grain bullet at 2,575 fps delivering 2,651 fl-lbs of muzzle energy. On a purely theoretical basis, the round is down to 1,101 ft-lbs of energy at 300 yards, so that is the limit of its potential effectiveness on deer (assuming you agree a clean kill on a deer-sized animal requires delivering at least 1,000 ft-lbs of energy).

On a practical note, the distance at which you can place a shot within an 8" circle limits the range of your rifle. This is the product of the accuracy the rifle is capable of and your ability to shoot it well. For about $9, Birchwood Casey (7900 Fuller Road, Eden Prairie, MN 55344, (952) 937-7933, www.birchwoodcasey. com) offers a deer silhouette Shoot-N-C target a full 24"x46" to help hunters practice placing their shots. The range you can consistently hit the kill zone from field positions is the longest range you have any business shooting.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

As for collector's value, some Mosin-Nagants are highly collectible, but the majority of the arsenal rebuilds aren't at this time. Some time in the future, when the surplus has dried up, their price will rise some, so it would be best to save any parts you switch out so you can return it to its full military glory, because that's how a collector will want it.

North Cape Publications offers a good guide called The Mosin Nagant Rifle by Terence W. Lapin if you want to study your rifle further or become interested in collecting other variants. Another fun book is Osprey's Soviet Riflemen 1941-1945 by Gordon L. Rottman, illustrated by Howard Gerrard. The Osprey book (c/o Random House, 400 Hahn Road, Westminster, MD 21157, e-mail: info@ospreydirect.com) is full of archival b&w photos from the war as well as full color illustrations of the uniforms and equipment of the Soviet Army.