Where does the name trilinear come from? Why is the Mosin rifle called "Three-ruler": detailed information

The Russian 3-linear (7.62 mm) rifle of the 1891 model is a repeating rifle adopted by the Russian Imperial Army in 1891.

Mosin rifle - video

It had other names - 7.62 mm Mosin rifle 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 repeatedly modernized

The name three-ruler comes from the caliber of a rifle barrel, which is equal to three lines (an outdated measure of length equal to one tenth of an inch or 2.54 mm).

On the basis of the rifle of the 1891 model and its modifications, a number of samples of sports and hunting weapons, both rifled and smoothbore, were created.

Shop rifles with manual reloading (in terms of military affairs of those years - “repetitive”) 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 the fighting against the Indians, Spencer magazine rifles with an applied magazine, Henry with an underbarrel magazine and reloading a movable trigger guard, and other systems were used.

During the years of the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878, the Turks unsuccessfully used the non-military Winchester magazine 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 mass character and effectiveness of their use, as a rule, greatly exaggerated.

Many of these systems were well known in Russia as well, and since about 1878, various samples 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, does not require too careful maintenance ... then you can’t even dream of anything better”

However, such a system did not exist at that time. The available samples, although representing, in theory, a significantly higher stage 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 armament by the regular army.

Firstly, in the early magazine systems, due to the design features of their magazines (applied, underbarrel), relatively short and weak cartridges were usually used, often ring-fired, close in power to revolvers. For example, in the underbarrel tubular magazine, when using central ignition cartridges, to which the majority of military-style cartridges already belonged, they were afraid of accidental ruptures from the impact of a bullet from the rear cartridge on the front primer, so many rifles with such a magazine used rimfire cartridges that had instead of a centrally located primer a ring of primer composition right in the rim of the cartridge case, of little use for military weapons.

As a result, the firing range of them left much to be desired, especially considering the clearly overstated requirements for 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 that disappeared after the introduction of machine guns) , and the bullet did not have the penetrating power necessary to hit a target located behind earthen ramparts, parapets and other fortifications or barriers.

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

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

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

Later, more advanced systems appeared for military cartridges with black powder, which were even accepted in some countries for limited armament, such as the Swiss Repetiergewehr Vetterli (1869) repeating rifle introduced in the Norwegian Navy (very imperfect, with the next cartridge fed into the barrel from the store, carried by the hand of the shooter) Krag-Petersson rifle (1876), Japanese Murat Type 13 rifle (1880), German "recast" 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 equipped with one cartridge each, and therefore they were practically never adopted for full armament as the only military model, usually remaining only in 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 shots, saving the stock of cartridges in the magazine for a critical moment in the battle, which, of course, is extremely difficult to determine the offensive. The same can be said about the so-called "side magazines" and "accelerators" that were mounted on a single-shot rifle, turning it into a kind of magazine, but at the same time they were bulky, relatively unreliable and difficult to operate, and they were equipped, again same, one cartridge.

Shops on military weapons remained constant for a long time, that is, permanently rigidly fixed to the rifle; interchangeable stores, as on modern weapons, were then considered completely unacceptable waste. Even if the store could be removed for cleaning (as on the English Lee-Metford rifle), there was only one per rifle (and in the case of the aforementioned Lee-Metford rifle, it also joined it in a chain), respectively, to have a supply of pre-equipped shooter shops could not. That is why loading the only magazine available to the shooter with one cartridge in those years was a critical drawback of magazine weapons, which 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, magazine rifles were adopted as the main model, precisely because their early versions were unsuitable for use as mass military weapons.

This happened only after the appearance of the necessary prerequisites - 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 Lee (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 clips (the Mauser rifle of 1889 adopted in Belgium), thanks to which, finally, the issue of quickly equipping the store with several cartridges at once found its positive solution. A pack or clip made it possible to fill the magazine in a time comparable to that which took to reload the previous single-shot rifles with one cartridge.

Also a significant role in the introduction of repeating rifles was played by the emergence of new small-caliber cartridges with smokeless powder (the first of which was the French Lebel M1886), more compact and light, which made it possible to supply the rifle with a sufficiently capacious magazine, while not excessively burdening the shooter with the weight of the ammunition placed on it.

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

In Russia, the Main Artillery Directorate set the task of developing a multi-shot, "repeating" rifle in 1882. In 1883, the "Commission for Testing Shop Guns" was formed (then any long-barreled hand weapon was called a gun, and the word "rifle" denoted a type of gun) under the chairmanship of Major General N. I. Chagin.

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

The rapid development of smokeless powders in a few years essentially devalued the results of these works, which, nevertheless, gave a rich and valuable experience necessary for further development.

Along the way, rifles of 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 re-compressed "Berdanov" cartridge case, intended for firing from experimental 3.15-linear barrels developed by the Armory Department of the GAU and manufactured in Instrumental 2 th workshop of the Petersburg Cartridge Plant. The Rogovtsev cartridge of 1885 was equipped with experimental reinforced black powder, with an increased content of saltpeter, which increased its corrosive effect on the barrel, and a bullet in a copper sheath with a lead core. He 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 magazine 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 considered the advantages of magazine rifles significant enough to arm them 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 attitude taken by the military department out of unwillingness 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 obsolete, more before the start of its mass production), which led to the events christened by the Minister of War D. A. Milyutin "our unfortunate gun drama", led to some inhibition of work on the creation of a Russian magazine rifle, which, however, subsequently made it possible to avoid unpleasant situations in which turned out to be the French, hastily adopting the Lebel rifle with the underbarrel magazine that very quickly made it obsolete, or the British and Austrians, who first adopted magazine rifles chambered for black powder, and were soon forced to feverishly remake them for smokeless.

Since any weapon is created primarily on the basis of the existing ammunition, work was carried out at the same time to create a new cartridge.

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

In 1887, a connection was established with the Swiss professor Hebler, from whom experimental materials, consultations and instructions were received. Hebler advised to accept the caliber of the order of 7.6 mm, which he saw as the most promising, and a bullet in a steel jacket, 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 the Austrian and Danish rifles gave better accuracy and accuracy of combat than the experimental 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, along with other parts of the rifles was found to be completely unsatisfactory. The same conclusion was drawn regarding Hebler rifles and cartridges.

In early 1889, the Commission, through informal channels, received a French Lebel rifle using smokeless powder - with shells and bullets, but without the gunpowder itself. She was also tested - with Russian smokeless powder. The design of the barrel and bolt of this rifle was recognized as worthy of attention, but the tubular underbarrel magazine turned out to be unsatisfactory.

Russian smokeless powder of satisfactory quality was obtained in 1889 thanks to successful experiences 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 equipped with smokeless powder and having a bullet in a cupronickel shell, which did not wear out the barrel as much and did not rust like steel, and more durable than copper. A proper primer appeared only in 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, which were more compact and convenient for feeding from the magazine, the Russian cartridge retained a protruding rim, mainly due to the fact that , which made it possible to manufacture both the sleeve and the barrel chamber with large tolerances. Other advantages of a rimmed cartridge were also noted - for example, it was more convenient when equipping a magazine or loading a rifle with one cartridge, which was quite a real opportunity when the store fails or there are no loaded cartridge clips, as it is more convenient and faster to pull out a soldier from a cartridge bag. At that time, this was not unusual - regular French 8 × 50 mm R Lebel, English .303 British (7.7 × 56 mm R), American. 30-40 Krag (7.62 × 58.8 mm R) and Austro-Hungarian M1888 (8x50mm R Mannlicher) cartridges. Only later did the great inconvenience of such a cartridge for use in automatic weapons come to light, but this did not prevent some of the above 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 8 × 56 mm R mod. 1930, also adopted in Hungary.

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

Complete disassembly of the Mosin rifle

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

Creation of 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 almost unchanged; At the same time, some ideas regarding the design of the store were borrowed from the latest 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 be fully compliant with all the requirements.

Later, at the very end of the same year, the Belgian Leon Nagant also offered his system for the competition (in the same 1889, he had already lost the Mauser rifle in the competition for arming the Belgian army). There were three Nagan rifles, all store-bought, 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 generally recognized as benign, but in need of improvement. Of particular interest to the Commission was a well-designed clip-loading magazine, reminiscent of the magazine of the newly adopted Mauser rifle 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 a new rifle, in modern terms - to draw up a technical task for it. It was decided to adopt a caliber of 7.62 mm (three Russian lines), a Lebel-style barrel and sight (but with a change in the direction of the rifling from the left to the right adopted in France), a longitudinally sliding rotary bolt, locked by a separate combat larva (since the replacement larvae in the event of a breakdown is cheaper than replacing the entire shutter), the store is middle, permanent, with loading from a frame holder with five rounds. The commission was consequently renamed in 1889 into the Commission for the development of a sample of a small-caliber gun.

Since neither the Mosin rifle nor the Nagant rifles fully met these requirements, the designers were asked to develop new systems based on them, which, therefore, were initially doomed to be largely structurally similar, being created on the basis of the same developed by the Commission of the barrel and cartridge, which in a complex determine all the ballistic properties of the weapon, and due to the requirements set by it, using the same type of shutter and magazine, and having differences only in the specific design of these elements. In fact, Mosin and Nagant were given the task of creating their own options for bolt groups and magazines for the existing barrel.

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

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

According to the results of the initial tests, the Nagant rifle showed some advantage, and at the first stage of the competition, the Commission voted for it with 14 votes against 10. However, this vote was not decisive, since the first stage of the competition was essentially an exploratory character. In addition, many members of the commission considered that the tests showed the equivalence of the submitted samples - this design Mosin's preliminary assessment, in their opinion, was mainly due to the lower quality of the finish compared to the Nagant demonstration samples, while the Mosin rifle as a whole was simpler and structurally more reliable. The difference in the quality of the finish was quite natural, given the fact that the Mosin rifles at that time were ordinary prototypes of weapons made in semi-handicraft conditions, which were at the very early stage of fine-tuning - while the Nagant rifles presented for comparison with them, executed "with amazing precision" and very well finished, they were a further development of a design that had already been submitted to a competition in Belgium and ready for mass production as early as 1889. Moreover, it was written that:

Taking into account ... that the guns and clips presented by Captain Mosin for experiments were made under extremely unfavorable conditions and, as a result, very inaccurate, the guns and Nagant clips, on the contrary, turned out to be amazingly accurate, 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 circumstances outlined, the system of Captain Mosin 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 revised their opinion. On test firing, the Mosin rifles gave 217 delays when feeding cartridges from the magazine, and the Nagant - 557, almost three times more. Considering the fact that the competition essentially came down to finding the optimal design of the store, this alone spoke quite clearly about the advantage of the Mosin system in terms of reliability, despite any "unfavorable conditions". In addition, the Commission concluded that:

... pack guns of a foreigner Nagan compared with the same cap. Mosin are a mechanism more difficult to manufacture ... and the cost of each copy of the gun will undoubtedly increase.

And it was about more than significant costs: even according to the most conservative estimates, the production of the Nagant system would give 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, despite the fact that the total amount required for the rearmament of one Russian soldier, the average was about 12 rubles. In addition, it took an additional 3-4 months to master the design by industry, in the face of Russia's already emerging lag behind developed European countries in re-equipping 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 the already produced Berdan rifle.

So in 1891, upon completion of military trials, the Commission worked out 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, a locking mechanism bar, a safety cocking device, a bolt, a cut-off reflector, a magazine cover latch, a method for connecting the feeder to the cover, making it possible to detach the cover from the feeder from the magazine, a swivel swivel; from the Nagant system - the idea of \u200b\u200bplacing a feeder on the magazine door and opening it down, a way to fill 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 worked out by members of the Commission, with the participation of Mosin.

The changes borrowed from the Nagant rifle (the shape of the clip for loading, the attachment of the feed spring to the magazine cover, the shape of the cut-off reflector) somewhat increased the convenience 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-on loading, the magazine can be equipped with one cartridge at a time. If the feed spring is removed from the magazine cover, cartridges will still be fed, although there is an increased risk of losing the spring when cleaning. Thus, the role of these changes is secondary in relation to the purpose and functioning of the weapon and does not give grounds for refusing to recognize Mosin as the author or put the name of Nagan in the name of the sample, without mentioning the authors of other additions no less important than those borrowed from his system. .

Probably the most fully reflecting the authorship of the design of this rifle would be the name "Commission rifle of the 1891 model of the year", by analogy with the German "Commission rifle" (Kommissionsgewehr) of the 1888 model of the year, also developed at the time by the commission based on the Mannlicher and Mauser systems.

In the new model being made, there are parts proposed by Colonel Rogovtsev, the commission of Lieutenant General Chagin, Captain Mosin and the 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 sample, deleting the word "Russian", so the rifle was adopted under the name "three-line rifle of the 1891 model".

Mosin left the rights to the individual parts of the rifle developed by him and awarded him the Big Mikhailovsky Prize (for outstanding developments in the artillery and infantry unit).

This was not the first time that a model based on a certain 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 Carle system (in the original Russian documentation - Carl) was adopted in 1867 as a "rapid-firing needle rifle of the 1867 model."

Subsequently, however, voices began to be heard that such a name violated the established tradition of naming samples of small arms of the Russian army, since the name of the designer was deleted from the name of the adopted sample. As a result, in 1924, the surname Mosin 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 the OSOAVIAKhIM of 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 - “arr. 1891/30, without mentioning any names, despite the fact that the designations of other samples (self-loading rifle and carbine by F. V. Tokarev, submachine guns by G. S. Shpagin and A. I. Sudayev, etc. ) in similar literature were almost always supplied with notes of the form “constructions of such and such” or “systems of such and such”. Thus, it is likely that during this period, officially, in relation to the rifle, they continued to use the “impersonal” name according to the years of its adoption into service. In the instruction from 1938, the authorship of the rifle is also directly indicated:

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

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

Production and operation

The 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 500,000 rifles was placed at the French arms factory in Châtelleraut (Manufacture Nationale d'Armes de Châtelleraut).

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

Already in the first years after the adoption of the rifle into service, during the production and operation of the weapon, changes began to be made to the original design. So, in 1893, a wooden handguard was introduced to protect the shooter's hands from burns, in 1896 - a new ramrod, longer and with a larger diameter head that did not pass through the barrel, which simplified cleaning of the weapon. Eliminated the notch on the sides of the lid of the magazine box, which, when carrying weapons, wiped uniforms. 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.

The Japanese reacted to the shortcomings of their rifle, which were discovered during the war of 1904-1905. They studied their rifle very carefully and eliminated almost all the defects, without stopping at the necessary monetary outlays for this purpose. In practice, I had to make a rifle of a new system. The industry of Japan turned out to be flexible enough to quickly and well cope with the task before it - to produce a more advanced rifle in the shortest possible time. The situation was 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 required money. The technologically backward factories still stubbornly defended the hard-won production of old rifles. Experience gained by blood was ignored. As a result, the Russian rifle lagged behind the Japanese.

After the adoption in 1908 of a cartridge with a pointed ("offensive") bullet in 1910, a new version of the rifle was adopted 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 velocity from a Cossack rifle - 850 m / s, from an infantry - 880 m / s. Cartridge weight - 22.55 g.

As a result, by the beginning of the war in 1914, the Japanese were armed with an almost first-class rifle, while the Russian army was left with a rifle that was inferior to the German, Austrian and Turkish rifles, not survivable enough and with a reduced rate of fire; the rifle still had a permanently attached bayonet, detrimental to marksmanship.

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

Due to the catastrophic lack of weapons and problems of the domestic industry, the Russian government began to purchase rifles from several foreign systems abroad, and also ordered 1.5 million rifles mod. 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 Châtellerault. Due to the same shortage of weapons, it was even necessary to equip shooters with imported weapons chambered for 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 Arisak rifles, supplemented by a small number using the same cartridge "automatic rifles" (automatic rifles) of the system of Fedorov himself, which were available to selected shooters in the company.

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

During the hostilities, significant shortcomings of the rifle in its then form were identified, 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 the fittings, such as attaching a bayonet with a collar, a ramrod stop device or the design of stock rings, which in direct comparison with German and Austrian models, they left a very unfavorable impression. Largest number problems, however, were caused by the backlog of 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, more demanding on the operation of the feed mechanism. , as well as the inevitable heavy contamination of both rifles and cartridges in trench warfare. Rifles taken from the reserve and transferred to the front without modification gave many delays in reloading, some of them could not shoot even one full magazine without breaking the feed. Numerous organizational shortcomings were also revealed, first of all, the disgusting training of ordinary shooters and poor supply, 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, since 1922, only the dragoon rifle and carbine mod. 1907.

In the early years of Soviet power, a wide discussion unfolded about the advisability of upgrading or replacing an existing rifle with a more advanced one. In its course, it was concluded that the rifle mod. 1891, although inferior to new foreign counterparts, 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 magazine rifle would be essentially meaningless, since the magazine rifle itself is a rapidly obsolete type of weapon, and the cost of developing its fundamentally new model would be a waste of money. In addition, it was noted that a change in a rifle sample must be accompanied by a change in a regular rifle cartridge to a new one, devoid of the shortcomings of the existing three-line cartridge, in particular, having a smaller caliber with a higher lateral load of the bullet and a sleeve without a rim - the development of a completely new model of a rifle for an outdated cartridge also regarded as meaningless. At the same time, the state of the economy, which was still emerging from the post-revolutionary devastation, by no means gave reason for optimism regarding the possibility of such a large-scale rearmament - as well as the complete rearmament of the Red Army proposed by Fedorov with an automatic (self-loading) rifle. 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 magazine rifle of the current model, supplement it with a large number of light manual rifles (in his terminology - " maneuverable") machine guns of a newly developed successful model.

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

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

In the 1920s - 1930s in the USSR, Mosin rifles were used in the system of universal training and OSOAVIAKHIM for training in shooting, the movement of "Voroshilov shooters" 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 (Index GAU - 56-B-222A), which was distinguished by improved quality of bore processing, the presence of a PE, PB or (subsequently) PU optical sight 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 World War II and have proven themselves to be reliable and effective weapons. Currently, Mosin sniper rifles are of collectible value (especially the "nominal" rifles that were awarded to the best Soviet snipers).

In 1938, a modernized similar to the main model carbine mod. 1938, which was a modification of the 1907 model carbine. It became longer than its predecessor by 5 mm and was designed for aimed fire at a distance of up to 1000 m. who needed a light and easy-to-handle weapon, mostly for self-defense.

The latest version of the rifle was the carbine arr. 1944, distinguished by the presence of a non-removable needle bayonet and simplified manufacturing technology. Simultaneously with its introduction, the 1891/1930 model rifle itself. has been taken out of 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 branches of the armed forces, since it became more convenient to fight with it in various earthen fortifications, buildings, dense thickets, etc., and its fighting qualities 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 in 1938, it was assumed that in the early 1940s it would almost completely replace the Mosin rifle in the Red Army and become the main weapon of the Soviet infantry, following the US Army, which adopted in 1936 on armament self-loading rifle Garanda. According to pre-war plans, in 1941 it was supposed to produce 1.8 million SVT, in 1942 - 2 million. In fact, by the beginning of the war, more than 1 million SVT were manufactured, and many units and formations of the first line, mainly in the western military districts, received full-time number of self-loading rifles.

However, the plans for the complete re-equipment of the Red Army with automatic weapons were not fulfilled due to the outbreak of World War II - since 1941, the production of SVT as more complex in comparison with a magazine rifle and a 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 total small arms at the end of the war) self-loading rifles and submachine guns.

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

In 1943, in 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 rifles.

Production of the main rifle mod. 1891/30 was terminated at the beginning of 1945. Carbine arr. 1944 was produced until the start of production of the Kalashnikov assault rifle. Rifles and carbines were gradually removed from the armament of the army, replacing the SKS carbine and the Kalashnikov assault rifle (although a certain number of carbines of the 1944 model 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 a carbine arr. 1938. "New" carbines were released in in large numbers and entered service with private security 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 of infantry and fighters of irregular armed groups, 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

Rifle barrel - rifled (4 grooves, winding from left to top to right). In early samples, the shape of the rifling is trapezoidal. Later, when they made sure that the metal of the bullet did not wrap around the barrel, it was the simplest rectangular one. The caliber of the barrel, measured as the distance between opposite fields of rifling, is nominally 7.62 mm, or 3 Russian lines (actually, as shown by measurements carried out on a large number of rifles of various years of production and various degrees of preservation, - 7.62 ... 7.66 mm). The grooved 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 by means of a bullet entry. Above the chamber there is a factory stamp that allows you to identify the manufacturer and year of manufacture of the rifle.

Behind the stump of the barrel, which has a thread, the receiver is tightly screwed, which serves to accommodate the shutter. Attached to it, in turn, is a magazine box with a feed mechanism, a cut-off reflector and a trigger mechanism.

Magazine box and cut-off reflector

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

The cartridges in the store are arranged in one row, in such a position that their rims do not interfere with the feed, which is the reason for the unusual shape of the store 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 to the receiver, preventing possible delays in feeding caused by the engagement of the edges of the cartridges with each other, and also plays the role of a reflector of spent cartridges. Before the modernization of 1930, it was a single piece, after that it consisted of a blade with a reflective protrusion and a spring part.

The cut-off reflector is considered one of the key design details of the rifle introduced by Mosin, which ensures the reliability and non-failure operation of the weapon in any conditions. At the same time, its very presence was caused by the use of obsolete cartridges with a rim, which are 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 rimmed cartridge, did not have a reflector cut-off, 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 rim of the upper cartridge stood in front of the rim of the one following it, and their engagement was excluded (herringbone). It was this scheme that later became generally accepted for stores for welted (having a rim) cartridges.

Trigger mechanism

The trigger mechanism consists of a trigger, a trigger spring, which also serves as a sear, a screw and a pin. The trigger of the rifle is long, rather tight and without "warning" - that is, the trigger stroke is not divided into two stages with different effort.

Gate

The bolt of a rifle serves to send a cartridge into the chamber, lock the bore at the moment of firing, fire a shot, remove a spent cartridge case or misfire cartridge from the chamber. It consists of a stem with a crest and a handle, a combat larva, an ejector, a hammer, a drummer, a mainspring and connecting strip. On a sniper rifle, the bolt handle is elongated and bent down to increase the convenience of reloading weapons and the possibility of installing an optical sight.

The bolt contains a drummer and a twisted cylindrical mainspring. Compression of the mainspring occurs when the bolt is unlocked by turning the handle; when locking - the combat platoon of the firing pin rests on the sear. It is possible to cock the drummer manually with the shutter closed, for this it is necessary to pull the trigger back (in this case the trigger is the tip screwed onto the shank of the drummer). To engage the safety, the trigger must be pulled back to failure and turned counterclockwise.

Lodge, handguard

The stock connects the parts of the weapon, it consists of the forearm, neck and butt. The stock of the Mosin rifle is one-piece, made of birch or walnut wood. The neck of the stock is straight, more durable and suitable for bayonet fighting, although less convenient for shooting than the semi-pistol necks of the stocks of many later models. Since 1894, a separate detail has been introduced - a handguard that covers the barrel from above, protecting it from damage, and the shooter's hands from being burned. The butt of the dragoon modification is somewhat narrower, and the forearm is thinner than the infantry. The stock and handguard are attached to the mechanisms of the weapon with two screws and two stock rings with ring springs. The stock rings are split on the bulk of the rifles and deaf on the Dragoon mod. 1891.

Sights

Consisted of a sight and a front sight.

Sight - stepped on a rifle arr. 1891, sector on a rifle mod. 1891/30. It consists of an aiming bar with a clamp, an aiming block and a spring. On a rifle mod. 1891 sight was graduated in hundreds of steps. There were two rear sights on the aiming bar: one was used when shooting at 400, 600, 800, 1,000 and 1,200 steps, and the second, for 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 modernized, with a Konovalov system bar, designed for a light pointed "offensive" bullet of the cartridge 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 trunk near the muzzle. At arr. 1891/30 received a ring namushnik. In 1932, mass production of a sniper rifle mod. 1891/31 (GAU Index - 56-B-222A), which was distinguished by improved quality of bore processing, the presence of a PE, PB or PU optical sight and a bolt handle bent down.

Bayonet

Serves to defeat the enemy in hand-to-hand combat. It has a four-sided blade with fullers, a tube with a stepped slot and a spring latch that secures the bayonet to the barrel, and a neck connecting them. The rifle was brought to a normal battle with a bayonet, that is, when firing, it had to be attached, otherwise the point of impact would shift significantly and it would become almost impossible to hit something from a weapon at a relatively long distance without a new reduction to normal combat. When firing with a bayonet at a distance of 100 m, the average point of impact (STP) deviates on a rifle brought to normal combat without it to the left by 6-8 cm and down by 8-10 cm, which is compensated by a new reduction to normal combat.

In general, the bayonet was supposed to be on the rifle essentially constantly, including during storage and on the march, with the exception of movement by rail or road. The instruction ordered to remove the bayonet, 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 from being constantly on the weapon. Until 1930, there was no spring latch, instead, the bayonet was attached to the barrel with a bayonet collar, the shape of the blade was also somewhat 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 upgraded rifles also had a bayonet with a gunner (an early version), later the gunner was made on the rifle itself.

Carbine arr. 1944 had an integral flip bayonet of Semin's own design. The shooting of carbines is carried out with a bayonet in a combat position.

Rifle affiliation

Each rifle relied on an accessory consisting of a wipe, a screwdriver, a muzzle pad for cleaning the barrel, a ramrod clutch, a hairpin, a bristle brush, an oiler with two compartments - for cleaning the barrels and oil, as well as a gun belt.

Operating principle

To load a rifle you need:

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

After that, the rifle is immediately ready to fire a shot, for which the shooter only needs 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.

Partial disassembly procedure

Remove the shutter, for which, while holding the trigger pressed, turn the handle up to the left and pull back to the end.
- Remove the bayonet.
- Unscrew and remove the cleaning rod.
- Separate the cover of the magazine box.
- Disassemble the shutter.

The accuracy of the battle and the effectiveness of fire

Rifles arr. 1891 and 1891/30 were high-precision weapons, allowing you to confidently hit a single target at a distance of up to 400 m, 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 a chest target, hitting it with 52 bullets. Later, Nemtsev's method of high-speed shooting became widespread among the troops.

Mosin sniper rifles of pre-war production were distinguished by their amazing, by the standards of their time, quality of combat, largely due to the barrel with a choke (narrowing of the channel from the treasury to the muzzle), with a difference in diameters at the breech and muzzle of 2-3%. When fired from such a barrel, the bullet is additionally compressed, which does not allow it to "walk" along the bore.

Advantages and disadvantages

Advantages

Good ballistics and high cartridge power (at the level of .30-06), despite the fact that many analogues at that time still used black powder;
- Great survivability of the barrel and bolt;
- Undemanding to manufacturing technology and large tolerances;
- Reliability, non-failure operation of the rifle mechanisms in any conditions;
- Simple and robust construction shutter, consisting of only 7 parts; it disassembles and assembles quickly and without any tools;
- The magazine box is well closed from below;
- Durable bed and butt;
- Cheap frame clip;
- The lock which is easily taken out for cleaning;
- Sufficient rate of fire of the rifle;
- A separate combat larva of the shutter, the replacement of which in the event of a breakdown is much cheaper than replacing the entire shutter;
- Cheap replacement of wooden parts.

Flaws

An obsolete cartridge with a rim that makes it difficult to feed from the magazine and required the introduction of an otherwise superfluous, otherwise quite difficult to manufacture and vulnerable to damage part - a cut-off reflector (later, during the modernization, it was replaced by two parts that were easier to manufacture; nevertheless, the most advanced magazine systems ensured reliable supply of cartridges with a rim and without cutoff as a separate part, for example, the Lee system magazine for 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);
- The horizontal arrangement of the lugs of the bolt larva when locking, increasing dispersion; rifles with the best fight already at that time had a vertical arrangement of lugs with a locked bolt;
- Long and heavy descent without "warning", interfering with marksmanship;
- Frame non-spring clip, making it difficult to load; the spring plate clips that already existed at that time, including the Mosin clip, were more perfect, although more expensive than the accepted Nagant clip;
- A long and extremely outdated needle bayonet with a cranked neck, mounted on the barrel, and not on the bed;
- Infantry and dragoon rifles were fired with a bayonet, that is, when firing, it had to be on the rifle, otherwise the point of impact was significantly shifted, which made the weapon ready for battle cumbersome; the bayonet loosened over time, as a result of which the accuracy of shooting from a rifle fell; the Cossack rifle was shot without a bayonet, but it was still unnecessarily heavy and generally inconvenient for firing from a horse and carrying by a horseman; bayonet loosening has been eliminated on arr. 1891/30, but the bayonet still had to be on the weapon when firing; this problem was completely solved only on the carbine arr. 1944 with the introduction of an integral flip bayonet, which also remained on the weapon during firing, but could be folded, increasing the ease of handling it;
- A short bolt handle not bent to the bottom, which makes it difficult to open it, especially when the cartridge case is tightly “settled” in the chamber; strong extension of the handle forward due to the design of the bolt and its horizontal location without bending down, which forced the shooter to take the butt away from the shoulder when reloading, thereby reducing the rate of fire; (with the exception of sniper modifications that had a longer handle bent down); the advanced models of those years already had a handle that was strongly extended back, bent down, which made it possible to reload the weapon without taking the butt off the shoulder, thereby increasing the rate of fire - the Lee-Metford rifle handle can be considered a reference in this regard; It is worth noting that both the experimental Mosin rifle of 1885 and the Nagant rifle had a bolt handle moved back, located in a special cutout separated from the window for ejection of spent cartridges by a jumper, which also strengthened the receiver; however, when testing the 1885 rifle of the year, it turned out that with this arrangement of the handle, delays often occur when reloading, caused by the fact that the long sleeves of a soldier's overcoat fell between the bolt stem and the receiver, and it was considered necessary to abandon a separate cutout for the handle, returning to the same configuration receiver, as on a Berdan rifle;
- A straight butt neck, less convenient for thoughtful shooting than a semi-pistol neck on the latest rifles at that time, although more convenient for offhand shooting, as well as more durable and comfortable in a bayonet fight;
- Mosin's fuse - very simple, but inconvenient to use and short-lived due to the brightening of the safety ledge with frequent use (how much a fuse is needed on a magazine rifle is a moot point);
- Some lag behind the advanced foreign counterparts in the design of small parts and accessories, for example - outdated and quickly loosened stock rings, a sight vulnerable to impacts, less comfortable 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), uncomfortable ramrod stop, etc .;
- Poor quality of wooden parts due to use 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 that were then in service. All this was very soon confirmed in the World War. It turned out that the German, Turkish and Japanese carbines of the new model, adopted almost simultaneously with the Russian, were more perfect than the Russian carbine. The Austrian carbine was noticeably better.

Many of the defects of the carbine were not difficult to eliminate when designing this weapon. The barrel should have been made according to the drawing of the barrel of the Lützau carbine, well known at that time, converted from the Mosin infantry rifle. Lützau carbines were distinguished by excellent accuracy of battle and were successfully used initially on grand ducal 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 old Berdan safety or the safety of the Swiss Schmidt-Rubin rifle. Arrange a descent with a warning. Strengthen the sight according to the model of the sight of the Boer carbine "Mauser". Protect the front sight with side wings (for example, English, German and other carbines). I make a box with a pistol-shaped neck. Strengthen the barrel lining. Make stock rings after the model of Lee-Enfield or Boer, Spanish or other carbines. Mount the ramrod in the rifle not on the thread, but on the latch (for example, a Japanese carbine). For convenience and speed of loading, it was necessary in the left side of the receiver, in front of the groove for the clip, to make a notch for thumb. An example is the German rifle of the 1898 model. The introduction of these improvements would significantly increase positive traits, eliminating at the same time the defects of the carbine.

The Mosin carbine of the 1907 model was issued to the Russian police, then to the soldiers of machine-gun companies and uhlans, 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 variants

In the USSR, 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) were produced. In Russia, the Tula Arms Plant continued to produce conversion carbines model 1944 KO-44 and KO-44-1, and the production of conversion versions of the rifle model 1944 was also launched. 1891/30 - KO-91/30 (Vyatsko-Polyansky Machine-Building Plant "Molot") and MP-143 (Izhevsk Mechanical Plant). Conversion rifle options arr. 1891/30 practically do not differ from the original army rifle - all the differences come down to the trace-forming pin installed in the barrel to meet forensic requirements and the forensic mark in the chamber, as well as the absence of a bayonet.

In addition, in 2005, the production of the VPO-103 conversion carbine chambered for 9 × 53 mm R was launched.

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

In recent decades, sold out of warehouses armed forces Mosin rifles, due to the ratio of price and performance, have gained great popularity in the civilian arms market in many countries of the world, including Russia and the United States. In 2012, the Mosin rifle ranked first in sales among all types of small arms allowed for sale to the US population, according to Bud’s Gun Shop, the largest American online weapons store. In the list of top 20 sellers, the 1891/30 rifle is the third oldest rifle in the world. Greater age only two types of the "police" model of the Smith-Wesson revolver (11th and 19th lines in the list of popularity) have been adopted. The cost of rifles and carbines of the 1891/30 model is about $100. Delivery from the former mobilization stocks of the USSR. The set includes a bayonet, belt, cartridge belt and accessories.

"Frolovki"

Sports modifications

After the war in the USSR, several variants of sporting rifles for target shooting were created on the basis of the design of the shutter and the receiver of the "three-ruler":

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

Bi-7.62- mass-produced from 1961 to 1970, a total of 1700 pieces were manufactured. 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.

Target Rifle AB(Army Rifle) - had a weighted barrel of especially precise processing with a length of 720 mm, a more convenient shutter handle bent downwards, a diopter sight and an optical mount, a more comfortable stock. AB had a combat accuracy of the order of 3 × 2 cm at a distance of 100 m with a target cartridge (according to specifications; in reality, the accuracy of the battle of many samples was significantly better, modern shootings show an accuracy of about 0.5 MOA with the Extra cartridge from 5 shots from bipods at 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 program of the Olympic Games in the late 1970s, the few copies of the AB rifle were mostly destroyed, although at least one surviving sample is known, although it was significantly altered. In September 1999, an 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 a rifle with a match barrel, developed and produced since 2003 in a piece version by the Vyatka-Polyansky Molot plant.

The performance characteristics of the rifle Mosin Trehlineyka

Adopted: 1891
- Constructor: Sergey Ivanovich Mosin
- Designed: 1891
- Manufacturer: Tula Arms Plant
- Total production: about 37,000,000 units

Mosin rifle weight

Mosin rifle dimensions

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

Mosin rifle cartridge

7.62×54mm R

Mosin rifle caliber

7.62 (3 lines)

Mosin rifle rate of fire

Up to 55 shots/min

Literally 60 years ago, there was a crazy interest in the Mosin rifle, as well as in the carbine. It was considered one of the most popular and common types of weapons. developed by special order of the state. Moreover, this weapon was used not only on the territory of Russia / USSR: the carbine received considerable fame abroad.

Now you can hear the maximum about the Mosin rifle in a lesson at school - almost no one is interested in it. This article covers history of origin Mosin rifle, talks about her "followers", reveals some specifications Mosin carbine, so it will be of interest to both teenagers and their parents.

A bit from the history of the Mosin carbine

The Mosin carbine is light rifle with a short barrel. By the end of the 19th century, Russia lagged far behind European countries in terms of weapons, so in 1882 a competition was announced to create a new repeating rifle with a sliding bolt. It also implied the use of a new three-line cartridge (7.62 mm).

By 1890, the winners appeared: Captain S. I. Mosin and the Belgian designer Leon Nagant. Both developed rifles had advantages and disadvantages. It was decided to adopt the Mosin rifle, but using the achievements of the Nagant.

Rifle arr. 1891 was first modernized in 1908-1910 in connection with the appearance of cartridges with a pointed bullet. This weapon was the main one for the Red Army almost until the very end of the Great Patriotic War..

Based on it, the Mosin carbine is created. The carbine arr. 1938, the difference of which was the shorter barrel length and the absence of a bayonet.

In 1944, the Mosin carbine arr. 1944, which differs from the previous model with a side-folding integral bayonet. Due to its maneuverability, it replaces the rifle mod. 1891 and a carbine mod. 1938.

Currently, the Mosin rifle continues to be popular due to acceptable cost and decent ballistic performance.

Types of Mosin carbine

Carbine arr. 1907

Designed for the most part for the Cossacks, gunners, sailors and other types of troops. Designed for a distance of 200-2000 steps. The carbine did not have a bayonet.

Specifications:

Caliber- 7, 62 mm.
barrel length- 508 mm.
total length- 1015 mm.
Weight- 3.4 kg.
muzzle velocity of a sharp bullet- 795 m / s.

The carbine is deactivated - it is not a firearm.

Carbine arr. 1938/1944

Characteristics (Mosin carbine sample 1944):

Caliber- 7, 62 mm.
Length with bayonet- 1, 330 m.
barrel length- 0.508 m.
Weight with bayonet- 4 kg.
muzzle velocity- 765 m / s.
Ammo in store — 5.

Carbine KO - 8.2 or hunting carbine "Moose"

Designed for hunting large and medium-sized animals. It was designed for cartridges with semi-shell bullets. Reloading is done manually. Trigger without warning. There are several "followers" of the carbine: KO - 8, 2M, which has a different rifling pitch, an open sector sight and a different stock shape. This carbine has a high muzzle velocity. Weight 3-3, 6 kg, barrel length 520 mm, 4 grooves, the magazine is designed for 5 rounds.

Specifications:

Caliber- 8.2 mm.
Carabiner length- 1010 mm.
Weight- 3 kg.
barrel length- 520 mm.
Trigger force- 0.8 ... 2 kg.
muzzle velocity– 440 m/s.
Ammo in store — 5.

Hunting carbine "Moose - 7-1"

Designed for hunting animals. The trigger mechanism adjusts the nature of the trigger. The optical sight does not interfere with working with the open. The distance is calculated for 100 - 300 meters. The shop is removable. The model appeared in connection with the modernization of the Los-4 and the carbine of the Bars system. Now there is a carbine "Moose - 7-1" for various imported cartridges.

Specifications:

Caliber- 7, 62 mm.
Cartridge- 7, 62 X 51.
barrel length- 550 mm.
Trigger force, adjustable, N (kgf) – 10…15 (1, 02…1, 53).
muzzle velocity– 810…830 m/s.
Ammo in store — 5.
Carbine weight (without cartridges and optical sight)- 3.5 kg.

Hunting rifle KO - 91/30

It is used for hunting the beast of medium and large size. The target range is 300 meters. The peculiarity of this carbine lies in the safety mechanism, which protects against a possible premature shot. Reloading is done manually. With this carbine, you can use an optical sight, which does not interfere with working with an open one.

Specifications:

Caliber- 7, 62 mm.
Applicable cartridge- 7, 62 X 54 R.
total length- 1232 mm.
barrel length- 745 mm.
Weight without cartridges– 4.0 kg.
Ammo in store — 5.

Features of Mosin carbines (ammunition)

In 1908, a cartridge with a pointed bullet appeared: 7.62 x 54mm. It is currently the most common, it was for him that a greater number of small arms were made.

Pros and cons of the Mosin carbine

The disadvantages include the form of a regular lodge, which is absolutely not intended for hunting. It requires modification, which should result in no contact between the surface of the barrel and the stock, and the wooden lining, if any.

Scope affects shooting accuracy. It is quite difficult to choose the right optical. Experts advise using modern brackets that are connected to the base with subsequent fixation with screws. It is important that the optical sight in no way interfere with the view of the “open”, because it is the second one that is used when hunting, when a moving target should be observed. The use of an optical sight for this purpose implies more skill and a full hand.

The most problematic place of the carbine- this is the stem. Everything is explained by the mass production of these weapons during the Great Patriotic War, when little attention was paid to quality - they focused on quantity. The number of Mosin carbines with quality barrels is constantly decreasing. This is due to the fact that the barrel of a rifled weapon is designed for a certain number of shots. Therefore, in order not to miscalculate, experts advise shooting off the barrel before purchasing weapons.

Interestingly, carbines were called good if they hit a 3-liter can with each shot at a distance of 100 meters, good if they hit a tin mug, excellent if they hit a matchbox with all five shots.

The problem exists with the choice of cartridges. Until the 80s. used only an army cartridge. The hunters chose corrective, otherwise explosive, bullets, the minus of which was that the meat after such a shot became practically unusable.

In conclusion, I would like to say that, although the Mosin carbine enjoys a different assessment of expert hunters, it is quite popular among them. And if you do not need insane accuracy, and the shooting itself will be from fairly short distances, then the Mosin carbine is quite suitable for hunting as a weapon.

Small arms are the most massive in all the armies of the world. Tanks aviation and navy all of them, by and large, are preparing a bridgehead for a battle in which the last word remains with the infantry. What were the infantrymen of the USSR army armed with?

weight of a rifle with a bayonet without cartridges - 4.5 kg.
weight without bayonet 4.2 kg.
length with bayonet 1660 mm.
length without bayonet 130 cm. magazine capacity 5 rounds
muzzle velocity - 865 m / s
range of aimed fire - 1920 meters
rate of fire 20-30 rounds per minute
About 26.000000 rifles were produced

As in the First World War, the USSR's main weapon was the 1891 model rifle (Mosin rifle, three-ruler). In the Soviet Union in 1930, the 7.62 model 1891 rifle, the famous Mosinka in its dragoon version, was adopted. The Mosin rifle, also known as the three-ruler, essentially remained from the First World War, having practically not undergone any changes. Of course, work was underway in the USSR on new models of rifles, but the Great Patriotic War passed under the era of the Mosin rifle. It was invented by Sergei Ivanovich Mosin, a Tula gunsmith with the rank of captain. There were three modifications of the infantry, dragoon and Cossack rifles, at that time it was believed that each type of troops should have its own rifle. In other respects, the differences were minimal, the rifles differed in length, and the Cossack rifle did not have a bayonet. In 1938, they adopted a carbine. A rifle with a short barrel is called a carbine, according to one version, the word carbine comes from the Arabic - "Karab" which means weapon in translation. The aiming range of the carbine was 1000 meters. For those who were not comfortable with a long rifle, the appearance of a carbine came in handy. The large length of the three lines was an advantage in bayonet combat, but in close trenches or in the forest, the advantage became a disadvantage. They fought with the Mosin rifle both for the tsar and for the Soviet power. They fought with the three-ruler for the happiness of the people and for the tsar, they went on the attack for their homeland for Stalin. The rifle was the main small arms of the Red Army, the soldiers with it were not only trained in shooting but also in bayonet combat. in 1922, from three types of rifles, they switched to one dragoon rifle in 1930, the name of the designer was returned. The Russian Mosin rifle received its first baptism of fire during the suppression of the uprising of Chinese boxers in 1900. The rifle performed well Japanese war 1904-1905.

Positive features inherent rifles:

Good bolt and barrel survivability
good ballistics
ease of disassembly and assembly
ease of production
unpretentiousness
use of frame clip
easily mastered by soldiers
reliable

Disadvantages of the Mosin rifle:

the main thing is not the convenience of the rifle is that the soldiers had to constantly walk with the bayonet attached
heavy and slow trigger pull
there was a straight short bolt handle, which prevented the quick ejection of the sleeve
inconvenient use of a fuse
excessive length
magazine box protruded beyond the box

In 1883 Mosin Sergei Ivanovich began developing the first versions of his magazine-type rifles. He started with a Berdan rifle, he took it as a basis and attached an 8 round magazine to it. April 16, 1891 was shown a sample which was later approved as the Mosin Rifle. Its original name was "Russian three-line rifle model 1891". But by decree of Alexander 3, on April 16, 1981, it received the name - Three-line rifle of the 1891 model. For the creation of the rifle, the tsarist government paid Mosin 30,000 rubles, seven times less than the Nagant for one part. This fact and the absence of his name in the name of the rifle offended the inventor. The bitterness was not even smoothed out by the awarding of the Order of St. Anne, 2nd degree, and the Mikhailovsky Prize. The rifle was produced by the Soviet army almost until the very end of the war and was in service until the end of the 1970s. Since 1894, Sergei Ivanovich was the head of the Sestroretsk arms factory. He died on January 26, 1902 from pneumonia, and was buried in the city of Sestroretsk. At the time of his death, Mosin was in the rank of major general.

Both the rifle and the revolver in Russia had the same caliber - three lines. A line equals one tenth of an inch, and three lines equals 7.62 mm. in the metric system. At that time, Soviet engineers used the English system for measuring small arms caliber, weapons were designated in lines from here and familiar to many went - a three-line rifle. The rifle was a magazine type. a clip for 5 rounds was loaded into the store.

In the early days of the war, all volunteers were given a rifle - a simple powerful weapon.

The rifle cartridges had a caliber of 7.62 × 54 mm. To infect the rifle, a three-line cartridge of the 1908 model was used. Charging took place with the help of a clip:

The cartridges were inserted from above into the receiver, the cartridges were pressed into the magazine, 4 cartridges ended up in the magazine, the fifth cartridge, when the magazine was closed, ended up in the barrel. the shape of the cartridge has a rim. Many experts consider the rim not convenient, from a constructive point of view. It complicates the design of automatic weapons.

A light bullet in the immediate vicinity of the muzzle of the 1981/30 model pierces a slab up to 6 mm, an iron plate up to 12 mm, a layer of gravel up to 120 mm, peat up to 2.8 m, an oak wall 0.70 m, pine boards up to 2.5 see each. A bullet from a Mosin rifle can pierce brushwood one and a half meters thick. Compacted snow 3.5 meters thick. It will not be good for the enemy hiding behind straw 4.50 meters thick. Sandbags 0.70 cm thick or clay obstacles a meter thick will not save you from a bullet.

The rifle was equipped with a standard four-sided bayonet, which was used in the First World War by the Russian army. The rifle was produced in three versions, two of which were equipped with bayonet knives. The bayonet at the end has the shape of a screwdriver, it was also used to disassemble the rifle. When the Red Army soldiers ran out of ammunition, they used a bayonet, the bayonet knife had a sufficiently long length and could pierce through two people.

When shooting, the weapon was used precisely with a bayonet, if you shoot without it, the bullets went to the side. The bayonet of the Mosin rifle is adjacent to the right of the barrel. If the bayonet is set from below when shooting, as is often shown in the old Soviet films, then when fired, the powder gases were ahead of the bullet, and influenced its flight, taking it away. They were partially reflected from the bayonet and under their influence the bullet went to the left. All rifles except the Cossack were shot with a bayonet.

At the rifle, it was rather uncomfortable, in comparison with the same Mauser rifle (Mauser Gewehr 98 Mauser 98), it was quite problematic to use it, especially in the winter season with gloves, in order to put the Mosin rifle on the fuse, it was necessary to apply quite a strong force.

The Mosin rifle was easier to manufacture, it is not very sensitive to contamination of moving parts. It has earned a reputation for being a reliable and powerful rifle. Its main drawback is manual reloading, which did not allow for a high rate of fire.

A container for oil, a pouch with tools for disassembling a rifle. bayonet-knife bags for cartridges rifle lubricated with grease.

Mosinka, as it was affectionately called by the people, has become one of the most massive rifles in the world. In total, from 1981 to the victorious 1945, about 26 million rifles were produced. And about 12 million for the year of the Great Patriotic War.

Rifles were produced at the Izhevsk and Tula machine-building plants. Tolerances in the manufacture of parts were large enough, thanks to this, the three-ruler could withstand the most severe operating conditions and forgave the owner for careless care for the time being.

Based on the Mosin rifle of the 1891-1930 model, its sniper version was developed. It featured an improved bore finish and tighter manufacturing tolerances. The bolt handle of the Mosin sniper rifle was changed, it became a characteristic l-shaped shape. This was done for convenience with an optical sight installed. The sniper version of the three-ruler became the first domestic rifle specifically designed for marksmanship. Active propaganda of the sniper movement began in the Soviet Union.

The rifle was easy to use, any fighter could be taught to use it, and its shortened version, the carbine, was also created on the basis of a three-line rifle. It was primarily used in the artillery of the engineering troops and in the nfv cavalry where the large length of the rifle became inconvenient.

And so the Russian Mosin rifle was the main weapon of the Red Army. The Mosin rifle model turned out to be so viable that even after a hundred years this system is in demand again. In the early nineties of the 20th century, the SSH-96 sniper rifle was developed in Finland, which is a modernized model of the Mosin system. There are also rumors that the first Chechen war it was used by several riot police of the Russian army as the main sniper rifle.

“If you invent a repeating system that is reliable, durable, will not require too much maintenance ... then you can’t dream of anything better”

Henry Rifle Mechanism...

... and cartridges for it; next to it is a modern revolver cartridge.

Firstly, in the early magazine systems, due to the design features of their magazines (applied, underbarrel), relatively short and weak cartridges were usually used, often ring-fired, close in power to revolvers. For example, in the underbarrel tubular magazine, when using central ignition cartridges, to which the majority of the military then already belonged, they were afraid of accidental explosions from the impact of a rear cartridge bullet on the front primer, so many rifles with such a magazine used rimfire cartridges that had a ring instead of a centrally located primer primer composition right in the rim of the sleeve, unsuitable for military weapons.

As a result, the firing range of them left much to be desired, especially taking into account the clearly overstated requirements for this quality of military weapons in those years (which was caused by the practice of “plutong” firing from rifles in volleys at a group, often even invisible, target that disappeared after the introduction of machine guns), and the bullet did not have the penetrating power necessary to hit a target located behind earthen ramparts, parapets and other similar fortifications, which in those years and later was also considered very important.

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

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

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

But all of them also had magazines equipped with one cartridge each, which is why, in fact, they were practically nowhere adopted for full armament as the only military model, usually remaining only in 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 a critical moment in the battle, which, of course, is extremely difficult to determine the offensive. The same can be said about the so-called "side magazines" and "accelerators" that were mounted on a single-shot rifle, turning it into a kind of magazine, but at the same time they were bulky, relatively unreliable and difficult to operate, and they were equipped, again same, one cartridge.

Shops on military weapons in those years and for a long time afterwards were exclusively permanent, that is, permanently rigidly fixed to the rifle; interchangeable stores, as on modern weapons, were considered in those years to be completely unacceptable waste. Even if the store could be removed for cleaning (as on the English Lee-Metford rifle, for example), there was only one per rifle (and in the case of the aforementioned Lee-Metford rifle, it also joined it with a chain), respectively, to have a supply shooters could not pre-equipped magazines. That is why loading the only magazine available to the shooter with one cartridge in those years was a critical drawback of magazine weapons that prevented its widespread military use.

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

Also a significant role in the introduction of repeating rifles was played by the emergence of new small-caliber cartridges with smokeless powder (the French Lebel rifle of 1886 ( English)), more compact and lighter, which made it possible to equip the rifle with a sufficiently capacious magazine, while not excessively burdening the shooter with the weight of the ammunition placed on it.

Almost immediately after the appearance of these innovations, the magazine rifles that used them were put into full service in almost all developed countries - Vetterli-Vitali ( English) in Italy (1887), Gewehr 1888 ( English) in Germany (1888), Lee-Metford ( English) in England (1888), Schmidt-Rubin in Switzerland (1889) and so on. Only the French Lebel rifle of 1886, adopted earlier than others, which was relatively perfect in terms of the design of mechanisms and for the first time used a cartridge with smokeless powder, still had an underbarrel magazine equipped with one cartridge each, which almost immediately made it obsolete and inferior to more modern foreign models.

It is significant that in parallel with the development of a fundamentally new magazine 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, but already using a new cartridge with smokeless powder, rifles - not all the military considered the advantages magazine rifles are significant enough to equip the entire army with them, which was also due to the absence for the time being of a magazine design that was uniquely successful in relation to a military rifle, which, as already mentioned, appeared only in the second half of the 1880s.

This certain conservatism, and to a greater extent, a wait-and-see attitude taken by the military department out of unwillingness to repeat the mistakes of twenty years ago, which led to the events christened by the Minister of War Milyutin "our unfortunate gun drama", when during the period from 1860 to 1870 at least 6 different systems of rifles for different cartridges were feverishly adopted, most of which had become obsolete even before the start of their mass production, led to some inhibition of work on the creation of a domestic magazine rifle, - which, however, subsequently made it possible to avoid unpleasant situations, such as those in which, as mentioned above, the French found themselves, hastily adopting the Lebel rifle with a barrel magazine that quickly made it obsolete, or the British and Austrians, who first adopted magazine rifles chambered for black powder, and soon they were forced to feverishly remake them for smokeless.

Since any weapon is created primarily on the basis of the existing ammunition, work was carried out at the same time to create a new cartridge.

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

In 1887, a connection was established with the Swedish professor Hebler, from whom experimental materials, consultations and instructions were received. Hebler advised to accept the caliber of the order of 7.6 mm, which he saw as the most promising, and a bullet in a steel jacket, 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 the Austrian and Danish rifles gave better accuracy and accuracy of battle 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, along with other parts of the rifles was found to be completely unsatisfactory. The same conclusion was drawn with respect to rifles and Haebler cartridges.

In early 1889, the Commission, through informal channels, received a French Lebel rifle using smokeless powder - with shells and bullets, but without the gunpowder itself. However, later she was also tested, with Russian smokeless powder, in the development of which she played a rather important role. The design of the barrel and bolt of this rifle was recognized as worthy of attention, but the tubular underbarrel magazine turned out to be unsatisfactory.

Cartridges 7.62 × 54 mm R in assortment (late modification with pointed bullets, initially the bullets were with round toes).

Mosin shutter.

As a result of their testing, as well as comparative tests with the Austrian Mannlicher rifle, it became possible to finally finally determine the requirements for a new rifle, in modern language - to draw up a technical task for it. It was decided to adopt a caliber of 7.62 mm (exactly 3 Russian lines), a barrel and a sight according to the Lebel model (but with a change in the direction of the rifling from the left to the right adopted in France), a longitudinally sliding bolt with a turn, locked by a separate combat mask (since replacement of the larva in the event of a breakdown is cheaper than replacing the entire shutter), the store is middle, permanent, with loading from a frame holder with five rounds. The commission was consequently renamed in 1889 into Commission for the development of a sample of a small-caliber gun.

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

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

According to the results of the initial tests, the Nagant rifle showed some advantage, and at the first stage of the competition, the Commission voted for it with 14 votes against 10. However, this vote was not decisive, since the first stage of the competition was essentially an exploratory character. In addition, many members of the commission believed that the tests showed the equivalence of the submitted samples, and the Mosin rifles submitted for the competition (manufactured in semi-handicraft conditions of pilot production, ordinary prototypes of weapons at the earliest stage of fine-tuning), simpler and more structurally reliable, simply made rougher than the Nagant demonstration rifles, executed "with amazing accuracy" and very well finished, and besides, they were an improved version of the design, at one time proposed for armament in Belgium and which was ready for production as early as 1889. Moreover, it was written that:

Taking into account ... that the guns and clips presented by Captain Mosin for experiments were made under extremely unfavorable conditions and, as a result, very inaccurate, the guns and Nagant clips, on the contrary, turned out to be amazingly accurate, 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 circumstances outlined, the system of Captain Mosin 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 revised their opinion. So, on test firing, Mosin rifles gave 217 delays when feeding cartridges from the magazine, and Nagant - 557, almost three times more. Given the fact that the competition essentially came down to finding the optimal design of the store, this alone spoke quite clearly about the advantage of the Mosin system in terms of reliability, despite any "unfavorable production conditions." In addition, the Commission concluded that:

... pack guns of a foreigner Nagan compared with the same cap. Mosin are a mechanism more difficult to manufacture ... and the cost of each copy of the gun will undoubtedly increase.

Moreover, it was about more than significant costs: even according to the most conservative estimates, the production of the Nagant system would give additional costs in the amount of 2 to 4 million gold rubles for the first million issued rifles, that is, 2-4 rubles for each, moreover, that the total amount required for the rearmament of one Russian soldier averaged about 12 rubles. In addition, it took an additional 3-4 months to master the design by industry, in the face of Russia's already emerging lag behind developed European countries in re-equipping 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 the already produced Berdan rifle.

Ammunition for a rifle, equipped with cartridge clips.

Rifle magazine equipment from a clip.

From the experimental Mosin rifle, a locking mechanism bar, a safety cocking device, a bolt, a cut-off reflector, a magazine cover latch, a method for connecting the feeder to the cover, making it possible to detach the cover from the feeder from the magazine, swivel swivel; from the Nagant system - the idea of \u200b\u200bplacing a feeder on the magazine door and opening it down, a way to fill 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 worked out by members of the Commission, with the participation of Mosin.

Probably the most fully reflecting the authorship of the design of this rifle would be the name "Commission rifle model 1891", by analogy with the German "Commission rifle" ("Kommissionsgewehr") of the 1888 model, also developed at the time by the commission based on the Mannlicher and Mauser systems.

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

Mosin left the rights to the individual parts of the rifle developed by him and awarded him the Big Mikhailovsky Prize (for outstanding developments in the artillery and infantry unit).

This was not the first time that a model based on a certain 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, in the same way, a rifle developed on the basis of the Carle system (in the original Russian documentation - Karla), at one time was accepted as "quick-firing needle rifle model 1867".

Subsequently, however, voices began to be heard that such a name violated the established tradition of naming samples of small arms of the Russian army, since the name of the designer was deleted from the name of the adopted sample. As indicated in a number of sources, as a result, in 1924, the name Mosin appeared in the name of the rifle.

A large number of rifles were captured by German and Austro-Hungarian troops and were put into service in spare parts and in the German navy. In the 1920s, many of these rifles were sold by Germany to Finland. Various modifications of the Mosin rifle are in service with the Finnish army to this day.

Rifle model 1891/30.

Behind the stump of the trunk, which has a thread, is tightly screwed receiver, which serves to place the shutter. To it, in turn, are attached magazine case with feed mechanism cut-off reflector and trigger mechanism.

Magazine box and cut-off reflector

Magazine case(magazine) serves to accommodate 4 cartridges and a feeder. It has cheeks, a square, a trigger guard and a cover on which the feeder is mounted.

The cartridges in the store are arranged in one row, in such a position that their rims do not interfere with the supply, which is associated with an unusual, by modern standards, shape of the store.

Cut-off reflector is controlled by the movement of the bolt and serves to separate the cartridges fed from the magazine box to the receiver, preventing possible delays in the feed caused by the engagement of the edges of the cartridges with each other, and also plays the role of a spent cartridge case reflector. Before the modernization of 1930, it was a single piece, after that it consisted of a blade with a reflective protrusion and a spring part. This had a negative impact on the reliability of the cartridge case extraction: a sad joke appeared in the troops: “Where does every hundredth cartridge case go? - That's right, it remains in the chamber!

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

Trigger mechanism

Trigger mechanism consists of a trigger, a trigger spring, which also serves as a sear, a screw and a stud. The trigger of the rifle is long, rather tight and without "warning" - that is, the trigger stroke is not divided into two stages with different effort.

Gate

Rifle shutter arr. 1891.
1 - stem, 2 - combat larva, 3 - connecting bar, 4 - trigger.

Gate rifle is used to send a cartridge into the chamber, lock the bore at the time of the shot, fire a shot, remove the spent cartridge case or misfire cartridge from the chamber.

It consists of a stem with a comb and a handle, a combat larva, an ejector, a trigger, a drummer, a mainspring and a connecting bar. On a sniper rifle, the bolt handle is elongated and bent down to increase the convenience of reloading weapons and the possibility of installing an optical sight.

Sights

Rifle sight arr. 1891/30 years

Consisted of a sight and a front sight.

Aim- stepped on a rifle arr. 1891, sector on a rifle mod. 1891/30. It consists of an aiming bar with a clamp, an aiming block and a spring.

On a rifle mod. 1891 sight was graduated in hundreds of steps. There were two rear sights on the aiming bar: one was used when shooting at 400, 600, 800, 1,000 and 1,200 steps, and the second, for 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 modernized, with a Konovalov system bar, designed for a light pointed "offensive" bullet of the cartridge 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.

front sight located on the barrel near the muzzle. At arr. 1891/30 received a ring namushnik.

In 1932, mass production of a sniper rifle mod. 1891/31 (GAU Index - 56-B-222A), which was distinguished by improved quality of bore processing, the presence of a PE, PB or PU optical sight and a bolt handle bent down.

Bayonet

Bayonet arr. 1891/30.

1944 carbine bayonet

Russian infantry on the march. It can be seen that most of the shooters have fixed bayonets.

The rifle was sighted with a bayonet, that is, when shooting, it had to be attached, otherwise the point of impact would shift significantly and it would become almost impossible to hit something from a weapon at a relatively long distance without a new sighting. When shooting with a bayonet at a distance of 100 m, the average point of impact (STP) deviates on a rifle zeroed without it to the left by 6-8 cm and down by 8-10 cm, which is compensated by a new zeroing.

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, in the light of which it was very practical that its edges were not sharply honed, like knife-shaped bayonets, because at established way wearing this could create significant inconvenience when using weapons and cause injury when handling them.

The instruction ordered to remove the bayonet, in addition to the cases noted above, only when disassembling the rifle for cleaning, and it was assumed that it could be removed tightly from being constantly on the weapon.

The sharpened tip of the bayonet was used as a screwdriver during complete disassembly.

Until 1930, there was no spring latch, instead, the bayonet was attached to the barrel with a bayonet collar, the shape of the blade was also somewhat 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 upgraded rifles also had a bayonet with a gunner (an early version), later the gunner was made on the rifle itself.

Carbine arr. 1944 had an integral flip bayonet of Semin's own design.

An interesting fact is that the sniper version of the Mosin rifle also had a bayonet, and it was planted exceptionally tight. In this case, it served as a muzzle weighting agent, which significantly reduced the vibration of the barrel when fired, which had a positive effect on the accuracy of the battle. The slightest loosening of the mount, which was not uncommon on conventional rifles in the infantry, on the contrary, had a negative effect on the rifle's combat.

Rifle affiliation

Operating principle

Section through the mechanism of an early issue rifle.

To load a rifle you need:

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

Partial disassembly procedure

The accuracy of the battle and the effectiveness of fire

The table below shows the results of firing from an ordinary copy of the rifle mod. 1891/30 with a light bullet mod. 1908 with an initial speed of 865 m/s. The median deviation is half the width of the central dispersion band containing 50% of all hits.

Median deviations, cm:
Distance	height	lateral
100	3	2
200	4	4
300	6	6
400	8	8
500	11	10
600	14	13
700	17	17
800	21	20
900	26	24
1000	33	29
1100	39	36
1200	46	42
1300	56	49
1400	65	56
1500	75	65
1600	88	75
1700	100	88
1800	120	100
1900	150	120
2000	170	150

Production

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

Mosin rifle in Finland

See Rifle M/28

The Finnish Mosin rifle is a model that is limitedly compatible with the Russian original. The Finns adopted the original dagger bayonet instead of the needle bayonet, the rifle was shot without it. The attachment point of the bayonet is the stock, not the barrel. The trigger mechanism has been modernized - it received the so-called "warning". The stock of the rifle received a "pistol" stop. The thickness of the barrel walls has been increased, which has a positive effect on the accuracy of shooting. The system of admissions is different. Finland ordered rifle barrels abroad, so there were practically 3 calibers. Calibers were noted with Latin letters- A, B, C (the caliber of captured rifles of 1891/30 was designated by the fourth letter - D). This was fully appreciated by the Moscow militias, noting "that it is possible to shoot Finnish cartridges from rifles, from machine guns - no." The main manufacturer is the Tikkakoski company - sewing machines, also SAKO, VPT, AV-1.

Advantages and disadvantages

Advantages

Flaws

Integral assessment

On the whole and in general, evaluating the rifle from the standpoint of its time and in relation to the specific conditions for the production and operation of military weapons in the Russian Empire, we can say that, although it is not a revolutionary new or unique weapon in terms of its characteristics, in terms of the total set of properties and qualities was sufficiently close to the best model that could be adopted in those years.

Having a number of objective shortcomings in terms of design and operation, nevertheless, it was quite capable of successfully fulfilling its main purpose, replacing in the troops the Berdan single-shot rifle, successful for its time, but very outdated and not corresponding to the already changed conditions of hostilities. smoke powder. Its main combat qualities - bullet ballistics, accuracy of battle, rate of fire, reliability in operation - fully met the requirements of that time for this class of weapons, and at the same time, in terms of their design and technological features it was adapted for production mainly by the forces of domestic Russian industry in quantities sufficient to fully arm the largest Russian army in Europe at that time, as well as for operation by soldiers who often did not have the proper level of technical, and simply general literacy.

The adoption of a more advanced, but also more complex in design and production model at that time could well lead to the fact that by the First World War Russian army would have come up, still predominantly armed with outdated Berdan rifles, given that even the deployment of the production of a relatively technologically advanced "mosinka" at domestic factories faced very great difficulties, and attempts to order weapons abroad, especially in war time, had only partial success and in no way could give it in sufficient quantity to arm the entire army.

The specific shortcomings of the system, which were relevant at the time the weapon was adopted, in conditions when the repeating rifle played a leading role in the infantry weapon system, and were decisive in comparison with its Western counterparts, by the 1920s had basically lost any significant importance due to the displacement of rifles from many niches by other types of weapons, mainly machine guns, after the mass introduction of which in the armies the task of firing rifles at long ranges practically disappeared. By the period of the Second World War, the combat qualities of magazine rifles were generally largely leveled, regardless of the specific advantages and disadvantages inherent in individual systems, since the latter no longer played a significant role in terms of the effectiveness of the use of weapons in real combat conditions, - various systems repeating rifles turned out to be equally obsolete against the background of more advanced automatic weapons and continued to be produced only because of their low cost achieved a high degree development of production technology. Under such conditions, the more simple and technologically advanced “mosinka” even received a certain advantage relative to, say, the significantly more complex and expensive Lee-Enfield and Mauser rifles, since it could be produced faster and cheaper than them, and to the requirements that advanced at this stage to this type of weapon, fully complied.

Rifle use by snipers

In Russia, there are civilian (hunting) versions of the rifle mod. 1891/30 - KO-91 / 30 (Vyatka-Polyansky machine-building plant "Molot") and MP-143 (Izhevsk mechanical plant), as well as a carbine mod. 1944 - KO-44 (Tula Arms Plant). Civilian (hunting) variants of the rifle arr. 1891/30, as a rule, practically do not differ from the original army rifle (the main difference is the trace-forming pin installed in the barrel bore and the forensic mark in the chamber to comply with forensic requirements), but, at the same time, according to the law "On Weapons" they belong to hunting firearms with a rifled barrel.

"Frolovki"

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 give hunters-traders reliable weapons with acceptable qualities. The word "frolovka" has become in Russian a common informal designation for all smooth-bore guns converted from military-style rifles. Currently, "frolovki" are of a certain collector's interest as the easiest to acquire "shooting" version of the Mosin system (a license for the purchase of smooth-bore hunting weapons is relatively easy to obtain, in contrast to a license for the purchase of rifled weapons, which implies at least 5 years of hunting experience).

AB rifle

After the war, on the basis of the design of the shutter and the receiver of the “three-ruler”, the target rifle AB was created - the Army Rifle, intended for athletes participating in the corresponding shooting discipline. It had a weighted barrel of particularly precise processing, 720 mm long, a more comfortable bolt handle bent downwards, a diopter sight and a mount for an optical one, and a more comfortable stock. The AV had an accuracy of combat of the order of 3 × 2 cm at a distance of 100 m with a target cartridge, which in theory made it possible to use it as a “police” sniper rifle (according to technical specifications; in reality, the accuracy of combat of many samples was significantly better, modern shootings show accuracy of the order 0.5 MOA cartridge "Extra" from 5 shots from a bipod at 200 m).

After the removal of the relevant discipline from the program of the Olympic Games in the late 1970s, the few copies of the AB rifle were mostly destroyed, although at least one surviving sample is known, although it was significantly altered.

Operating countries

_russian_imperiya _/_Russian empire / the USSR
German Empire
Bulgaria

Was trilinear - 7.62 mm Mosin rifle sample 1891-1930 . It remained in service with the Red Army throughout the war, and was the most massive personal weapon.

The creator of the three-line Mosin Sergey Ivanovich

Why is a rifle called a three-ruler. During the creation of the rifle, the designers used the English measurement system; for small arms, the caliber was displayed in lines. Accordingly, one line is equal to 1/10, a tenth of an inch, or in terms of the metric system 2.54 mm, respectively, three lines of 2.54 mm x 3, will equal 7.62 mm in the metric system.

Why is the rifle called a three-line, three lines correspond to 7.62 mm

Soviet small arms are known for their simplicity, durability and reliability. had the least understanding of technology. Therefore, he needed a weapon that was easy to handle and maintain. Weapon reliability also played huge role in battle, finally, reliable weapons forgave flaws in the supply of spare parts.

magazines for trilinear in a leather pouch

The three-ruler was relatively long - more than 10 cm longer than its opponent, the German Mauser 98k carbine. The rifle weighed about 4 kg, the bayonet weighed another four hundred grams. The bayonet of the 1891 model was 40 cm long and was fixed on the rifle barrel in the combat position. Usually the bayonet was always worn attached, only sometimes putting it in a belt scabbard. It was possible to adjoin the bayonet with the end towards the butt. The fastening of the bayonet was tight enough to install or remove it, it required considerable physical effort.

Three-ruler carbine royal samples SVT

Three-ruler 7.62 mm Mosin rifle sample 1891-1930 had good ballistics. The rear sight was calibrated to a distance of 100 to 2000 m. Although it was almost impossible to shoot at the maximum range, in combat the firing distance rarely exceeded 400 meters, so this drawback was not a particular problem. The cylindrical shutter is quite simple and fast in operation, although it can be seized in severe frost.

The built-in magazine of the rifle contained five cartridges, which were loaded from the top of the clip. When charging, all five cartridges went into the store, so it was possible to close the shutter without sending cartridges into the chamber. If necessary, the cartridges in the store could be inserted separately. The practical rate of fire of the three-ruler was 8-10 rounds per minute. the cartridge underwent changes in 1908, and what is interesting with small changes is still used, for example, in the SVD, the Pecheneg machine gun and other army models.

Cartridge model 1908 and 1891

On the basis of the Mosin rifle, there were two types of carbines, which were armed with sappers, artillerymen, cavalrymen, signalmen and soldiers of other specialties. In 1943, the carbines entered service and fought in Stalingrad, where a long range was not required, but the possibility of maneuver was appreciated. The carbine of the 1938 model was 20 cm shorter than the three-ruler, weighed half a kilogram less and was equipped with a sight calibrated for a distance of 100 to 1000 m. There was no bayonet, since it was useless for cavalrymen, artillerymen and signalmen. Model 1944 looked like a carbine model 1938, but had a permanent folding bayonet 30 cm long. The prototype of this carbine underwent front-line tests in 1943 in Stalingrad. Compared to a rifle, it had a sharper recoil, which was explained by the shorter barrel length.

Various types of cartridges

The Soviet Union was one of the first countries in the world to mass-produce semi-automatic rifles. The first samples were inconvenient, unreliable and expensive. The 7.62-mm Tokarev SVT-38 rifle caused a lot of criticism. She was removed from service in 1940, although she remained in the army until the start of the war.

Sniper of the 71st Guards Rifle Division, Nanaian Maxim Alexandrovich Passar, more than 230 Nazis were destroyed. On January 17, 1943, he died near the village of Peschanka, Gorodishchensky District, Stalingrad Region.

The new self-loading SVT-40 turned out to be more reliable, although, compared to the Mosinka, it required more care and more careful handling. Automatic rifles were given to the most trained soldiers and sergeants. SVT-40 Tokarev was equipped with a bayonet-knife 24 cm long.

Eating at the front line, soldiers armed with SVT self-loaders

The Degtyarev VGD-30 rifle grenade had a fuse with a moderator, thanks to which it exploded during the flight. The RM grenade launcher was attached to the barrel of the trilinear. This small grenade proved to be ineffective, and in 1943 it was removed from service.

Cavalrymen at the well, behind the back of a fighter a carbine, 1943

Selected Mosin rifles were adapted for sniper shooting. The main visual difference is that the bolt handle is bent down. They were equipped with either a telescopic 3.5x PU sight or the less popular 4x PE sight. The PU sight was also suitable for SVT.