Three-line Mosin technical characteristics. Mosin sniper rifle

“Long-lasting barrels” (long-lived small arms)

Three-line Mosin rifle - 120 years of use

1. Creation

This rifle was developed in conditions of a sharp rise in science and technology, when the advent of smokeless powders ensured a transition to smaller calibers, and, in combination with the development of weapons technology, also the creation of magazine-fed systems to replace single-shot systems. Naturally, Russia did not remain aloof from the arms development process. As a result of long-term work in this area, the Russian army was presented with a choice of two systems of repeating rifles - domestic, developed by Captain S.I. Mosin, and Belgian, developed by Leon Nagan. Tests revealed some superiority of the Belgian rifle over the Russian; in any case, the officers and soldiers who took part in the shooting tests of weapons unanimously spoke out in favor of the Nagant rifle. However, senior management took into account that, for all its excellent qualities, the Belgian rifle misfired twice as much as the Mosin rifle, and also that the Russian rifle was simpler and cheaper to produce. Ultimately, the generals compromised: in 1891, the Mosin rifle was adopted by the Russian army, on which a 5-round magazine of the Nagant design was installed. At the same time, in order not to cause squabbles between designers, the rule of naming a weapon after its creator was violated: the rifle was adopted under the designation “3-line rifle of the 1891 model” (3 lines in the old Russian system of measures are equal to 0.3 inches, or 7. 62 mm). However, the rifle did not remain without a personal name for long - very quickly the soldiers gave it the nickname “three-line”, under which it went down in history. The Mosin name was returned to the weapon only in Soviet times, during its modernization in 1930. Abroad, the Russian rifle has always been called “Mosin-Nagan”.

7.62x54 mm R cartridges for a three-line rifle. On the right - cartridges in a plate clip,
on the left - a cartridge of 1891 with a blunt bullet and cartridges of 1908 with a pointed bullet in steel and brass sleeves

Along with the rifle, a new three-line (7.62 mm) cartridge was also adopted for service, now known as 7.62x54 mm R. The cartridge was developed by the Russian designer Veltishchev based on the French 8x56 mm R cartridge from the Lebel rifle and had a bottle-shaped sleeve with a protruding rim, a charge of smokeless powder and a blunt-pointed jacketed bullet. The design of a sleeve with a rim, which had already begun to become obsolete, was adopted due to the low level of development of the Russian arms industry - the manufacture of chambers for such a sleeve, and indeed the sleeves themselves, can be made to less strict tolerances than those required when using sleeves without a protruding rim. This decision at that time had a certain economic and military basis - the creation and introduction of a cartridge without a rim, similar to the German cartridge mod. 1888 would have been more expensive and would have taken more time.

Initially, the rifle mod. 1891 was put into service in three basic versions, which hardly differed from each other (in fact, only in the length of the barrel). The infantry rifle had the longest barrel and bayonet. The dragoon (cavalry) rifle had a slightly shorter barrel and was also equipped with a bayonet; in addition, the method of attaching the rifle belt was changed for the dragoon rifle (instead of swivels - through holes in the stock). The Cossack rifle differed from the dragoon rifle by an even shorter barrel and the absence of a bayonet. The bayonet for the rifle model 1891 was also adopted from a somewhat outdated model - a tetrahedral needle, fastened with a tubular coupling placed on the barrel. The bayonet had a square cross-section with small fullers on the sides, the tip was sharpened to a plane, and could be used as a screwdriver when disassembling the weapon. The main drawback of the system, corrected only in 1938, was that the bayonet always had to be worn attached to the rifle, in the firing position. The fact is that all the “three-line” (except for the Cossack) were sighted with a fixed bayonet. If the bayonet was removed, the balance of the weapon was upset, and the rifle began to “smear.” The need to constantly keep the bayonet on the barrel made the already rather long rifle even more inconvenient to carry and maneuver, especially in cramped circumstances (in trenches, in dense forest, etc.). In addition, the bayonet fastenings tended to become loose over time, impairing shooting accuracy (the defect was corrected only in the 1930 modification).

Needle tetrahedral bayonet and view of a rifle with a fixed bayonet

Early models of rifles were distinguished by the absence of barrel linings and had a barrel open at the top along the entire length. Since 1894, wooden top pads were introduced to protect the shooter’s hands from burns on the hot barrel. Since at the time of adoption, domestic enterprises were not yet ready to begin producing new rifles, the initial order was placed in France, at the arsenal in the city of Chatellerault. Serial production of rifles at the Sestroretsk arms factory near St. Petersburg under the leadership of Mosin himself began in 1893-94, in Tula and Izhevsk a little later. During the First World War, due to the inability of Russian industry to make up for losses at the front, rifles had to be ordered from the USA. Orders were placed in 1916 at the factories of Remington and Westinghouse. After the October Revolution of 1917, a significant portion of these rifles remained in the United States and were sold on the civilian arms market or used for initial training of soldiers in the army. Externally, the rifles of the American order, in addition to markings, differed from domestic ones in the material of the stock - they had walnut stocks instead of birch.

2. Design and technical characteristics

From a technical point of view, the Mosin system rifle is a manually reloaded magazine weapon. The barrel is locked by a longitudinally sliding rotary bolt with two lugs behind the receiver. The lugs are located in the front part of the bolt and, when locked, are located in a horizontal plane. The firing pin is cocked and cocked when the bolt is opened. The bolt is simple in design, with a straight charging handle located in the middle of the bolt. There is no fuse as a separate part; instead, the trigger head (striker) located openly behind the bolt is used to set the safety. The bolt is easily removed from the receiver without the help of a tool (just pull the bolt all the way back, and then pull the trigger to remove it). The magazine is box-shaped, integral, with a single-row arrangement of cartridges. The bottom cover of the magazine folds down and forward for quick unloading and cleaning of the magazine. The magazine is loaded with plate clips for 5 rounds or one round each, through the upper window of the receiver with the bolt open. Due to the design features of the magazine (single-row arrangement of cartridges when loading from above), a special part had to be introduced into the design - a cut-off, which blocked the second and lower cartridges in the magazine when the upper cartridge was fed into the barrel. When the bolt is completely closed, the cutoff is turned off, allowing the next cartridge to rise to the feed line into the barrel. On early samples, the cutoff also served as a reflector for the spent cartridge case; later (since 1930) a separate reflector was introduced. The rifle stock is wooden, usually made of birch, with a straight neck and a steel back of the butt. The weight and length of the weapon depended on the version: the “infantry” rifle weighed 4.5 kg and had a length of 1 m 30 cm; “Dragoon” rifle - weighed 4.18 kg and was 1 m 23 cm long; Mosin carbine - 3.45 kg and 1 m 2 cm.

3. Application and modernization

Mosin’s “three-line” received its baptism of fire in 1900 during the suppression by Russian troops of the so-called “Boxer Rebellion” in China. Then it proved itself to be excellent during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904 - 1905. The first modernization of the Model 1891 rifle was carried out in 1908-1910, when, in connection with the adoption of a new version of the cartridge with a pointed bullet and improved ballistics, the rifles received new sights. In addition, other minor changes were made, such as a new design of the stock rings. The new rifles were designated Model 1891/10 and served in all three versions until 1923, when the command of the Red Army, for the purpose of unification, decided to leave only the dragoon rifle in service, which remained the main individual infantry weapon until 1930. In 1930, another modernization was undertaken, and again only partial. At the same time, the method of attaching the ramrod and bayonet changed, but the latter still had to be constantly attached to the rifle. The rifle (by this time already officially known not as an unnamed “model”, but as a rifle of the Mosin system) received new sights, graduated in meters rather than the outdated arshins; In addition, a ring front sight safety device was introduced on the rifles. Under the designation “Mosin rifle mod. 1891/30" this weapon became the main weapon for the Red Army for the pre-war period and most of the Great Patriotic War. In addition to the rifle mod. 1891/30 in 1938, a shortened carbine of the 1938 model was adopted for service, which was distinguished (apart from the shorter length of the stock and barrel) by the absence of a bayonet. In 1944, the last modernization of the already quite outdated system was carried out - a carbine mod. 1944, differing from the 1938 carbine only in the presence of a side-folding permanent bayonet, which was still a progress compared to previous versions. The 1944 carbine replaced the rifle mod. 1891/30, and carbine mod. 1938, as a weapon more suitable for modern maneuver warfare.

Sniper versions of the rifle mod. 1891/30 g with optical sights PE (1931-1942) and PU (since 1942)

In addition to the already described versions of the “three-line”, there were two more, less common. The first is a sniper rifle model 1891/30. The rifle externally differed from the basic design with a downward-curved bolt handle and mounts for a PE or PU optical sight installed on the left side of the receiver. Rifles for modernization into a sniper version were selected at factories from production ones that showed the best combat accuracy. At first they were equipped with a 4x PE sight created in 1931, which was a modification of a German optical sight. However, the high cost and complexity of this sight, which limited its mass production and use, forced during the war to switch to the 3.5x PU sight created in 1942, which turned out to be more compact, lighter and more reliable than its predecessor.
Another interesting modification is a rifle with a silencer of the Mitin brothers system (“BRAMIT device”), used by reconnaissance units during the Great Patriotic War.

Rifle mod. 1891/30 g with a PU optical sight and a silencer for silent shooting "BRAMIT", intended for reconnaissance and sabotage units

After the end of World War 2, the production of Mosin rifles in the USSR continued until the end of the 1940s, after which part of the machine park and equipment was transferred to Poland (there the “three-line” was produced until 1965). In addition to Russia/USSR, the Mosin rifle was in service in a number of countries: Poland, Yugoslavia, Hungary, China, North Korea and Finland. Moreover, Finland not only received a certain supply of rifles of the 1891-10 model during the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917, but also captured a fairly large number of rifles mod. 1891-30 during the “northern” war between the USSR and Finland in 1940. In addition, Finland itself produced Mosin rifles. In just 70 years of production, more than 9.3 million “three-line” models were produced.

5. Advantages and disadvantages

The Mosin rifle was praised by Soviet propaganda for decades as the most magnificent weapon, superior to all other models of its class produced in other countries. However, a sober look, a comparison of the characteristics of a Russian rifle with similar foreign-made rifles, and the opportunity that has now appeared to “feel” competitors “live” give us a slightly different picture. Indeed, the “three-line” was a very good weapon; however, it must be admitted that she has never been an ideal example. The rifle undoubtedly met the requirements for it at the beginning of the 20th century - it was simple, cheap to manufacture and maintain, and accessible even to illiterate, poorly trained soldiers. In general, the “three-line” was durable and reliable, and had good ballistic qualities for its time. On the other hand, the requirements themselves were largely based on already outdated ideas about tactics and the role of small arms. Due to this, as well as a number of other reasons, the Mosin rifle had a number of significant disadvantages. The main ones were: a bayonet of an outdated design, constantly worn attached to the rifle, which made it less maneuverable and heavier than rifles from other countries; horizontal bolt handle, less convenient when carrying weapons and reloading than one curved downwards. In addition, the bolt handle was located too far in front of the neck of the butt - this slowed down reloading and contributed to the confusion of the sight when shooting, since the shooter constantly had to tear the rifle off his shoulder to jerk the bolt. In addition, the horizontal handle was short in length, which required significant effort to remove cartridges stuck in the chamber (not uncommon in trench conditions). The safety also required that the rifle be removed from the shoulder to turn it on and off (whereas on foreign models - Mauser, Lee-Enfield, Springfield M1903, it could be controlled by the thumb of the right hand without changing the grip and position of the weapon). In general, the Mosin rifle was a fairly typical example of Russian and Soviet weapons ideas, when ease of handling weapons and ergonomics were sacrificed for reliability, ease of production and use, and also (most importantly) cheapness.

The main opponents on the battlefield in two world wars: Russian and German carbines
the difference is visible to the naked eye

The author of this post had to hold and compare two main opponents in the wars of the 20th century: our three-line Mosin carbine mod. 1938 and a German Mauser 98k carbine. Moreover, both samples were, as they say, “out of the box” - well lubricated and in excellent condition. And frankly, this comparison was not in favor of domestic weapons. Figuratively speaking, I had a feeling similar to if I had sat in turn in a German Mercedes and a Russian Moskvich. No, in general, the legendary “three-line” aroused sacred awe and respect in my heart. But when I picked up the 98k, I realized that the numerous statements in our literature that the “three-line” was superior to the German Mauser were nothing more than groundless chatter. Not to mention the fact that in terms of ballistic qualities, the Mosinka is no better than the German. It is also noticeably heavier, feels worse in the hands, and when I took hold of the bolts and began to twist them, my respect for the domestic carbine began to quickly melt away. The “three-line” shutter moves tightly; to open it, you have to turn the shutter handle with great effort, or even hit it with your palm. In this case, the carbine has to be torn off from the shoulder each time, and after reloading, it must be attached to the shoulder again and again search for the target - all this takes time... The Mauser fits tightly into the hands, the target is immediately on the gun and does not move away from it. It is convenient to hold and aim the German carbine; this is largely facilitated by the semi-pistol grip of the butt neck, which the “three-ruler” has never had. The 98k bolt moves softly, easily, and jerks without leaving the shoulder, while the target continues to sit on the front sight. The fuse box is easily and quickly thrown into the firing position with one movement of a finger. And the close location of the curved bolt handle almost at the very neck of the butt allows you to reload the weapon very quickly. Because of this, the combat rate of fire of the German carbine is significantly - almost twice - higher than the rate of fire of the "three-line". But, it would seem, carbines are of the same class and almost the same age (98k was created only 7 years later). I have seen German newsreels showing the actions of an infantry squad during field exercises. When the soldiers opened fire on the targets, their shooting turned out to be so frequent that it resembled a long machine-gun burst - I have never seen anything like this in Russian newsreels about the “three-line”...

6. Conclusion


From century to century: the “three-ruler” in the hands of soldiers of the early 20th and early 21st centuries!

And yet, despite a number of shortcomings (compared to foreign models of “bolt-on” rifles), the simple and cheap “three-line” went through its long battle path with honor and dignity. Being in service with the Russian and then Soviet armies for more than 60 years, the Mosin rifle participated in a huge number of wars and battles. Having first “speaked” in 1900 in China, the “three-line” proved to be excellent in the Russian-Japanese War of 1904-1905, in the 1st World War and the Civil War. Already with Soviet stamps, the “Mosinka” fought in the conflict on the Chinese Eastern Railway, on Khasan and Khalkhin Gol, in the Spanish Civil War, in the Soviet-Finnish “Winter” War of 1939-40; it remained the main type of Soviet small arms in the Great Patriotic War, despite the rapid development of automatic systems during these years. And in the post-war period, the “three-line” had the opportunity to take part in battles more than once: this rifle was widely used in the conflict between North and South Korea in 1950-1953, in the Vietnam War in the 60-70s, in numerous wars on the African continent in the same years. And after the “mosinka” was removed from the arsenal of the Soviet Army, it found a new use in our country: for more than 50 years, the “three-ruler” has been used by hunters as a hunting rifle for hunting large game. To this day, Mosin rifles are popular among hunters in Russia and other countries due to their low cost, good ballistic data and the availability of cheap and widespread cartridges.

The KO-44 hunting carbine, which is actually Mosin’s “three-line” rifle left without a bayonet,
helps to catch the largest and most dangerous animal

And today the old “three-line” does not leave the stage. Moreover, not only here, but also abroad. Accordingly, the modernization of the Mosin rifle continues to this day. So, in the 90s, the Finns introduced a new version of the Mosin rifle - the SSG-96 sniper rifle. Today this rifle is considered the best in the West. A magazine-type weapon with manual reloading has a device for regulating the force on the trigger. The stock is made of reinforced plastic, the barrel is made by cold forging. Optical sight with 6x magnification; a night sight can be installed. Shooting at a distance of 300 m gives a dispersion radius of 80 mm, at 600 m - 200 mm. And in 2000, Russian followers of Mosin seriously modified the rifle using the newfangled “bullpup” system, after which it was given the name “OTs-48K”. The OTs-48K rifles are manufactured according to orders from law enforcement agencies by converting sniper variants of the Mosin rifle retrieved from warehouses. The OTs-48K trigger mechanism for high-precision shooting is softer and more comfortable than that of the prototype. The solid wooden stock has a butt with an adjustable butt and “cheek”; at the front end of the forend there is a mount for a hinged bipod. The permanent magazine is completely integrated into the stock behind the pistol grip, which is integral with the stock. The shutter is controlled through a special rod connected to it by a pair of articulated levers. This layout scheme made it possible to fit a sniper rifle with a relatively long barrel into relatively small dimensions of 1000x250x70 mm. The weapon can be equipped with 4x and 7x sights, as well as night sights. Instead of a flame arrester, a silencer can be attached to the barrel for silent shooting. This model is still used in modern sniper units of the Russian army.

Video:

The history of the three-line Mosin rifle

Shooting from a “three-ruler” and the problems that arise

Mosin rifle 1891/30 - aka “Mosinka”, “Russian 3-line”, “Three-line”. A non-automatic rifle with a non-removable magazine feed for 5 rounds of 7.62x54 mm, adopted by the Imperial Russian Army in 1891. Official name " 7.62 mm Mosin rifle mod. 1891"received in 1924. " Three-ruler“The rifle was nicknamed for the caliber of the barrel; previously, calibers were usually measured using lines. One line was equal to one tenth of an inch (1 inch equals 2.54 cm), hence 2.54 x 3 = 7.62 mm.

Mosin rifle was not the first magazine-fed rifle. So in the USA, during the Civil War in the 19th century and military operations against the Indians, Spencer rifles with a magazine located in the butt were used. The Henry rifle had an under-barrel magazine. In 1877-1878, during the Russian-Turkish War, a Russian soldier had to experience the hard way of the advantage of multi-shot rifles with a rifled barrel. These rifles were Winchester rifles with under-barrel magazines.

Rifles of that time with under-barrel or butt-mounted magazines had a number of disadvantages. As a rule, they used insufficiently powerful pistol cartridges with a blunt bullet; to increase safety, they had to use cartridges with rim-ignition powder, since cartridges with a centrally located cartridge led to the cartridge being fired in front of the cartridge during operation. Rimfire cartridges often misfired. Firing pistol cartridges was significantly inferior to the efficiency of shooting rifle cartridges. So the pistol cartridge could not penetrate many types of fortifications, did not have sufficient accuracy, and had a short sighting range. The problem with rifles of that time was still the price, since in the 19th century there were no weapons factories that could produce firearms in an assembly line manner, for this reason magazine-fed rifles were quite rare and expensive. Like all first-generation models, they had problems with reliability and maintenance.

In 1879, James Paris Lee patented the in-line store layout. The first rifle with a safe in-line arrangement of cartridges in the magazine was the Mannlicher rifle of the 1886 model. In 1889, they solved the problem of quickly loading rifles with in-line cartridges using special clips. The clips significantly speeded up the reloading of weapons during combat, which increased the weapon's combat rate of fire.
In Tsarist Russia in 1882, the Main Artillery Directorate gave instructions for the development of a multi-shot rifle. In 1883, the definition of “rifle” appeared in Russia; previously, any long-barreled hand weapon was called “gun,” that is, there was no difference between smooth-bore and rifled weapons. The first rifles for the Tsarist Army wanted to be chambered for the 4.2-line cartridge. More than 150 domestic and foreign rifles were reviewed. During the competition, the good performance characteristics of the S.I. Mosin rifle of the 1887 model were noted, but nevertheless it was decided to abandon it, since it was magazine-fed. The disadvantage of such loading was described above in the article.
Also in Russia, rifles with a smaller caliber (7-8 mm) began to be tested. So in 1885, Colonel Rogovtsev created a 3.15-linear (8 mm) cartridge using “Beradnovsky” cartridges as a basis. Rogovtsev’s cartridges were distinguished by an increased content of nitrate and bullets with copper jackets, which significantly increased the life of the barrels and compression when fired, and the 13.6 gram bullet accelerated to 550 meters, which gave the cartridge a force of 2057 J.

Military masters of repeating rifles in Tsarist Russia were faced with the conservative views of the military, who began to argue that there was no need for such rifles, that such rifles needed a lot of “gluttonous” ammunition. There was no war with the massive use of repeating rifles. They also understood that re-equipping with a new rifle would require a lot of financial resources. In addition to conservatism, the appearance of new rifles and the rapid obsolescence of rifles, which a couple of years ago were considered as the main rifle for the Tsarist Army, played a factor. At the same time, a revolution occurred in ammunition, when black powder was replaced by smokeless gunpowder, which significantly increased the performance characteristics of weapons.
In 1888, the Tsarist Army received Austrian 8-mm Mannlicher rifles and Danish Krag Jorgensen rifles. During testing, it turned out that the rifles had good accuracy, but low bullet speed (508-530 m/s), since black powder was used for firing. Also, the shutter mechanisms did not meet the requirements.
In 1889, the famous chemist Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev had a hand in creating domestic smokeless gunpowder. In the same year N.F. Rogovev created a 3-line cartridge with a cupronickel silver bullet; a high-quality capsule for cartridges was made only in 1890. At the same time, it was decided to adopt cartridges with a rim at the bottom of the cartridge case. At this stage of development, the 3-linear cartridge was not fully adopted, so a 6.5 mm cartridge would soon be developed.

In 1889 S.I. Mosin presented his 7.62 mm rifle with a stack-loading magazine, like the Austro-Hungarian Mannlicher rifle, but it required improvement. At the end of the same year, the Belgian Leon Nagant (yes, the same designer of the Nagant revolver) presented to the military commission 3 variants of 8 mm repeating rifles. Leon Nagant rifles were well appreciated for their successful magazine design and the ability to load with a clip, but shortcomings were noted that required improvement. In 1890, the Nagant rifle received 14 positive votes against 10 negative votes at the first introductory competition. In essence, the Nagant and Mosin rifles were structurally similar, but the Nagant rifle had an advantage in the quality of finishing, as it was manufactured on high-quality machines, unlike the Mosin prototype. But at the second stage of field testing, when 300 were tested Mosin rifles and 300 Nagant rifles, Mosin rifles turned out to be more reliable: 217 delays of cartridges from the magazine, versus 557 for Nagant rifles. In 1891 the commission decided to choose Mosin rifle, since the production of rifles was planned in Russia (technical independence), and not abroad, plus this significantly saved budget money. The commission gave instructions for refining the rifle and then putting it into service. For revision Mosin rifles It was recommended to take a clip for charging, a spring for the magazine and a reflector for spent cartridges. So to some extent it was fair to call the rifle Mosin-Nagant. But they abandoned the name Nagan by renaming it “Russian 3-line rifle of the 1891 model.” On April 16, 1891, Emperor Alexander III decided to remove the “Russian” from the name and adopted it for service as a “three-line rifle of the 1981 model.” For the development of the rifle, Mosin was awarded the Grand Mikhailov Prize. In 1924, the Soviet government decided to add Mosin's surname to the name of the rifle, as a tradition of naming weapons in honor of the main designers. Although in foreign sources on weapons topics, the names of the main weapon designers are often written: the Mosin-Nagant rifle, the Tokarev-Colt pistol, the Makarov-Walter pistol, etc.

During the Russian Civil War of 1917-1923 and in criminal circles, the Mosin rifle was “circumcised” and a kind of pistol chambered for a rifle cartridge was obtained. Often such a sawn-off shotgun was called a “kulak sawn-off shotgun.”

In 1892 Mosin rifle began to be produced at three weapons factories at once: Sestroretsk, Izhevsk, Tula. Since the production capacity of these factories was not enough. To speed up the armament of the army, Tsarist Russia decided to place an order for 0.5 million rifles in France at the plant in the city of Chatellerault. The following year, the Mosin rifle was used for its intended purpose for the first time in the Pamirs against the Afghans.
As you use it Mosin rifles improvements began to be made to it. In 1893, to protect the hands of soldiers from burns to the barrel, they began to put a wooden cover on it. In 1896, the rifle began to be equipped with a longer cleaning rod, with a head larger than the diameter of the barrel, so that it would not fall into the barrel. Then they removed the notches on the sides of the magazine so that they would not rub off the soldiers’ uniforms.
By the end of 1897, the Russian army received more than 500 rifles, thereby completing the first stage of rearmament. Before the start of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, 3.8 million “three-line” rifles were manufactured for the Tsarist Army.
In 1908, cartridges with a pointed bullet began to be used for rifle shooting; before that, the bullet had an oval head, like pistol cartridges. With the advent of the new cartridge, Konovalov sights with ballistics for the new cartridge began to be installed on rifles. The new cartridge weighed 22.55 grams - bullet weight 9.7 grams, had an initial speed of 850 m/s from a Cossack rifle and 880 m/s.
By the beginning of WWI, 4.52 million “ three-ruler" During WWII, another 3.3 million rifles were manufactured for the army. Mosin rifle was manufactured in four versions: dragoon, infantry, Cossack, carbine. Even with this number of rifles, the army continued to experience a shortage of rifles and the government purchased various variants of rifles from other countries. During the Russian Civil War, only infantry and dragoon versions of the rifle were produced. After 1922, a dragoon version and a carbine of the 1907 model were produced.

After WWII and the Civil War, the Soviet government resolved the issue of modernization Mosin rifles or abandonment of it due to the rapid obsolescence of repeating rifles and the desire to arm the army with self-loading rifles. In 1924, the military commission decided to modernize the dragoon version of the rifle as a more convenient option. The new rifle received the GAU index -56-B-222. The rifle began to be widely used at OSOAVIAKHIM for training shooting for the “Voroshilov shooters”. In 1928, Soviet industry mastered its own production of optical sights for Mosin rifles: PE, PU. In 1923, military factories began to produce a sniper version of the Mosin rifle (index GAU-56-V-222A). The sniper version was distinguished by improved barrel quality, selection of barrels with better accuracy, and a bolt handle curved down, since the optical sight did not allow the use of the classic bolt version, for this reason the Mosin sniper rifle was loaded one cartridge at a time. The quality of the barrel, which had a check, was different. 108,345 Mosin sniper rifles were produced. Let's move a little away from the topic, but 120,000 PE sights were manufactured, 500,000 PU sights.
In 1938 it was adopted Mosin carbine, representing Mosin carbine 1905 - with the barrel removed by 5 mm with a sight of 1000 meters. As a rule, such a carbine was armed with fighters who needed a compact and lightweight self-defense weapon: cavalry, signal troops, artillerymen, sappers.

In 1938, the Tokarev-SVT Self-Loading Rifle was adopted by the Red Army, which was supposed to replace Mosin rifle. The military departments planned to supply 1.8 million SVT rifles to the army in 1941, and 2 million SVT rifles in 1942; in fact, by the beginning of the war, about 1 million SVT rifles were manufactured. But during the war Mosin rifle became the small arms of the Red Army fighters, so the factories could not quickly produce more complex automatic weapons in large quantities (machine guns, automatic rifles, submachine guns). Per share Mosin rifles accounted for half of the small arms that participated during the Second World War. Production Mosin rifles was stopped at the beginning of 1945, when the outcome of the war was decided, and the weapons accumulated in warehouses were sufficient. The Mosin carbine of the 1944 model was produced until 1949. Latest upgrade Mosin rifles occurred in 1944: the bayonet was made folding.

Automation

The rifle barrel has 4 grooves. The distance between the grooves ranges from 7.62 to 7.66 mm. The magazine has a springy bottom and holds 5 cartridges in one row, so that one cartridge runs over the edge of the bottom onto the body of the previous cartridge, so that the edges do not overlap. One cartridge was immediately fed into the chamber when the bolt was closed. The rifle could be unloaded by jerking the bolt or opening the bottom of the magazine. When the bolt moved back, the striker spring was cocked; when the bolt moved forward, the cartridge was captured and fed into the chamber. After the shot, the cartridge case was pulled out and flew to the side with the help of a spring reflector. The trigger assembly consists of a trigger, which releases the movement of the combat cylinder, which is pushed by a spring. The trigger travel is quite tight and the shot occurs without conscious warning. The stock stock was made of birch or walnut wood. The cartridges in the magazine are cut off using a reflector, one cartridge at a time. Mosin rifle has an open sight rail in steps (arshins) on rifles produced before 1930, later replaced by a sight in meters with an aiming range of 2000 meters in 50 meter increments manufactured under Soviet rule. A sighting bar at 2000 meters does not imply shooting at such a distance, since a person at 800-1000 meters is not able to see a human figure against the background of buildings or bushes.
The bayonet is one of the elements " three-ruler"which served for use during hand-to-hand combat. Also, the bayonet had to always be attached to the rifle during shooting, and its removal was only provided for on the march or when moving in transport. The use and sighting of the rifle always had to take place with an attached bayonet; in its absence, the aiming line shifted significantly and at long distances it became difficult to hit the target.
Mosin rifle has “great” accuracy for a weapon that was mass-produced. So at a distance of 100 meters the deviation is no more than 3 cm (SVD-10 cm rifle), at 1000 meters - 33 cm, and at 2000 meters - 170 meters.

Advantages of the Mosin rifle:

• Price and own production
• Penetration ability of cartridges
• Long barrel resource
• Reliability and reliability in any climatic conditions
• Excellent accuracy at different distances
• Durable stock and stock
• Fast charging using a clip
• Quick Release Shutter
• Removable bolt cylinder, which can be replaced separately without replacing the bolt
• Didn’t spoil the cartridge when feeding it into the barrel

Disadvantages of the Mosin rifle:

• An outdated cartridge with a rim, although a very controversial point, since the cartridge is widely used even now and there are no plans to abandon it
• An obsolete bayonet that was supposed to be fixed during shooting. The second point is that with a fixed bayonet, a fighter greatly lost mobility while moving through the trenches or fighting in urban conditions.
• Low rate of fire
• Lack of standard space for a bracket for an optical sight
• Lack of muzzle brake-compensator
• The magazine holds only 5 rounds; it could be increased to 10 rounds or upgraded to use magazines of various capacities.

Just the quantity produced Mosin rifles 37 million pieces speaks of its popularity and reliability. The rifle is/was in service with many countries around the world, and is/was produced by several countries. On the base Mosin rifles modern sniper rifles with excellent performance characteristics were created. In the post-war years, 32-caliber smoothbore shotguns, nicknamed “Frolovkas,” began to be made from rifles. Also based on the Mosin rifle, sporting versions chambered for the 6.5 mm cartridge were made. Number of shots

The Mosin rifle, also known as the “Three-Ruler”, has been the main light small arms of the Russian army since 1891, and throughout the first half of the 19th century, until 1965. Considered one of the "weapons of victory" of World War II.

Despite the fact that this rifle was invented more than a century ago, it is still in use today. The well-thought-out design allows it to be widely used not only in sporting competitions, but also for purely practical purposes: for the harshest realities of hunting in Russia.

“Three-ruler” was named for its caliber. The length of the cartridge used in the weapon is 7.62 mm, or three “lines” - the old length measures, one tenth of an inch (2.54 mm).

Three lines = 3*0.1 inches = 3*1 “line” = 7.62mm.

She became famous because of three important indicators:

1. Reliability. The rifle's bolt is simple and easy to handle; it can be disassembled in a few minutes using the key supplied with the rifle. Does not require special knowledge or skills. At its core, the bolt part of the Mosin Rifle is a real work of military art, one of the prides of the Russian military industry. Simple - even a beginner can handle it. Reliable - works smoothly in dust, cold and even after dipping into a swamp. All you need to do is remove the bolt, shake off large particles of dirt, and you can continue shooting.
2. Range. The long barrel (800mm) allows you to hit a target with high accuracy, being two kilometers away from it.
3. High armor-piercing power. Sent directly to the enemy's protective helmet, the 7.62mm armor-piercing cartridge pierced it right through, leaving the enemy no chance of survival.

Characteristics

1. Weight: 4.5 kg.
2. Length:
   1. Infantry: 1736mm (with bayonet), 1306mm (without bayonet).
   2. Dragoon: 1500mm (with bayonet), 1232mm (without bayonet).
   3. Carabiner: 1020mm.
3. Barrel length:
   1. Infantry: 800mm.
   2. Dragunskaya: 729mm.
   3. Carabiner: 510mm.
4. Cartridge: 7.62x54mm R.
5. Caliber: 7.62mm.
6. Magazine capacity: 4+1 cartridges.
7. Rate of fire: 10 shots/1 minute.
8. Sighting range: 2200m.
9. Initial bullet speed: 880 m/s.

Since its creation, the design has not undergone any fundamental changes, remaining the same easy-to-use and trouble-free combat mechanism. Originally appeared in three versions, which even differed little from each other:

1. Infantry rifle. Classic design, with a long barrel and bayonet. It is worth noting that it was the most accurate, but the least convenient in some conditions, precisely because of the long barrel, at the end of which there was also a bayonet. Since each barrel was sighted with a bayonet, it was impossible to remove it without hopelessly losing the accuracy of the shot. Because of this, it was inconvenient to conduct combat operations in trenches, dense forested areas and buildings.
2. Dragunskaya. She is a cavalry one. A slightly shorter barrel and bayonet - the dragoons fought as part of the cavalry, shots were fired at a closer distance. And the requirements for accuracy were lower - which affected the length. Also in this version the belt was attached differently.
3. Cossack. Similar to the dragoon, but without a bayonet. The melee weapon for the Cossacks was traditionally the saber; a bayonet on a rifle is not so necessary.

We can say that the three-line gun became the starting point in the production of even more advanced weapons and proves its reliability to this day. The sniper rifle also has such excellent characteristics. If you want to compare rifles, then you should read the material about which air rifle is better. One of the domestic brands that has earned honor and respect is.

A 7.62mm cartridge fired from a VM penetrates right through:

1. 12mm iron layer.
2. A layer of gravel of 1.2 meters.
3. A 0.7 meter oak wall.
4. Shelters made of 0.7 meter sandbags.
5. Helmets, body armor - right through. If a person is wearing heavy body armor, he will “get off” with severe damage to internal organs in the area of ​​impact.

There are reliably known cases from the Second World War when airplanes were shot down with rifles.

1. Outdated cartridge. The edge in the device makes it very difficult to feed it from the magazine, which at one time was solved simply: they introduced a cut-off reflector into the design of the rifle, which is difficult to manufacture and quickly becomes unusable.
2. The rifle's trigger is quite heavy and long, interfering with convenient target shooting.
3. Fuse– quickly breaks down and is inconvenient to use.

See the price of the Gamo Hunter 1250 air rifle.

1. At the end of the “dashing 90s,” a huge selection of foreign weapons appeared on the Russian market. A group of hunters, going on their next hunt in Yakutia, decided to “update their wardrobe” and instead of Mosin rifles, they purchased several models of the latest foreign rifles and carbines at that time. However, during a serious hunt, NOT ONE barrel fired - simply unable to work in the harsh conditions in which hunters usually hunted: cold, dirt, dust– mechanisms that were filigree in “clean” conditions gave up their positions in disgrace.
2. For now 26 million produced Mosin rifles.
3. Soviet sniper Semyon Nomokonov killed a general of the German army from a distance of 1.5 km from a VM.
4. The most “effective” VM in history belonged to Finnish Army sniper Simo Häyhä. During the 100-day Soviet-Finnish war from it 742 soldiers were killed. By the way, Simo was wielding a rifle without an optical sight.

Conclusion

What conclusion can be drawn when talking about a weapon model that, without significant changes since the release of the first copy, is still used today, having large numbers of fans in hunting circles and not only?

Low cost, high reliability and lethality- all the main components of a weapon, the last shot of which will not be fired very soon. Both in forests and in combat zones: according to reliable information, the Mosin rifle is used in the sad events taking place right now in Syria and Libya. Whatever it is, do not forget about safety precautions when handling weapons, about it.

The end of the 19th century marked new branches of development in the arms industry - the scientific discovery of the French engineer Paul Vieille. In 1884, he invented smokeless gunpowder, which prompted designers around the world to create a new type of small arms.

Designer Mosin

Sergei Ivanovich Mosin graduated with honors from the oldest military school, the Mikhailovskoye Artillery School, whose founder was Peter the Great. An officer with a solid store of knowledge in higher mathematics, analytical geometry, and artillery disciplines sought to realize his potential in the development of weapons manufacturing in Russia.

In 1882, the Main Artillery Directorate reported on its intended goals; the main task was to create a multi-shot, “repeat” rifle to replace the outdated single-shot “Berdanka”. S.I. Mosin immediately got down to business; in 1883, a pilot batch of 1000 samples was produced at the Tula plant. Offers of a commercial nature began to arrive from abroad; for the talented designer they were not tempting due to personal circumstances. S.I. Mosin refused such offers: firstly, he could not sell the patent, since he was in public service, and secondly, he did not want his weapons to serve someone else’s army.

The development of Captain Mosin competed with the Belgian development of Leon Nagant. Despite all the advantages of the Belgian rifle, it produced twice as many misfires during shooting. Of course, the main advantage of the Russian rifle was its availability in production. A compromise solution by the commission members was found, and in 1891 the S.I. rifle entered service with the Russian army. Mosin with a 5-round magazine of Nagan design. In their final word, they recommend giving the developed model the name “Russian 3-line rifle of the 1891 model.”

Russian three-line rifle

On April 16, 1891, Emperor Alexander III approved the model, crossing out the word “Russian,” and the rifle was adopted for service under the name “three-line rifle of the 1891 model.” The only Russian Tsar under whom Russia did not fight broke tradition; this was the first time that a weapon was not named after its creator.

Mosin was given the rights to the individual parts of the rifle he developed and was awarded the highest military-technical award - the Grand Mikhailov Prize; in the summer, Mosin was promoted to colonel of the Guards Artillery.

The Mosin rifle of the 1891 model was adopted in 3 variants: an infantry rifle with a long bayonet and barrel; a cavalry or dragoon rifle with a shorter barrel and a new method of attaching a sling; Cossack rifle without a bayonet and with the shortest barrel. The weapon was launched into mass production in 1892 at the Sestroretsk, Tula and Izhevsk arms factories. In 1894, Sergei Ivanovich was appointed head of the Sestroretsk arms factory. The adoption of the Mosin rifle exposed the country's limited production capacity. It was necessary to attract partners, an order for 500 thousand rifles was placed at the French arms factory in the city of Chatellerault.

Weapons of the Revolution

The “three-line” model of 1891 was the main weapon of the 1917 revolution, took part in the Russian-Japanese (approximately 3,800,000 rifles were supplied to the army), the First World War (at the time Russia entered the war, the army had 4,519,700 rifles in service) , as well as the Great Patriotic War.

In 1900 S.I. Mosin received the rank of general in his homeland and the Grand Prix for his “three-line” at the Paris Exhibition. The name comes from the caliber of the rifle barrel: the old measure of length is an inch, equal to 2.54 mm - three lines equal 7.62 mm, i.e. three lines into which an inch is divided.

In his notes, Sergei Ivanovich wrote with some resentment and with good reason that all the main parts and mechanisms of the rifle were undoubtedly developed by him, these parts determine the system as a whole, but the name of the developer S.I. Mosin received weapons already in Soviet times, during the process of modernization in 1930. In the USSR, the outstanding Russian rifle was produced until 1944; in 1960, the S.I. Mosin Prize was established; since 1999 it has been awarded annually; it was removed from service in the 1970s.

Russian 3-line (7.62 mm) rifle model 1891 - a repeating rifle adopted by the Russian Imperial Army in 1891.

Mosin rifle - video

Had other names - 7.62-mm rifle of the Mosin system mod. 1891 (1891/30) (official name since 1924), three-ruler, Mosin rifle, “Mosinka” and the like. Massively used in the period from 1892 to (in the PLA and KPA) the end of the 1950s, during this period it was modernized many times

The name three-line comes from the caliber of the rifle's barrel, which is equal to three lines (an obsolete length measure equal to one-tenth of an inch or 2.54 mm).

Based on the 1891 model rifle and its modifications, a number of models of sporting and hunting weapons, both rifled and smooth-bore, were created.

Repeating rifles with manual reloading (in the military terms of those years - “repeat”) have been known since the middle of the 19th century and even then found limited military use.

For example, in the United States, during the Civil War and hostilities against the Indians, Spencer repeating rifles with a stock magazine, Henry rifles with an under-barrel magazine and reloading with a movable trigger guard, and other systems were used.

During the Russian-Turkish War of 1877-1878, the Turks quite successfully used the non-military Winchester repeating rifles of the 1866 and 1873 models, which were available in limited quantities (about tens of thousands of pieces), developed on the basis of the Henry system - although the widespread use and effectiveness of their use, as a rule, is greatly exaggerated.

Many of these systems were well known in Russia, and from about 1878, various types of foreign magazine weapons were actively purchased for research and testing. As General M.I. Dragomirov wrote in the mid-1870s, “If you invent a repeating system that is reliable, durable, and does not require too much maintenance... then you can’t even dream of anything better.”

However, such a system did not yet exist in those years. The existing samples, although representing, in theory, a significantly higher level of development of small arms compared to the single-shot rifles common at that time as military weapons, had very significant general shortcomings, due to which they could not be adopted for mass arsenal by the regular army.

Firstly, in early magazine systems, due to the design features of their magazines (stock, under-barrel), relatively short and weak cartridges were usually used, often rimfire, close in power to revolver ones. For example, in an under-barrel tubular magazine, when using center-ignition cartridges, the type of which most military-style cartridges then already belonged to, there were fears of accidental explosions from the impact of a bullet from the rear cartridge on the primer of the front one, so many rifles with such a magazine used rimfire cartridges, which had instead of a centrally located primer - a ring of primer composition directly in the rim of the cartridge case, unsuitable for military weapons.

As a result, the firing range of them left much to be desired, especially taking into account the clearly exaggerated demands placed on this quality of military weapons in those years (which was caused by the practice of firing rifles in volleys at a group, often even invisible, target, which disappeared after the introduction of machine guns) , and the bullet did not have the penetrating force necessary to hit a target located behind earthen ramparts, parapets and other fortifications or barriers.

Butt magazines also had their own problems associated with complexity, low reliability, and weakening of the rifle design.

Secondly, and even more importantly, after emptying the magazine, it required a very long period of filling, which was carried out in the designs of that time one cartridge at a time, which significantly reduced the practical rate of fire. This made the use of early repeating rifles in field battles problematic - although in certain situations, for example, when defending fortified positions, when the shooter had the opportunity to reload his weapon relatively calmly, they certainly had great advantages.

Added to this were numerous problems with the reliability of early “magazines” in field conditions, as well as their high cost and complexity in production.

Later, more advanced systems for military cartridges with black powder appeared, which were even accepted in some countries for limited armament, such as the Swiss repeating rifle Repetiergewehr Vetterli (1869), introduced in the Norwegian navy, multi-charged (very imperfect, with the next cartridge being fed into the barrel from the store, carried out by the hand of the shooter) Krag-Petersson rifle (1876), Japanese Murat rifle Type 13 (1880), German “reproduction” Gewehr 71/84 (1884), Austro-Hungarian (1881) and French (1886 ) variants of the Gra-Kropatschek system, and others.

But all of them also had magazines loaded with one cartridge each, and therefore almost nowhere were they accepted into full service as the only military model, usually remaining only an addition to the single-shot rifles that made up the bulk of infantry weapons. Under normal circumstances, the shooter had to use them as single-shot ones, saving the supply of cartridges in the magazine for the critical moment of the battle, the onset of which, naturally, is extremely difficult to determine. The same can be said about the so-called “attached magazines” and “loading accelerators”, which were attached to a single-shot rifle, turning it into a kind of magazine rifle, but were at the same time bulky, relatively unreliable and difficult to operate, and they were equipped, again same, one cartridge at a time.

Magazines on military weapons remained permanent for a long time, that is, permanently rigidly attached to the rifle; interchangeable magazines, as on modern weapons, were then considered a completely unacceptable waste. Even if the magazine could be removed for cleaning (as on the English Lee-Metford rifle), there was only one per rifle (and in the case of the above-mentioned Lee-Metford rifle, it was also attached to it in a chain), accordingly, to have a supply of pre-loaded The shooter had no magazines. That is why loading the only magazine the shooter had with one cartridge at a time in those years was a critical drawback of magazine weapons that prevented its widespread military use.

One way or another, in none of the main European armies in the period until the second half of the 1880s were repeating rifles adopted as the main model, precisely because their early versions were unsuitable for use as mass military weapons.

This happened only after the necessary prerequisites had appeared - primarily due to the introduction of a middle (located in front of the trigger guard) magazine with in-line cartridges, patented by an American of Scottish origin, James Paris Lee, in 1879 and first used in the Mannlicher rifle of the 1886 model, and to it - a cartridge pack (the Mannlicher rifle of 1889), and then a clip (the Mauser rifle of 1889 adopted in Belgium), thanks to which the issue of quickly equipping a magazine with several cartridges at once found its completely positive solution. A pack or clip made it possible to fill a magazine in a time comparable to that taken to reload previous single-shot rifles with one cartridge.

Also, a significant role in the introduction of multi-shot rifles was played by the appearance of new small-caliber cartridges with smokeless powder (the first of which was the French Lebel M1886), more compact and lighter, which made it possible to equip the rifle with a sufficiently capacious magazine, without excessively burdening the shooter with the weight of the ammunition placed on it.

Almost immediately after the appearance of these innovations, repeating rifles using them were adopted into full service in almost all developed countries - Vetterli-Vitali (English) in Italy (1887), Gewehr 1888 in Germany (1888), Lee-Metford (English) in England (1888), Schmidt-Rubin M1889 in Switzerland (1889), etc.

In Russia, the Main Artillery Directorate set the task of developing a multi-shot, “repeat” rifle in 1882. In 1883, the “Commission for Testing Magazine Guns” was formed (guns were then the name for any hand-held long-barreled weapon, and the word “rifle” meant a type of gun) chaired by Major General N.I. Chagin.

The first developments were carried out for a 4.2-linear cartridge for the Berdan rifle, equipped with black powder - in total, about 150 Russian and foreign systems were considered, including a 4.2-linear rifle of the captain S.I. Mosin system developed in 1887, with an applied magazine with rack-and-pinion ammunition supply. It showed good results, but was rejected due to the already mentioned disadvantage common to all systems with such magazines - the loading time and the difficulty of reloading the magazine in combat conditions.

The rapid development of smokeless powders within a few years essentially devalued the results of this work, which, nevertheless, provided rich and valuable experience necessary for further developments.

At the same time, rifles of a reduced caliber (7-8 mm) were also tested. For example, in the spring of 1885, Colonel Rogovtsev created a 3.15-linear (8 mm) cartridge, created on the basis of a recompressed “Berdanov” cartridge case, intended for firing from experimental 3.15-linear barrels developed by the Weapons Department of the GAU and manufactured in Instrumental 2 th workshop of the St. Petersburg Cartridge Plant. The 1885 Rogovtsev cartridge was equipped with experimental reinforced black powder, with an increased content of nitrate, which increased its corrosive effect on the barrel, and a copper-jacketed bullet with a lead core. It had a charge of 5 grams of gunpowder, which accelerated a 13.6-gram bullet to 550 m/s.

In parallel with the development of a fundamentally new repeating rifle, work was also carried out to adapt the magazine to the existing Berdan rifle (later recognized as unpromising), as well as to create a single-shot rifle using a new cartridge with smokeless powder (not all military personnel considered the advantages of repeating rifles significant enough to arm them with the entire army, which was due, among other things, to the absence until the second half of the 1880s of a magazine design that was uniquely successful in relation to a military rifle).

Conservatism and a wait-and-see position taken by the military department out of a reluctance to repeat the mistakes of 1860-1870 (when, during the period from 1860 to 1870, at least 6 different rifle systems for different cartridges were feverishly adopted, most of which had become outdated, yet before the start of its mass production), which led to events dubbed by Minister of War D. A. Milyutin “our unfortunate rifle drama,” led to some inhibition of work on the creation of a Russian repeating rifle - which, however, subsequently made it possible to avoid unpleasant situations in which It turned out to be the French, who hastily adopted the Lebel rifle with an under-barrel magazine, which very quickly made it obsolete, or the British and Austrians, who first adopted repeating rifles chambered for black powder, and were soon forced to feverishly convert them to smokeless powder.

Since any weapon is created primarily on the basis of existing ammunition, work was simultaneously underway to create a new cartridge.

In 1886, Lorenz from Germany was ordered a batch of experimental cartridges of reduced caliber.

In 1887, contact was established with the Swiss professor Hebler, from whom experimental materials, consultations and instructions were received. Hebler advised us to adopt what he saw as the most promising caliber of about 7.6 mm and a steel-jacketed bullet, and also sent 1000 cartridges of his design with black powder.

In 1888, foreign 8-mm rifles arrived in Russia: the Austrian Mannlicher and the Danish Krag-Jorgensen. It turned out that Austrian and Danish rifles gave better accuracy and accuracy than the experienced Russian rifles tested by the Commission, but the speed of their bullets was insufficient (508-530 m/s) due to the use of black powder, and the locking mechanism, together with other parts of the rifles was considered completely unsatisfactory. The same conclusion was reached regarding Hebler rifles and cartridges.

At the beginning of 1889, the Commission, through unofficial channels, received a French Lebel rifle that used smokeless powder - with cartridges and bullets, but without the gunpowder itself. It was also tested - with Russian smokeless powder. The barrel and bolt design of this rifle were considered worthy of attention, but the tubular under-barrel magazine was found to be unsatisfactory.

Russian smokeless gunpowder of satisfactory quality was obtained in 1889 thanks to the successful experiments of D. I. Mendeleev. In the same year, Colonel N.F. Rogovtsev developed a 7.62-mm cartridge modeled on the new 8-mm Austrian M1888, but filled with smokeless powder and having a bullet in a cupronickel silver jacket, which did not wear out the barrel as much and did not rust like steel, and at the same time more durable than copper. A proper capsule did not appear until 1890.

Although by that time in some countries, primarily in Germany, which had a very highly developed production base, cartridges with an annular groove on the sleeve had already been introduced, more compact and convenient for feeding from the magazine, the Russian cartridge retained a protruding rim, mainly due to the fact that , that this made it possible to produce both the sleeve and the barrel chamber with large tolerances. Other advantages of a cartridge with a rim were also noted - for example, it was more convenient when equipping a magazine or loading a rifle one cartridge at a time, which was a very real possibility if the magazine failed or there were no loaded cartridge clips, since it was easier and faster for a soldier to pull out of the cartridge bag . At that time, this was not unusual - the standard French 8x50 mm R Lebel, English.303 British (7.7x56 mm R), American.30-40 Krag (7.62x58.8 mm) had the same edge R) and Austro-Hungarian M1888 (8x50 mm R Mannlicher) cartridges. Only later did the great inconvenience of such a cartridge for use in automatic weapons become apparent, but this did not prevent some of the above-mentioned samples from remaining in service until the end of World War II. Moreover, even in the 1930s, some countries continued to develop and adopt new rifle cartridges with a rim, for example the Austrian cartridge M30S 8x56 mm R arr. 1930, also adopted in Hungary.

However, even at this stage, the issue of caliber apparently had not yet been finally resolved, since development of the 6.5 mm cartridge soon began.

Complete disassembly of the Mosin rifle

1 – barrel with receiver, 2 – stock, 3 – receiver lining, 4 – magazine box with trigger guard, 5 – tip, 6 – tip screw, 7 – front stock ring spring, 8 – rear stock ring spring, 9 – front stock ring, 10 – rear stock ring, 11 – ramrod, 12 – ramrod stop, 13 – dowel bolt, 14 – dowel nut, 15 – butt back, 16 – butt back mounting screws (2), 17 – magazine mounting bolt, 18 – receiver fastening bolt, 19 – front sight with a muzzle, 20 – sight parts, 21 – cut-off reflector, 22 – magazine box cover and feed mechanism parts, 23 – cover latch, 24 – trigger mechanism parts, 25 – bolt and its parts, 26 – rifle belt with two training pads.

Making a rifle

In 1889, Sergei Ivanovich Mosin proposed a three-line (7.62 mm) rifle for the competition, developed on the basis of his earlier single-shot rifle, from which the bolt group and receiver were borrowed practically unchanged; Some ideas regarding the design of the store were borrowed from the newest Austro-Hungarian rifle of the Mannlicher system, tested in the same year, with batch loading of an in-line middle store, which was found to fully comply with all the requirements.

Later, at the very end of the same year, the Belgian Leon Nagant also proposed his system for the competition (in the same 1889, it had already lost in the competition to arm the Belgian army with the Mauser rifle). There were three copies of Nagan rifles, all magazine-operated, with a caliber of about 8 mm, although Nagan undertook to make a rifle with a caliber of 7.62 mm. The Nagant system was considered generally benign, but required improvement. Of particular interest to the Commission was a well-designed magazine loaded from clips, reminiscent of the magazine of the Mauser system rifle that had just been adopted in Belgium.

As a result of their testing, as well as comparative tests with the Austrian Mannlicher rifle, it became possible to finally determine the requirements for the new rifle, in modern language - to draw up technical specifications for it. It was decided to adopt a 7.62 mm caliber (three Russian lines), a barrel and sight based on the Lebel model (but with a change in the direction of the rifling stroke from the left to the right adopted in France), a longitudinally sliding rotary bolt, locked with a separate combat cylinder (since the replacement cylinders in the event of a breakdown are cheaper than replacing the entire bolt), the magazine is in the middle, permanent, loaded from a frame clip with five cartridges. As a result, in 1889 the commission was renamed the Commission to develop a model of a small-caliber gun.

Since neither the Mosin rifle nor the Nagan rifle fully met these requirements, the designers were asked to develop new systems based on them, which, thus, were initially doomed to be largely similar in design, being created on the basis of the same developed by the Commission of the barrel and cartridge, which comprehensively determine all the ballistic properties of the weapon, and due to the requirements set out for it, using the same type of bolt and magazine, and having differences only in the specific design of these elements. In fact, Mosin and Nagan were tasked with creating their own versions of bolt groups and magazines for the existing barrel.

At the same time, in 1890, 23 more systems were examined, which, however, did not show any advantages over those already selected for further comparison, Nagant and Mosin.

After the delivery of a pilot batch of modified Nagant 3-line rifles from Belgium in the fall of 1890, large-scale comparative tests of both systems began.

Based on the results of initial tests, the Nagant rifle showed some advantage, and at the first stage of the competition the Commission voted for it by 14 votes to 10. However, this vote was not decisive, since the first stage of the competition was essentially of an introductory nature. In addition, many members of the commission considered that the tests showed the equivalence of the presented samples - this preliminary assessment of the Mosin design, in their opinion, was associated mainly with the lower quality of finish compared to the Nagan demonstration samples, while the Mosin rifle as a whole was simpler and structurally more reliable. The difference in the quality of finishing was quite natural, taking into account the fact that the Mosin rifles at that time were ordinary prototype weapons manufactured in semi-handicraft conditions, which were at the very early stage of development - while the Nagant rifles presented for comparison with them, executed “with amazing precision” and very well finished, they represented a further development of a design that had already been submitted to a competition in Belgium and was ready for mass production back in 1889. Moreover, it was written that:

Taking into account ... that the guns and clips presented by Captain Mosin for the experiments were made under extremely unfavorable conditions and, as a result, very inaccurately, while the Nagan guns and clips, on the contrary, turned out to be made amazingly accurately, Lieutenant General Chebyshev did not find it possible to agree with the conclusion that both tested systems are equally good. In his opinion, in view of the above circumstances, Captain Mosin’s system had a huge advantage.

Having become more familiar with both systems and the results of military tests (300 Mosin rifles and 300 Nagant rifles were tested), the members of the Commission reconsidered their opinion. During test firing, the Mosin rifles had 217 delays when feeding cartridges from the magazine, and the Nagan - 557, almost three times more. Considering the fact that the competition essentially boiled down to the search for the optimal design of the store, this alone clearly spoke of the advantage of the Mosin system in terms of reliability, despite any “adverse conditions.” In addition, the Commission concluded that:

...pack guns of the foreigner Nagant compared to the same caps. Mosin guns are a more complex mechanism to manufacture... and the cost of each gun will undoubtedly increase.

Moreover, we were talking about more than significant costs: even according to the most conservative estimates, the production of the Nagant system would have resulted in additional costs in the amount of 2 to 4 million gold rubles for the first million rifles produced, that is, 2-4 rubles for each, moreover, that the total amount required to rearm one Russian soldier averaged about 12 rubles. In addition, an additional 3-4 months were required for the development of the design by industry, in the conditions of Russia's already emerging lag behind developed European countries in rearmament with new small arms, despite the fact that the Mosin rifle was already being prepared for production and was specially designed for a high degree of technological continuity with already produced Berdan rifle.

So in 1891, upon completion of military tests, the Commission developed a compromise solution: a rifle was adopted, developed on the basis of the Mosin design, but with significant changes and additions, both borrowed from the Nagan design and made taking into account the proposals of the Commission members themselves.

From the experimental Mosin rifle, it directly used a locking mechanism bar, a safety cocking device, a bolt, a cut-off reflector, a magazine cover latch, a method of connecting the feeder to the cover, making it possible to disconnect the cover with the feeder from the magazine, a hinged swivel; from the Nagant system - the idea of ​​​​placing a feed mechanism on the magazine door and opening it down, a method of filling the magazine by lowering cartridges from the clip with a finger - therefore, the grooves for the clip in the receiver and, in fact, the cartridge clip itself. The remaining parts were developed by members of the Commission, with the participation of Mosin.

Changes borrowed from the Nagant rifle (the shape of the loading clip, fastening the feed spring to the magazine cover, the shape of the cut-off reflector) somewhat increased the ease of handling the rifle, but even if they were removed they did not deprive it of its functionality. For example, if you completely abandon clip loading, the magazine can be loaded with one cartridge at a time. If you disconnect the feed spring from the magazine cap, cartridges will still feed, although there is a greater risk of losing the spring during cleaning. Thus, the role of these changes is secondary in relation to the purpose and functioning of the weapon and does not provide grounds for refusing to recognize Mosin as the author or to put Nagan’s name in the name of the sample, without mentioning the authors of other, no less important additions than those borrowed from his system .

Probably, the name “Commission Rifle Model 1891” would most fully reflect the authorship of the design of this rifle, by analogy with the German “Commission Rifle” (Kommissionsgewehr) Model 1888, also developed at one time by a commission based on the Mannlicher and Mauser systems.

The new model being produced contains parts proposed by Colonel Rogovtsev, the commission of Lieutenant General Chagin, Captain Mosin and gunsmith Nagan, so it is advisable to give the developed model a name: Russian 3-lin. rifle model 1891.

On April 16, 1891, Emperor Alexander III approved the model, crossing out the word “Russian”, so the rifle was adopted for service under the name “three-line rifle of the 1891 model.”

Mosin retained the rights to the individual parts of the rifle he developed and awarded him the Grand Mikhailov Prize (for outstanding developments in artillery and rifle units).

This was not the first time that a model created on the basis of a specific system with extensive additions was adopted by the Russian army under an impersonal index, without mentioning the name of the author of the original system; for example, a rifle developed on the basis of the Karle system (in the original Russian documentation - Karlya) was adopted in 1867 as a “quick-firing needle rifle of the 1867 model.”

Subsequently, however, voices began to be heard that such a name violated the established tradition of naming small arms models of the Russian army, since the name of the designer was crossed out from the name of the model adopted for service. As a result, in 1924, Mosin’s surname appeared in the name of the rifle.

At the same time, both in the Manual of 1938 and its reprint of 1941, in the brochure for OSOAVIAKHIM in 1941 “The Rifle and Its Use,” and in the Manual of 1954, the rifle (in the version after the modernization of 1930) is simply called “mod. 1891/30,” without mentioning any names, despite the fact that the designations of other models (self-loading rifle and carbine by F.V. Tokarev, submachine guns by G.S. Shpagin and A.I. Sudaev, etc. ) in similar literature were almost always provided with notes like “designs of such and such” or “systems of such and such.” Thus, it is likely that during this period they continued to officially use the “impersonal” name in relation to the rifle based on the years of its adoption. In the manual from 1938, the authorship of the rifle is also directly indicated:

7.62 mm. rifle mod. 1891, adopted by the Russian army in 1891, was designed by Captain Mosin together with other members of the commission formed for this purpose.

That is, it also points to the “commission” origin of the rifle’s design, although without directly mentioning individual borrowings from the Nagant system. Abroad, the name Nagan is often placed next to the name Mosin, as well as in the names of the Tokarev-Colt and Makarov-Walter pistols.

Production and operation

Production of the rifle began in 1892 at the Tula, Izhevsk and Sestroretsk arms factories. Due to the limited production capacity of these factories, an order for 500 thousand rifles was placed at the French arms factory in the city of Châtelleraut (Manufacture Nationale d'Armes de Châtelleraut).

The first combat test of the Mosin rifle took place in 1893 in a clash between a Russian detachment in the Pamirs and Afghans; according to other sources, during the suppression of the Yihetuan (“Boxer”) uprising in China in 1900-1901.

Already in the first years after the rifle was put into service, changes began to be made to the original design during the production and operation of the weapon. Thus, in 1893, a wooden barrel guard was introduced to protect the shooter’s hands from burns; in 1896, a new cleaning rod was introduced, longer and with a head of increased diameter that did not go through the barrel, which simplified cleaning the weapon. The notch on the sides of the magazine box lid, which would wipe the uniform when carrying a weapon, was eliminated. These improvements were also made to the design of previously released rifles.

On March 21, 1897, the 500,000th rifle was produced. At the end of 1897, the first stage of rearmament of the Russian army with a rifle mod. 1891 was completed and in 1898 the second stage of rearmament began.

By the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War, approximately 3,800,000 rifles had been supplied to the army.

The Japanese responded to the shortcomings of their rifle, which were discovered during the war of 1904-1905. They examined their rifle very carefully and eliminated almost all the defects, without stopping at the monetary costs necessary for this purpose. In practice, we had to make a rifle of a new system. The Japanese industry turned out to be flexible enough to quickly and well cope with the task facing it - to provide a more advanced rifle in the shortest possible time. Things were different in Tsarist Russia. Although the war of 1904-1905 also confirmed a number of shortcomings in the Russian rifle, but the military department did not dare to make any changes to the rifle that would require money. Technically backward factories still stubbornly defended the barely established production of old models of rifles. The experience gained in blood was ignored. As a result, the Russian rifle lagged behind the Japanese.

After the adoption of a cartridge with a pointed (“offensive”) bullet into service in 1908, in 1910 a new version of the rifle was adopted for service with a sight of the Konovalov system, corresponding to the ballistics of the new cartridge. The new bullet weighed 9.7 g and gave an initial speed from a Cossack rifle - 850 m/s, from an infantry rifle - 880 m/s. Cartridge weight - 22.55 g.

As a result, by the beginning of the 1914 war, the Japanese found themselves armed with an almost first-class rifle, while the Russian army was left with a rifle inferior to German, Austrian and Turkish rifles, insufficiently durable and with a reduced rate of fire; the rifle still had a permanently attached bayonet, which was harmful for accurate shooting.

By the time Russia entered the First World War, the Russian army had 4,519,700 rifles in service, with four variants of the rifle in production - dragoon, infantry, Cossack and carbine. During the war, the Russian military industry manufactured 3,286,232 three-line rifles, repaired and repaired 289,431.

Due to a catastrophic shortage of weapons and problems in the domestic industry, the Russian government began purchasing rifles from several foreign systems abroad, and also ordered 1.5 million model rifles from Remington and Westinghouse in the United States. 1891/10 Some of them were never delivered to Russia - after the Revolution they were confiscated by the US government. Today, American-made Mosin rifles are among the rarest and most collectible, along with rifles made in France in the city of Chatellerault. Due to the same shortage of weapons, it was even necessary to arm the shooters with imported weapons chambered in a non-standard cartridge - so, according to the memoirs of the gunsmith Fedorov, the entire Russian Northern Front since 1916 was armed with 6.5 mm Arisaka rifles, supplemented by a small number that used the same cartridge “automatic rifles” (automatic rifles) of Fedorov’s own system, which were available to selected shooters in the company.

A large number of rifles were captured by German and Austro-Hungarian troops.

During the course of hostilities, significant shortcomings of the rifle in its then form were revealed, primarily related to the unsuccessful design of the clip, which reduced the rate of fire in combat conditions, and the design of individual elements of accessories, such as fastening a bayonet with a collar, a ramrod stop device, or the design of stock rings, which when directly compared with German and Austrian models, they left a very unfavorable impression. The greatest number of problems, however, were caused by the lag of the domestic industry and the extreme rush to manufacture rifles in the pre-war period, due to which each of them required careful fitting of parts and debugging to ensure reliable operation, which was exacerbated by the recent transition to pointed cartridges, which are more demanding to work with. feed mechanism, as well as the heavy contamination of both rifles and cartridges that is inevitable in trench warfare. Rifles taken from the reserve and transferred to the front without modification caused many delays when reloading, some of them could not fire even one full magazine without disrupting the feed. Numerous organizational shortcomings were also revealed, primarily the disgusting training of ordinary riflemen and poor supplies, in particular, the lack of high-quality packaging of cartridges sent to the front.

During the Civil War, two types of rifles were produced in Russia - dragoon and, in much smaller quantities, infantry. After the end of the war, from 1922, only the dragoon rifle and carbine mod. 1907.

In the first years of Soviet power, there was a wide discussion about the advisability of modernizing or replacing the existing model of the rifle with a more advanced one. During its course, it was concluded that the rifle mod. 1891, although inferior to new foreign analogues, subject to a number of improvements, it still fully satisfies the existing requirements for this type of weapon. It was also noted that the introduction of a new type of repeating rifle would be essentially pointless, since the repeating rifle itself is a rapidly becoming obsolete type of weapon, and the cost of developing a fundamentally new type would be a waste of money. In addition, it was noted that a change in the rifle model must necessarily be accompanied by a change in the standard rifle cartridge to a new one, devoid of the disadvantages of the existing three-line, in particular, having a smaller caliber with a greater lateral load of the bullet and a cartridge case without a rim - the development of a completely new rifle model for an outdated cartridge would also was regarded as meaningless. At the same time, the state of the economy, still emerging from post-revolutionary devastation, did not at all give reason for optimism regarding the possibility of such a large-scale rearmament - as well as the complete rearmament of the Red Army with an automatic (self-loading) rifle proposed by Fedorov. Fedorov himself considered the introduction of a self-loading rifle in addition to the existing magazine rifle to be useless, since the resulting gain in the firepower of the infantry squad was negligible - instead, he recommended, while maintaining the current model magazine rifle, supplementing it with a large number of light hand-held rifles (in his terminology - “ maneuverable”) machine guns of a newly developed successful model.

As a result of the discussion, a committee was formed in 1924 to modernize the rifle mod. 1891.

As a result of modification of the dragoon version of the rifle, as shorter and more convenient, a single model appeared - a rifle of the 1891/1930 model. (GAU index - 56-В-222). Although it contained a number of improvements relative to the original model, in comparison with analogues in service with the armies of states that were potential opponents of the USSR, it still did not look the best. However, by that time the repeating rifle was no longer the only type of infantry small arms, so in those years the emphasis was placed primarily on the creation of more modern and advanced types - submachine guns, machine guns, self-loading and automatic rifles.

In the 1920s - 1930s in the USSR, Mosin rifles were used in the general education system and OSOAVIAKHIM for shooting training, and the “Voroshilov shooters” movement became widespread.

In 1928, the USSR began serial production of the first samples of optical sights, specially designed for installation on a rifle mod. 1891.

In 1932, mass production of the sniper rifle mod. 1891/30 (GAU index - 56-B-222A), distinguished by improved quality of processing of the barrel bore, the presence of an optical sight PE, PB or (later) PU and a bolt handle bent down. A total of 108,345 units were produced. sniper rifles, they were intensively used during the Soviet-Finnish and Great Patriotic Wars and established themselves as a reliable and effective weapon. Currently, Mosin sniper rifles are of collector's value (especially the “registered” rifles that were awarded to the best Soviet snipers).

In 1938, a carbine mod., modernized similarly to the main model, was also adopted. 1938, which was a modification of the 1907 model carbine. It became 5 mm longer than its predecessor and was designed for targeted shooting at a range of up to 1000 m. The carbine was intended for various branches of the military, in particular artillery, engineer troops, cavalry, communications units and logistics employees, such as transport drivers, who needed a light and easy-to-handle weapon, mostly for self-defense.

The latest variant of the rifle was the carbine mod. 1944, distinguished by the presence of a permanent needle bayonet and simplified manufacturing technology. Simultaneously with its introduction, the rifle itself, model 1891/1930. was discontinued from production. The shortening of infantry weapons was an urgent requirement put forward by the experience of the Great Patriotic War. The carbine made it possible to increase the maneuverability of infantry and other types of troops, since it became more convenient to fight with it in various earthen fortifications, buildings, dense thickets, etc., and its combat qualities were both in fire and in bayonet combat compared to a rifle practically did not decrease.

After the fairly successful Tokarev self-loading rifle (SVT) was adopted into service in 1938, it was assumed that in the early 1940s it would almost completely displace the Mosin rifle in the Red Army and become the main weapon of the Soviet infantry, following the US Army, which adopted in 1936 armament self-loading Garand rifle. According to pre-war plans, in 1941 it was planned to produce 1.8 million SVT, in 1942 - 2 million. In fact, by the beginning of the war, over 1 million SVT had been produced, and many first-line units and formations, mainly in the western military districts, received regular number of self-loading rifles.

However, plans for the complete rearmament of the Red Army with automatic weapons were not carried out due to the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War - since 1941, the production of the SVT, which was more complex in comparison with the repeating rifle and submachine gun, was reduced significantly, and one of the main types of weapons of the Soviet army remained modernized rifle mod. 1891, although supplemented by very significant quantities (more than half of the total number of small arms at the end of the war) of self-loading rifles and submachine guns.

In 1931, 154,000 were produced, in 1938 - 1,124,664, in 1940 - 1,375,822.

In 1943, on the occupied territory of Belarus, railway engineer T. E. Shavgulidze developed the design of a 45-mm rifle grenade launcher; in total, in 1943-1944, in the workshops of the Minsk partisan unit, Soviet partisans manufactured 120 rifle grenade launchers of the Shavgulidze system, which were installed on Mosin system rifles.

Production of the main rifle mod. 1891/30 was discontinued in early 1945. Carbine arr. 1944 was produced until the start of production of the Kalashnikov assault rifle. Rifles and carbines were gradually removed from the army's arsenal, replaced by the SKS carbine and the Kalashnikov assault rifle (although a number of model 1944 carbines continued to be used in the paramilitary security system).

In 1959, the Izhevsk plant shortened the barrels and stocks of the surviving rifles mod. 1891/30 up to the size of the carbine arr. 1938. The “new” carbines were produced in large quantities and entered service with private security forces and other civilian organizations. In the West they received the designation 1891/59.

Mosin rifles and carbines continued to be used in the armies of Eastern Europe and around the world for several more decades. As a weapon for infantry and irregular armed forces, Mosin rifles were used in many wars - from Korea and Vietnam to Afghanistan and conflicts in the post-Soviet space.

Design and principle of operation

Barrel and receiver

The rifle barrel is rifled (4 rifling, curling from left to top to right). Early samples have a trapezoidal rifling shape. Later, when they were convinced that the metal of the bullet was not enveloping the barrel, the simplest rectangular one was used. The caliber of the barrel, measured as the distance between the opposite fields of the rifling, is nominally equal to 7.62 mm, or 3 Russian lines (in reality, as shown by measurements carried out on a large number of rifles of different years of production and varying degrees of preservation, - 7.62 ... 7.66 mm). The rifling caliber is 7.94…7.96 mm.

At the rear of the barrel is a smooth-walled chamber designed to accommodate the cartridge when fired. It is connected to the rifled part of the barrel using a bullet entrance. Above the chamber there is a factory mark that allows you to identify the manufacturer and year of manufacture of the rifle.

At the rear, a receiver is tightly screwed onto the threaded stump of the barrel, which serves to house the bolt. A magazine box with a feed mechanism, a cut-off reflector and a trigger mechanism are attached to it, in turn.

Magazine box and reflector cut-off

The magazine box (magazine) is used to accommodate 4 cartridges and a feed mechanism. It has cheeks, a square, a trigger guard and a cover on which the feed mechanism is mounted.

The cartridges in the magazine are arranged in one row, in such a position that their edges do not interfere with feeding, which is due to the shape of the magazine, which is unusual by modern standards.

The cut-off reflector is controlled by the movement of the bolt and serves to separate the cartridges fed from the magazine box into the receiver, preventing possible delays in feeding caused by the edges of the cartridges engaging each other, and also plays the role of a reflector of spent cartridges. Before the modernization of 1930, it was a single part, after which it consisted of a blade with a reflective protrusion and a spring part.

The reflector cut-off is considered one of the key parts of the rifle design introduced by Mosin, ensuring the reliability and trouble-free operation of the weapon in any conditions. At the same time, its very presence was caused by the use of outdated cartridges with a rim, which were not very convenient for feeding from a magazine.

However, even the magazines of the Lee system, adopted for the English Lee-Metford and Lee-Enfield rifles, which also used a cartridge with a rim, did not have a cut-off reflector, instead of which the magazine had spring jaws on top and a diamond-shaped profile, thanks to which the cartridges were located in it so that the edge of the upper cartridge stood in front of the edge of the next one, and their engagement was excluded (herringbone). It was this scheme that later became generally accepted for magazines chambered for welted (having a rim) cartridges.

Trigger

The trigger mechanism consists of a trigger, a trigger spring, which also serves as a sear, a screw and a pin. The rifle's trigger is long, quite tight and without “warning” - that is, the trigger stroke is not divided into two stages with different forces.

Gate

The bolt of a rifle is used to send a cartridge into the chamber, lock the bore at the moment of firing, fire a shot, and remove a spent cartridge case or misfired cartridge from the chamber. It consists of a stem with a comb and a handle, a combat cylinder, an ejector, a trigger, a firing pin, a mainspring and a connecting strip. On a sniper rifle, the bolt handle is elongated and bent downwards to improve the convenience of reloading the weapon and the possibility of installing an optical sight.

The bolt houses a firing pin and a coiled cylindrical mainspring. The mainspring is compressed when the bolt is unlocked by turning the handle; when locked, the firing pin cocking rests on the sear. It is possible to cock the firing pin manually with the bolt closed; to do this, you need to pull the trigger back (in this case, the trigger is the tip screwed onto the shank of the firing pin). To engage the safety, the trigger must be pulled back as far as it will go and turned counterclockwise.

Stock, receiver

The stock connects the parts of the weapon; it consists of a forearm, a neck and a butt. The Mosin rifle stock is solid, made of birch or walnut wood. The neck of the stock is straight, more durable and suitable for bayonet fighting, although less comfortable when shooting than the semi-pistol necks of many later models. Since 1894, a separate part was introduced - a barrel guard, which covers the barrel from above, protecting it from damage, and the shooter's hands from burns. The butt of the dragoon modification is somewhat narrower, and the forend is thinner than the infantry modification. The stock and receiver are attached to the weapon mechanisms using two screws and two stock rings with ring springs. The stock rings are split on most rifles and blind on the Dragoon model. 1891.

Sights

Consisted of a sight and front sight.

The sight is stepped on the rifle mod. 1891, sector on a rifle mod. 1891/30. Consists of an aiming bar with a clamp, an aiming block and a spring. On a rifle mod. 1891, the sight was graduated in hundreds of steps. There were two rear sights on the sighting bar: one was used when shooting at 400, 600, 800, 1,000 and 1,200 steps, and the second, for the use of which it was necessary to raise the aiming bar to a vertical position, at a distance from 1,300 to 3,200 steps . There were also two versions of the frame sight: the original version, used until 1910 and designed for a heavy bullet, and the modernized one, with the Konovalov system rail, designed for a light, pointed “offensive” bullet of the mod. 1908. On a rifle mod. 1891/30, the sight is marked up to a distance of 2,000 meters; a single rear sight can be set to any position from 50 to 2,000 m in 50 m increments.

The front sight is located on the barrel near the muzzle. At arr. 1891/30 received a ring ear muff. In 1932, mass production of the sniper rifle mod. 1891/31 (GAU Index - 56-V-222A), distinguished by improved quality of processing of the barrel bore, the presence of an optical sight PE, PB or PU and a bolt handle bent down.

Bayonet

Serves to defeat the enemy in hand-to-hand combat. It has a tetrahedral blade with fullers, a tube with a stepped slot and a spring latch that attaches the bayonet to the barrel, and a neck connecting them. The rifle was brought into normal combat with a bayonet, that is, when firing it had to be fixed, otherwise the point of impact would shift significantly and at a relatively long distance it became almost impossible to hit anything with the weapon without a new reduction to normal combat. When shooting with a bayonet at a distance of 100 m, the average point of impact (MPO) on a rifle reduced to normal combat without it deviates to the left by 6-8 cm and downward by 8-10 cm, which is compensated by the new reduction to normal combat.

In general, the bayonet had to be on the rifle essentially constantly, including during storage and on the march, with the exception of movement by rail or road transport. The manual prescribed that the bayonet should be removed, in addition to the cases noted above, only when disassembling the rifle for cleaning, and it was assumed that it could be difficult to remove due to its constant presence on the weapon. Until 1930, there was no spring latch; instead, the bayonet was attached to the barrel using a bayonet clamp; the shape of the blade was also slightly different. Practice has shown that over time such a connection is prone to loosening. In 1930, the mounting method was changed, but rifles were still shot with bayonets. Some of the modernized rifles also had a bayonet with a namusnik (an early version); later they began to make a namusnik on the rifle itself.

Carbine arr. 1944 had an integral switch bayonet of Semin’s own design. The carbines are zeroed with the bayonet in the firing position.

Rifle Accessory

Each rifle was supplied with an accessory consisting of a wiper, a screwdriver, a muzzle pad for cleaning the barrel, a ramrod coupling, a pin, a bristle brush, an oil can with two compartments - for a solution for cleaning barrels and oil, as well as a gun belt.

Operating principle

To load a rifle you need:

Turn the shutter handle to the left;
- Pull the bolt back all the way;
- Insert the clip into the grooves of the receiver; drown the cartridges and throw away the clip;
- Send the bolt forward;
- Turn the shutter handle to the right.

After this, the rifle is immediately ready to fire a shot, for which the shooter only has to pull the trigger. To fire the next shot, repeat steps 1, 2, 4 and 5. Four cartridges from the clip are fed into the magazine, and the top one remains in the receiver, separated from the rest by a cut-off blade, and when the bolt is closed, it is sent to the chamber.

Procedure for partial disassembly

Remove the bolt by holding the trigger pressed, turn the handle up to the left and pull back all the way.
- Remove the bayonet.
- Unscrew and remove the cleaning rod.
- Separate the lid of the magazine box.
- Disassemble the shutter.

Combat accuracy and fire efficiency

Rifles mod. 1891 and 1891/30 were high-precision weapons, allowing you to confidently hit a single target at a distance of up to 400 m, with a sniper using optics - up to 800 m; group - at a distance of up to 800 m.

In 1946, Senior Sergeant Nemtsev, a participant in the Great Patriotic War, developed a method of high-speed shooting from a rifle. At the training ground of the Ryazan Infantry School, he managed to fire 53 aimed shots per minute from a rifle from a distance of 100 meters at the chest target, hitting it with 52 bullets. Subsequently, Nemtsev’s rapid-fire method became widespread among the troops.

Mosin sniper rifles of pre-war production were distinguished by amazing, by the standards of their time, combat quality, largely due to the barrel with a choke (narrowing of the channel from the treasury to the muzzle), with a difference in diameter between the breech and muzzle parts of 2-3%. When fired from such a barrel, the bullet is additionally compressed, which prevents it from “walking” along the barrel bore.

Advantages and disadvantages

Advantages

Good ballistics and high power of the cartridge (at level .30-06), despite the fact that many analogues at that time still used black powder;
- Greater survivability of the barrel and bolt;
- Undemanding manufacturing technology and large tolerances;
- Reliability, trouble-free operation of rifle mechanisms in any conditions;
- Simple and reliable design of the shutter, consisting of only 7 parts; it disassembles and assembles quickly and without any tools;
- The magazine box is well closed at the bottom;
- Durable stock and butt;
- Cheap frame clip;
- Easily removable shutter for cleaning;
- Sufficient rate of fire of the rifle;
- A separate combat bolt cylinder, replacing which if broken is much cheaper than replacing the entire bolt;
- Cheap replacement of wooden parts.

Flaws

An outdated cartridge with a rim that made it difficult to feed from the magazine and required the introduction of an otherwise redundant part, quite complex to manufacture and vulnerable to damage - a cut-off reflector (later, during modernization, replaced by two parts that were easier to manufacture; however, the most advanced magazine systems ensured reliable supply of cartridges with a rim and without cut-off as a separate part, for example, the Lee system magazine for the Lee-Metford and Lee-Enfield rifles with a double-row arrangement of cartridges, which made it possible to increase the capacity of the rifle magazine from 5 to 8-10 rounds);
- Horizontal arrangement of the bolt cylinder lugs when locking, increasing dispersion; rifles with the best fighting already at that time had a vertical arrangement of the lugs with the bolt locked;
- Long and difficult descent without “warning”, interfering with accurate shooting;
- Frame non-spring clip, making loading difficult; The spring plate clips that already existed at that time, including the Mosin clip, were more advanced, although more expensive than the accepted Nagan clip;
- A long and extremely outdated needle bayonet with a cranked neck, mounted on the barrel, and not on the stock;
- Infantry and dragoon rifles were sighted with a bayonet, that is, when shooting, it had to be on the rifle, otherwise the point of impact shifted significantly, which made the weapon ready for battle cumbersome; the bayonet became loose over time, as a result of which the accuracy of shooting from the rifle decreased; the Cossack rifle could be sighted without a bayonet, but was still too heavy and generally inconvenient for shooting from a horse and being carried by a cavalryman; The loosening of the bayonet has been eliminated in the mod. 1891/30, but the bayonet still had to be on the weapon when firing; This problem was completely solved only on the carbine mod. 1944 with the introduction of an integral switch bayonet, which also remained on the weapon when firing, but could be folded, increasing the ease of handling;
- A short bolt handle that is not bent to the bottom, making it difficult to open it, especially when the cartridge case is tightly “slung” in the chamber; the handle is strongly moved forward due to the design of the bolt and its horizontal position without bending down, which forced the shooter to remove the butt from the shoulder when reloading, thereby reducing the rate of fire; (with the exception of sniper modifications, which had a longer handle bent down); advanced models of those years already had a handle that was set far back, bent downwards, which made it possible to reload the weapon without removing the butt from the shoulder, thereby increasing the rate of fire - the handle of the Lee-Metford rifle can be considered a reference in this regard; It is worth noting that both the experimental Mosin rifle of 1885 and the Nagan rifle had a bolt handle moved back, located in a special cutout, separated from the window for ejecting spent cartridges by a jumper, which also strengthened the receiver; however, during testing of the 1885 rifle, it turned out that with this arrangement of the handle there were often delays during reloading, caused by the fact that the long sleeves of the soldier's overcoat fell between the bolt stem and the receiver, and it was considered necessary to abandon the separate cutout for the handle, returning to the same configuration receiver, like on a Berdan rifle;
- Straight neck of the butt, less convenient for thoughtful shooting than the semi-pistol one on the latest models of rifles at that time, although more convenient when shooting offhand, and also more durable and convenient in bayonet fighting;
- Mosin safety, - very simple, but inconvenient to use and short-lived due to the coloring of the safety protrusion with frequent use (how much of a safety is needed on a repeating rifle is a moot point);
- Some lag behind advanced foreign analogues in the design of small parts and accessories, for example - outdated and quickly loosening stock rings, a sight vulnerable to impacts, less convenient than the side, lower “infantry” swivels (since 1910, replaced by also not the most convenient slots for the passage of the belt, originally available on the dragoon rifle), inconvenient ramrod stop, etc.;
- Low quality wooden parts due to the use of cheap wood, especially on later releases.

Options

The carbine, adopted for service in the 20th century (1907), corresponded to the development of technology at the end of the 19th century and had numerous shortcomings. The Russian carbine, in its design and ballistic properties, turned out to be worse than the foreign carbines then in service. All this was very soon confirmed in the world war. It turned out that the new model German, Turkish and Japanese carbines, which were put into service almost simultaneously with the Russian ones, were more advanced than the Russian carbine. The Austrian carbine was noticeably better.

Many of the carbine's defects were easy to eliminate during the design of this weapon. The barrel should have been made according to the drawing of the barrel of the Lutzau carbine, well known at that time, converted from a Mosin infantry rifle. Lutzau carbines were distinguished by excellent accuracy of fire and were successfully used initially on princely hunts. The bolt handle should have been made longer and lowered down. An example is the handle of French, German, English and other carbines. The fuse could be made more convenient to use. An example is the former Berdan fuse or the fuse of the Swiss Schmidt-Rubin rifle. Arrange a descent with a warning. The sight should be strengthened according to the model of the sight of the Boer Mauser carbine. Protect the front sight with side wings (example - English, German and other carbines). Make the stock with a pistol-shaped neck. Strengthen the barrel lining. Stock rings should be made according to the model of Lee-Enfield or Boer, Spanish or other carbines. Attach the cleaning rod in the rifle not to the thread, but to the latch (for example, a Japanese carbine). For convenience and speed of loading, it was necessary to make a notch for the thumb in the left side of the receiver, in front of the groove for the clip. An example is a German rifle of the 1898 model. The introduction of these improvements would significantly increase the positive qualities, while simultaneously eliminating the defects of the carbine.

The Mosin carbine of the 1907 model was issued to the Russian police, then to soldiers of machine gun companies and lancers, partly to artillery and convoy teams, and in 1914 to some Cossack regiments. During the war, the Cossacks independently and very soon replaced them with foreign captured carbines - Austrian, German or Turkish.

Civil options

The USSR produced conversion carbines KO-8.2 (based on the Mosin rifle), KO-38 (based on the carbine model 1938) and KO-44 (based on the carbine model 1944). In Russia, at the Tula Arms Plant, the production of conversion carbines model 1944 KO-44 and KO-44-1 continued, and the production of conversion versions of the rifle model 1944 also began. 1891/30 - KO-91/30 (Vyatsko-Polyansky Machine-Building Plant “Molot”) and MR-143 (Izhevsk Mechanical Plant). Conversion versions of the rifle mod. 1891/30 practically do not differ from the original army rifle - all the differences boil down to a trace-forming pin installed in the barrel bore to meet forensic requirements and a forensic mark in the chamber, as well as the absence of a bayonet.

In addition, in 2005, production of the VPO-103 conversion carbine chambered for the 9x53 mm R cartridge began.

In the early 1990s, in Bulgaria, at the arms factory in the city of Kazanlak, they began production of the Mazalat hunting rifle (a three-line carbine model 1938 or 1944 from the army reserves with a new walnut stock and an optical sight).

In recent decades, Mosin rifles sold from the warehouses of the armed forces, due to the ratio of price and characteristics, have gained great popularity in the civilian weapons market in many countries around the world, including Russia and the United States. According to the largest American online weapons store, Bud’s Gun Shop, the Mosin rifle took first place in sales in 2012 among all types of small arms authorized for sale to the US population. In the list of 20 top sellers, the Model 1891/30 rifle is the third oldest in service in the world. Only two types of the “police” model of the Smith-Wesson revolver are older than the age of adoption (ranked 11th and 19th in the popularity list). The cost of rifles and carbines of the 1891/30 model is about $100. Delivery from former USSR mobilization reserves. The set includes a bayonet, belt, bandolier and accessories.

"Frolovki"

Smoothbore shotguns converted from old Mosin rifles produced in the interwar and post-war years, usually 32 caliber. At one time, they made it possible to quickly and economically provide commercial hunters with reliable weapons with acceptable qualities. The word “frolovka” has become in the Russian language a general unofficial designation for all smooth-bore shotguns converted from military-style rifles. Currently, “frolovki” are of a certain collector’s interest.

Sports modifications

After the war in the USSR, based on the design of the “three-line” bolt and receiver, several variants of sporting rifles for target shooting were created:

Bi-59- developed in 1959, designer A. S. Shesterikov.

Bi-7.62- mass-produced from 1961 to 1970, a total of 1,700 units were produced. In 1963, the rifle was awarded a gold medal at the international exhibition in Leipzig.

Bi-6.5- produced from 1964 to 1970, developed due to the fact that since 1963, biathletes switched to using 6.5 mm cartridges.

AB target rifle(Army Rifle) - had a weighted barrel of especially precise processing with a length of 720 mm, a more convenient bolt handle bent downward, a diopter sight and an optical mount, and a more comfortable stock. AB had an accuracy of about 3×2 cm at a distance of 100 m with a target cartridge (according to technical conditions; in reality, the accuracy of many samples was significantly better, modern shooting shows an accuracy of about 0.5 MOA with the “Extra” cartridge from 5 shots from a bipod on 200 m), which in theory made it possible to use it as a “police” sniper rifle. After the removal of the corresponding discipline from the Olympic Games program at the end of the 1970s, the few copies of the AB rifle were mostly destroyed, although at least one surviving model is known, albeit significantly altered. In September 1999, a SBU sniper pair competed in sniper competitions with a modified AB rifle. At least one sample of the AB rifle is in the armory of the specialized children's and youth sports and technical school (SDYUSTSH) DOSAAF in Ulyanovsk.

KO91/30MS- a sports modification of the rifle with a match barrel, developed and produced since 2003 in a piece version by the Vyatsko-Polyansky plant "Molot".

Tactical and technical characteristics of the Mosin rifle Three-ruler

Entered into service: 1891
- Constructor: Sergey Ivanovich Mosin
- Designed: 1891
- Manufacturer: Tula Arms Plant
- Total produced: about 37,000,000 units

Mosin rifle weight

Mosin rifle dimensions

With / without bayonet 1738mm / 1306 mm (infantry), 1500 mm / 1232 mm (dragoon and model 1891/30), - / 1020 (carbine)
- Barrel length, mm: 800 (infantry), 729 (dragoon and model 1891/30), 510 (carbine), 600 (Czech)

Mosin rifle cartridge

7.62×54 mm R

Mosin rifle caliber

7.62 (3 lines)

Mosin rifle rate of fire

Up to 55 rounds/min