Headspace checking a Mosin...please help

[Vlad 11]

Headspace issues on Mosins are almost unheard of, the beauty of the rimmed cartridge.

If your worried, strap the rifle to a table, tie a string to the trigger and fire it like a cannon while standing safely away. Inspect the casing

[fsh4bass]

hi, i just picked up my first m44, is there anyone somewhat close to orange county who i could stop by and check the headspace on my m44? i need it for a monday morning thanksgiving shooting trip.. thanks

[VintageDUG]

Bill is a first rate Mosin nut. He taught me everything I know about Mosins. He's even pulled parts off of his rifles to fix mine.

[Kurus214]

Just curious,
The first Mosin I had would not relaibly close the bolt and chamber a round.
Looking at the cases, the rim would be slightly crushed on one side for those that were chambered. The same behavior applied to the snap caps I was using.

This was after I had cleaned the enire action in mineral spirits, scrubbing with a brass chamber brush where there might have been stuck cosmoline.

When my gunsmith looked at it he beleived that the problem was the bolt face 'rim' that holds the cartridge was out of round just ever so slightly...

He attempted a fix by grinding a radius edge into a file and then tapping on the inside of the rim to move it out a tiny amount.
This did not work, I took it back to the store and we found two two other Mosins in the same delivery batch behaving similarly.

Ideas as to what might have caused this ?

[Vlad 11]

Just curious,
The first Mosin I had would not relaibly close the bolt and chamber a round.
....

That issue is usually caused by the extractor. It needs to realigned or replaced or sometimes the taper angle on it needs to be smoothed out

[Kurus214]

Thank you,
Any good recommendations for a good bore light ?