The Russian Mosin Nagant Forum

Hi all,

I was out shooting 2 of my Mosins the other day and I ended up with some split cases.




I fired 30 rounds total from 2 rifles. First was a 1944 dated M44, the 2nd was a 1938 dated Tula 91/30. The rounds pictured above were both fired from the 91/30.

these where fired from the m44:


Both of those rounds show signs of splitting . NO other rounds showed any signs of splitting at all.

So bad batch of ammo or do I have a serious issue with these guns?

PS I fired 15 from the m44 and 15 from the 91/30. I stopped when I noticed the splits.

Vati

old surplus ammo is not a good gauge of anything,
this ammo it is of an unknown quality when it was new, (mostly very serviceable, but not always)
then unknown storage conditions, (hot, cold, dry, wet or most likely all of them over many years)
don't get me wrong I shoot a lot of surplus ammo and it is good cheap shooting with fair accuracy for the most part.

so for your guns; check the headspace and if the headspace is ok, I would blame the ammo, then I would try some different lots.
for a final test shoot some good brass cased ammo (like PPU) and inspect the cases carefully if they look good, I would bet the rifles are fine.

That is not uncommon. I don't worry about it.

Where's that yawn smilie?

entropy wrote:Where's that yawn smilie?

Does my question bore you?

Thanks guys

No; what I meant is that split steel cased surplus ammo is generally such a non-issue and we've all experienced it, that it doesn't get our attention unless there are gaping holes and gas leaks out the reciever into our faces......

This happens to me sometimes too. Have not headspaced my M91/30 but it seems fine and fires good. I would not worry about it.

entropy wrote:No; what I meant is that split steel cased surplus ammo is generally such a non-issue and we've all experienced it, that it doesn't get our attention unless there are gaping holes and gas leaks out the reciever into our faces......

I have shot threw 3 tins of surplus and never noticed this before. This was the first rounds I had put threw this Tula 91/30 so I was concerned about it, I thought it might be the rifle. Looks like it's a some what regular thing so I'll not worry about it. Thanks all

I've seen this a few times from my 1955 chinese type 53, I think you're ok!

I had a tin of Russian surplus once that seemed like every 10-15th round split. Had a pile of split cases at the end of the day. No worries. That was shooting an M44, M39 and two 91/30 all with no problems and all head spaced.

Can you show us the headstamp on the split cases?

Most commonly this is seen on the 40's heavy ball Russian ammo that we were seeing 2-3 years ago, and it doesn't seem to cause any harm. Hardly ever do I see this on the 70's steel case surplus. I think it is just lower quality steel intended to be left on the battlefield.