Modified

Sporterizing a mil-surp rifle is a time-honored procedure.  It's controversial because there's a moment in time where the supply of unaltered rifles drops off and the collectors and the modders come into conflict.

Hey, look, another parallel with cars!  I guess shooters can console ourselves that Hollywood doesn't drive guns off cliffs.

Back to guns...

I am more of a collector than a modder.  Mostly because it's just not cost effective to modify a mil-surp to a sporting configuration any more.  The only money related excuse for modding a mil-surp is that weird realm where you have a small disposable income that cannot be saved up.  I have been in that realm and I understand.

But lets not fool ourselves that you got a better rifle than a Savage Axis from your Mosin or Yugo Mauser.

The end point is influenced by the starting point.  If you start with a rifle that can't hold a group or strings; then cutting off the stock and bolting on a scope isn't going to fix that.  Sure, those changes certainly can improve on the base rifle; but there's a limit.

Mosins are the current tinker's choice because they are out there for very cheap; so's ammo.  The Mosin is also rather famous for being inaccurate.  This is because the Soviets defined what was acceptable accuracy far looser than just about everyone else.  This makes the average Mosin group with a crappy Mauser.  Soviet ammo is also not known for consistency.  Combine the two and you have minute of dude at 100 arshins yards meters.  Which will get the job done in combat, but it's not a target rifle level of accuracy.

And that's a NEW rifle.

7.62x54mmR was corrosive ammo for most of its history and the Combloc kept using it longer than the West.  The level of training and maintenance is much lower with their conscripts than the West too.  Lots of guns have damaged crowns and damaged rifling.  Slapping a scope in place of the rear sight, replacing the stock with comfortable polymer and installing a match trigger do not repair a shot out barrel.  This gun has been in the hands of soldiers for at least thirty years.  Then it sat in an arsenal for at least thirty more.  The chances that it was not abused are pretty low.

I've seen several passionate defenses of making big changes to their rifles based on the fact that what they were doing was essentially the same process that yielded a sniper rifle back in WW2.  Except for one teensy, but essential detail.  Sniper rifles were select rifles.  They are the guns that fell on the right side of the accuracy and consistency curve during acceptance testing.  The cream.  They weren't made by randomly picking a rifle in an infantry battalion; which is what buying a milsurp at a gun show statistically emulates.

There's a kernel of truth here.  That scope, stock and trigger aren't going HURT the accuracy (unless your scope mount is inherently bad).  A good gun will remain a good gun and will likely be enhanced by the changes.  The reason I am hanging the bullshit flag on the play is everyone claims they got that good one.

You may have seen a couple Mosin pics on this blog.  Those are the keepers.  Guess how many 91/30's I've owned.  Fifteen.  Fourteen of them wouldn't give repeatable results.  They got sold for what I paid for them, so it didn't cost me anything but some time and ammo.  The tragic thing about my selection process is I carefully examined them and they all had bright shiny bores.

Let's accept as a given that you beat the odds and the randomly selected gun is a good one.

Did you consider that your rifle was designed to be configured the way that it is?  Changing that stock might just have a negative consequence on repeatability.  Look to what the nation fielding that gun did when making sniper version for clues.  Adding the weight of a scope encourages them to remove weight elsewhere; did they?  If not, ask yourself why.

The parallels between hot-rodding and Wile E Coyote gunsmithing are astonishing.  The stated goals and the achievements are often widely separated.  Achievements are often overstated if not outright lies.  Self delusion runs rampant.  Styles and fashions have undue influence detrimental to the stated goals.

This above all else, to thine own self be true.  If you don't lie to you, you won't have to lie to me.