Scope Mounts for the Mosin Nagant

Update 12 Dec 2011: Nutnfancy has a review of the BrassStacker mount for the Mosin Nagant. The BrassStacker is for long-eye relief scopes but allows for use of irons sights out to 100 yards. It’s much cheaper than going the bent bolt route, but I still prefer that method.

Update 30 Nov 2011: My brothers and I have purchased four JMeck see-through scope mounts. We plan to install at least a couple of these over the Christmas holiday season. Expect a post in January reviewing these mounts!

Original Post: So you’ve picked up a Mosin Nagant for an excellent price and the next step is to put a scope on this hi-powered rifle. The 7.62.54R falls in between the .308 (7.62×51) and the .30-06 (7.62×63), and is also similar to .303 British (7.7x56mmR). This rifle is perfect for hunting and long-range shooting – it’s practically begging to be scoped.

Unfortunately, the Mosin Nagant wasn’t really designed to be scoped and the options available will in most cases cost more than the rifle, even before purchasing the actual optic. Some of the solutions involve drilling and tapping the rifle, which can be difficult if you don’t have the right tools or are uncomfortable with potentially marring your firearm.

Overall there are two basic options; the “scout” mount, which is forward on the rifle and uses a long eye relief (LER) scope similar to those used on pistols, or the traditional location over the bolt using standard scopes. Both have their pros and cons.

Scout Mount
This is the easiest and least expensive of the two options, but means you must 1) remove the rear sight assembly and 2) use a LER scope (though this might be an acceptable option if you wear eyeglasses). These are both cons for me since I like having see-thru mounts that allow the use of iron sights as a backup, and I don’t really care for LER scopes. If you don’t care about either of those things, you’ve found your solution and are set.

There are a few options here. There are several systems where part of the rear sight is removed and a mounting system, usually with a weaver/picatinny rail, are installed (photos). This allows for standard mounts to be used and a wide variety of appropriate LER scopes.

Some have noted that if the entire rear sight assembly is removed on a 91/30 Mosin Nagant, 3/8” male dovetail grooves are revealed, the same as on modern .22 rifles and airguns. This means you can purchase some cheap but still quality 1” rings for about $10 and mount a scope. However, you’ll have to work to get the sight assembly removed:

[There are] two pins holding the sight base on, and they usually have a dab of solder on the base to dovetail. Gentle heating with a small torch to melt the solder, then tap the base forward and it comes right off.

Besides not needing to drill/tap any holes in your rifle, another pro is that you can retain the straight bolt.

S&K Scope Mounts offers a product for this (though the ordering method looks cumbersome), as does Tick Bite Supply.

Traditional Mount
Scopes mounted in the normal fashion are, to me and many others, simple easier to use. In most cases removing the scope allows the use of iron sights, another pro. However, to use a scope in this position the straight bolt on the Mosin Nagant must be bent. Right out of the gates that’s an expense.

There are some kits that include the bent bolt or part for modifying it. Personally I don’t have the tools required and don’t want to take a chance at mutilating my rifle. The most popular kit is from ATI; it includes a rail that must be drilled/tapped and part of a bolt that also requires machining. It doesn’t have very good reviews.

This brings up the bolt. The Mosin Nagant has a straight bolt that comes up right into the space a traditionally mounted scope would be. The only solution for a scope mounted there is to have the bolt bent or in someway modified for the same effect. From all I’ve read, one of the best sources for getting this done is a vendor who goes by “The Boltman.”

Another option is what the Soviets used for their sniper rifles, which is a left-side mounted (drilled/tapped) plate that comes up for the scope mount. This still requires the bent bolt.

There are a few companies that make custom mounts for the Mosin Nagant (again, need a bent bolt to use them).

• Jmeck – I like this one because it’s a see-thru mount and doesn’t require any drilling/tapping. Seems to have a good reputation on the various forums, and there is a You Tube video of the mount installation by a customer.
• Rock Solid Industries – This looks like a well made product that will fit the bill. They note it’s low profile, and offer bolts (higher cost than Boltman, however). Cannot use iron sights.
• Advanced Rifle Parts – This mount attaches to the rear sight assembly to provide the traditional scope placement, and also seems well made. Cannot use iron sights.
• Tick Bite Supply – Offers several options, including the scout type mounts described above, and a hideous tactical tri-rail mount that is just wrong for a Mosin Nagant.

Conclusion
The scout mount is much less expensive and is probably easier to implement, while the Jmeck mount seems to be what I’d prefer (though the mount would cost more than a new rifle and the bolt would need to be bent on top of that, all before purchasing the scope!).

Though I don’t care for the scout setup, I may consider it for my Mosin Nagant due to cost concerns. Perhaps I can get used to it and even prefer it for a high powered rifle, but it’ll be a few months before I need to decide anything.

Teva Sandals for the Bug out Bag

If bugging out, I’ll clip my Teva sandals to my BoB. If you end up on foot, it’s likely you’ll eventually want to protect your main hiking boots or shoes from getting soaked, either from crossing a waterway or due to needing to travel during a storm, etc. If it’s hot weather, sandals can be more comfortable to walk in assuming the terrain allows.

I recommend sandals over flip-flop type shoes because the sandal is held firmly in place and therefore offers better protection. Flip-flops can come off in fast moving water or while running, whereas sandals won’t.

While there are probably lots of brands, I’m familiar with Teva and am a repeat customer. I got my first pair of Teva sandals for about $40-45 in 1996. They got heavy, near daily use for about two years in a marine environment (salt water daily), and used most of three summers after that. I don’t recall exactly what I got on them that made me want to get rid of them, but the soles and straps were still very serviceable after the hard use I’d put them through.

Picked up my second and current pair in 2004 (very similar to the photo above) for about $75, which at the time I thought was a bit steep. But they still look great after six summers of heavy use. Though expensive, these shoes offer good support and have held up perfectly. I can’t vouch for the quality of currently produced products so suggest checking online reviews carefully before purchasing.

Others have also selected Tevas for their BoB footwear as well, and for creek crossing or camp shower shoes. Some hardcore expedition folks recommend Teva sandals, as does a lightweight backpacker, and you can find reviews on Teva shoes from some other serious hikers.

Common Courtesy and Honesty

I really don’t mind if ideas are taken from here – please just include a simple linkback. I’m referring to a recent example where I posted on a topic that I tried to verify has not been brought up in survivalist blogs (Where Military Surplus Comes From).

Today I found a post on the same topic at SHTF Plan via a submission. That author posted on the same topic at their own blog within 24 hours of my post. It’s a truly amazing coincidence (they claim it is “pure coincidence”) that the probably previously unreported site among survival blogs (I checked before posting, in order to add linkbacks as needed, nothing showed in several searches) was mentioned twice in two days. In fact it’s an unbelievable coincidence. I really dislike dishonest folks. Things are the same as ever.

Book Review – Tomorrow!

Written in the early years of the Cold War and as the potential horrors of nuclear war were just being realized by many, Tomrrow! by Philip Wylie (1954) was a call for organized and proactive community preparedness, or Civil Defense (CD) as it used to be termed.

It is a story about a pair of fictional sister cities, one on either side of a river in the Great Plains, Green Prairie and River City. The two cities are rivals in certain areas, and while Green Prairie has a well established CD program, River City decides to do without such a program as an unneeded expenditure of both time and resources. The easily seen parallel for survivalists in present day is between those who are driven to prepare for what could happen, and those who think it never will, or that the government will somehow take care of everything.

Dialogue offers mostly good arguments by sympathetic characters for CD, and mostly bad arguments against it by the rash and foolish characters – it’s pretty clear and there is no guessing where the author stands. Written over five decades ago, the speech mannerisms are sometimes entertaining in their own right. Lots of highballs involved.

Without revealing the entire ending, a catastrophe does occur and of course those who prepared fared better. Still, even the well-prepared suffered greatly, for a time.

The good of this book is that it logically spells out the real potential and consequences for being unprepared. In the era it was written it was geared towards nuclear war and “robot” (guided) missiles, but the same principles apply today, especially concerning a focus on group or community cooperation.

A lot of the bad had to do with overdoing drama between the characters, though perhaps the author thought it might draw more into the story and his message. I’ve read some criticisms of the book for using racial slurs, but I think those are unfair criticisms; they weren’t off the table in the 1950s, and his clueless characterless used them, which could mean that author didn’t agree.

Another flaw is that Wylie assumed a nuclear war would be winnable, and that rebuilding would be a matter of course. On one hand, we’re AmeriCANs not AmeriCAN’Ts, of course we’d rebuild! If anyone was left and there were resources to do so, which is the problem; assuming a nuclear war would be limited and there would be any government left.

An oddity is that Wylie was to the left of the political spectrum. A couple of his über rational characters making (his own, I’m sure) arguments for CD and noting the terrible threat of atomic war, also thought that “intellectuals,” “scientists,” “psychologists,” and “sociologists” would lead civilization down better path – men of reason vs. religion. I assume he was an atheist, but he didn’t mock religion. At any rate, I am a Christian and disagree with the contention that “intellectuals,” “scientists,” “psychologists,” and “sociologists” will save us.

Some of the same “intellectual” characters argued against McCarthyism. While I agree our government went too far and needlessly wrecked some careers, arguing against going after the “Reds” among us seems counterproductive to his main goal of raising awareness of the nuclear threat. Communist sympathizers would work to reinforce the views of those in River City, that there is no threat or need to prepare, so I think this view is inconsistent.

The image to the right is from a 1947 “propaganda comic book” the communist threat to America, and makes me wonder if Wylie’s title wasn’t’ inspired from the title. Also see CD themed posters from the 1950s and 1960s, and the CD Insignia.

A recommended read to buy used or borrow from the library.

Book Review – Summer of the Apocalypse

Summer of the Apocalypse, by James Van Pelt (2006) is about a survivor – Eric, age 15 – of a global pandemic that wipes out apparently well over 90% of the world’s population, not unlike The Stand. However, unlike The Stand, this story offers Eric’s perspective at the time of the pandemic, and 60 years later when he’s 75. Chapters alternate between the plague time and 60 year later.

This story is of some value to survivalists in that it plays out possible survival scenarios and post-apocalyptic survival techniques and procedures, but it’s also a good story. Not great but passable.

Sometime around present day, a plague strikes and kills most humans, very like The Stand. In fact, the main character, Eric, refers to that book. The family lives near Denver, Colorado. Eric’s father has anticipated the violence that might accompany such an event, and stocked a local, mostly unknown cave. Eric was very surprised to find his father had stocked a cave and wondered how the apparently unmanly man, whom Eric didn’t think much of, had hauled all the canned goods and other supplies up a relatively treacherous trail to the cave. Eric has a series of adventures and obviously survives to old age.

The elderly Eric is on a mini crusade to ensure people continue to learn how to read, so they can remake or rebuild things rather than just scavenging.

There are a few technical mistakes in the book. For example, diesel might last a little over 10 years if stabilized with chemical agents, but the book refers to diesel being used to run generators 60 years later – not feasible. Another example is ammunition, most of which is described as not working 60 years later. However, ammunition stored in an ammo can, as much of it likely would be after such an event, would probably be just fine 60 years later.

Towards the end of the book there is an attempt to make a couple of political points. The first being that we’d be happier without all the technology we have. I guess that depends on whether or not you’d like dying if a preventable infection or not, and so on. The second point was that the earth (60 years into the future) was being poisoned by all the chemicals and waste left behind – an environmental message. No doubt both arguments have some merit; I’d just not prefer them with my fiction. Still, it’s worth being aware of potential environmental issues in a post-apocalyptic world.

Overall this book is recommended; buy used or get it at the library.

Book Review – One

I stumbled upon the book One, by Conrad Williams (2009) during a search for post-apocalyptic fiction at Amazon and scrolling through the “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” portion of the page. The first half of the book delivers, mostly. However, the second half of the book is basically a recast zombie (called “skinners”) horror novel that is not useful for survivalists. If the book description had been clearer on this point I would not have purchased the book. I do not recommend this book to survivalists, unless you are into zombies.

The premise of the story is that some sort of incident cooks all life in the United Kingdom and presumably the rest of the world. While the catastrophe that causes this is never fully explained, it seems to have been a combination of great heat and microwaves, accompanied by vast amounts of dust. One could speculate that a radioactive comet(s) or some other extraterrestrial event caused the heat and microwaves.

The world left behind is desolate and seems to offer no hope for the long-term continuation of any life, much like The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. It is bleak.

The only survivors were those who were deep underground or otherwise shielded from the radiation. The main character, Richard Jane, was a deep sea diver who was deep underwater at the time of the event. The plot revolves around his obsessive search for his five-year-old son, Stanley, who was living in London at the time of the event. Other survivors were in the “tube” (London’s subway system), sightseeing deep in the keep of castle, in a hospital’s X-ray room, etc. – they were shielded in one way or another.

The effect of this unidentified radiation is that the surface of the UK, and the rest of the planet we may assume, is literally cooked. Electronics fried, along with all living things including plant life. Tires cooked on rims, paint cooked on building, canned foods ruined, etc. For at least the first several days after a sort of acid rain falls. For much longer, a thick dust lingers in the air. We later learn the dust contains some mysterious spores.

Surviving such an event is not a matter of planning but of luck; surviving the aftermath involves skill and adaptability, and there is some small value to survivalists there. The first half of the book deals with the immediate aftermath of these events.

In the second part of the book, skip forward ten years. Whatever caused the destruction either deposited or released spores that, upon entering the body, eventually cause a creature to grow inside and takeover the host. These creatures, as you may guess, dine on human flesh. They are more intelligent and move faster than zombies, but they’re zombies none the less. Which is why I do not recommend this book for survivalists.