THE MOSIN NAGANT 91/30 PISTOL, OR THE OBREZ

Picture from http://www.houstongunblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/mosin-pistol.jpeg

To those of you who know something about firearms, the above is a chopped down made into a pistol from a rifle gun.

LEGAL DISCLAIMER: NOTE THAT TO MAKE A RIFLE INTO A PISTOL OR SHORT BARRELED RIFLE OR ANY OTHER WEAPON YOU NOT ONLY NEED PRE-APPROVAL FROM THE BATF, YOU MUST OBTAIN A LICENSE OR LICENSES AND PAY FEES OF (AT LEAST BUT COULD BE MORE THAN) $200 TO LEGALLY ACCOMPLISH THIS TRANSFORMATION FROM RIFLE TO PISTOL. THERE IS NO LEGAL ADVICE REGARDING THIS OR ANYTHING GIVEN ON THIS SITE, AND YOU ARE URGED TO CONTACT AN ATTORNEY WHO PRACTICES IN THIS AREA TO BE SURE YOU ARE LEGALLY COMPLIANT WITH ALL LAWS. NOTE THAT I CANNOT ANSWER LEGAL QUESTIONS ON THIS SITE.

I'll post some links later on in this post of some youtube videos of fellows firing some of these guns. Apparently, although the 7.62 x 54r cartridge is very close in power to the venerable 30.06 round, there is not as much recoil from this pistol because some of the powder does not burn up due to the brevity of the barrel.

Now at this point so early on in my musings, you're probably asking yourself "Why does El Fisho have interest in this 100 year old bolt action five shot Russian relic that is long past it's prime"?

First off, I'm not sure the weapon is past it's prime. I prefer the Mosin Nagant rifle variants that are carbine length. It's a heavy weapon and cutting the barrel from the normal-ish 28" to 16.5"/18" makes it a whole new ballgame in handling this weapon.  There are TONS of these guns for sale for prices that begin under $100. Ammo is ridiculously cheap. I've recently bought 440 rounds for less than $80.

Secondly, although there is no contest whatsoever between modern semi-automatic assault weapons used by police and the military and the Mosin Nagant, I'll note that revolutionary armies all over the world have resisted and won armed conflicts over the last century using surplus and knock-off Mosin Nagant rifles against forces using vastly superior arms.

Of course, the outcomes of those situations were dictated by differences in motivations of the fighting forces, sheer mass numbers of oppressed peoples and their will to fight for their version of freedom. I don't know, for example, if the Mosin Nagant rifle was used by rebel forces in Afghanistan in the 1980's, but I recall seeing long barreled bolt action rifle in pictures of the Afghan fighters. I know that as the conflict went on they captured AK's and RPG's to use, but apparently the Mosin Nagant or a gun like it was what got them those superior weapons in the end.

One blog post I read while researching about the Mosin Nagant rifle and it's many variants mentioned that a frugal purchaser catching these guns on sale or at wholesale could arm a squad of men (5) and have TONS of ammo for about $125-150 per man. For that price, you could have a very nice refurbished rifle and say, 440-880 rounds of ammo.

So even though there are many of these surplus rifles on the market and they are cheap as well, many question the wisdom, the judgement and indeed the sanity of those wanting to cut down a rifle into a pistol.

I can't tell you why, but I can tell you I think it's as neat as snuff, as the old East Texas saying goes. An old saw, I suppose, but I'm not partial to using that phrase. It's an old saying is what it is. In any event, I think I'm gonna have to pony up $200 and get the necessary BATF licenses/permits and have a gunsmith do the barrel/sight modification for me and I'll do the stock.

What could one possibly use a Mosin Nagant pistol for (not to be confused with the Nagant revolver, and interesting gun in itself as it is one of the few, if any others exist, of revolvers that can actually be suppressed like a semi-auto pistol) ?

The Nagant revolver is interesting in a Webley sort of way, in that it has that throwback design look to it. Me myself,  I prefer the look and function of the Model 1917 Smith and Wesson and Colt and those many evolutions of revolvers made by those companies in the intervening years.

I guess the $99.99 rifle that becomes a $299.99 rifle with Federal BATF fees/taxes/whatever plus the gunsmithing fees for barrel reduction and sight relocation/replacement. I'm thinking my guy would charge me at least $300 to cut and crown the barrel and to relocate the front sight and whatever other cut down work would be required. At least. So now we have a $599.99 Mosin Nagant pistol that can shoot five rounds of a pretty potent round at an insanely cheap price for centerfire shooting.

All of this is not without historical precedent either. Back in the old days, according to my forum and web reading, the 91/30 and it's variants were prevalent as well.

Obviously, the cut down pistol version conceals much better than the full sized or even carbine version of the 91/30. I don't know how much historical accuracy lies in the following statement I read on one forum or webpage, but it basically said that you use the Mosin Nagant 91/30 pistol to get a better pistol. Fair enough.

Various Russian revolutionaries called the pistol the Obrez.

Here's some youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXMYhekpGhI


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNFsUvh078I

If you look carefully, you can see the huge fireball coming out of the end of the gun. It's daylight in both videos, but if you've ever seen videos or actually shot even a full sized 28" barrel Mosin Nagant under dark or cloudy conditions, you know how much of an otherworldly superfireball comes out of the end of it. Imagine that huge fireball coming from the cutdown pistol! I suspect it would be a stout deterrent  to any attacker.

Witness here an example of one of these homemade Russian pistolas, The Obrez.

Picture from http://operatorchan.org/k/arch/src/k142364_sawn-off-nagant.jpg

Picture from http://therealgunguys.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/obrez.jpg
Here's another more modern day adaptation. Note the grip on this modified gun is more of a straight grip than a pistol grip on the one shown above and a longer barrel.

Picture from http://orshagorodmoy.info/_nw/16/48956130.jpg
The above picture appears in a thread on this forum that features one poster who has a nifty design that says:

"OBREZ When you need to put a fist sized hole in someone at less than 10 feet and set their clothes on fire at the same time, accept no substitute."


For me, I'd like a green daylight laser mounted up front on the bottom of the barrel to aid in good shooting from the hip.  Again, it's a potent round, and you can literally blow the hell out of something with it. I recently saw a waterlogged tree floating in a big ole' Texas River (The Mighty Brazos) literally get blown in half as it floated past  an elevated shooter with a $100 unmodified 91/30 with the 28" barrel.

I also wonder if the stock could structurally handle being cut down so that a Pachmayr or Hogue pistol grip off of a revolver could be fitted to it. My initial thought was to obtain a S&W N frame actual steel pistol grip from a parts gun, and weld it to the receiver of the 91/30, and then use a Pachmayr or Hogue grip on the transplanted frame and this still may be the best plan.

Another thought would be to replace the grip using an SKS or AK grip attached so that it was perpendicular to the receiver. Like a regular AK. Get the grip frame attachment portion off of an
AK or SKS and weld that sucker to the receiver of the 91/30, then any number of kinds of more vertical (as opposed to straight back or pistol grip) could be used.

The more I think about it, the more I think that no matter how ungainly or unconventional the more straight back horizontal grip of the standard 91/30 looks when cut down, it may work in this case as function over form. Since there is no rear stock using the shooter's shoulder for support, it does put the wrist and arm of the right handed shooter in a different position than either shooting from the hip or shooting from an elevated position using the iron sights.

And speaking of the sights. Well, I'd get some of those high dollar sights that Wild West Guns in Alaska uses on it's Alaska Co-Pilot rifle installed when the barrel work was being done. Get the receiver tapped for a rail and put a great rear sight on the gun. A nice-to-do at that time also would be to have the gunsmith attach an AK scopemount to the left side of the receiver. This would facilitate the quick attachment/detachment of a red dot scope. You'd want, or at least I'd want, the scope mount to be high enough so as not to block the view of the iron sights.

Of course, the other modification you'd want to consider is the replacement of the bolt handle. The straight bolt handle would not work with some optics, and the stock straight handle is replaced with a bent handle that works with a scope positioned in the traditional rearward location.

The original sights are not that bad, particularly the front sight, but the rear sight is not my favorite. There is a certain cool about an adjustable rear sight that goes to 1000 meters, and apparently there is documented examples of these high powered full barreled guns hitting the target at that distance. So even with a pistol version of this gun, you've got the strong possibility of having a  handgun that can shoot several hundred yards with a dang good degree of accuracy, not to mention sheer power.

So replacing the sights, and maybe even mounting a rail so that very cool rear sights could be used and interchanged. 

There was another web page I read about a fellow who didn't want to pay the Federal tax to cut his 91/30 into a pistol, so he opted to make his into one of the shorter, legal rifles. He left his barrel at 16.5 and cut it so that he was well over the minimum length in his state for a rifle. He put a bipod on it and the gunsmtth who cut the barrel to 16.5" said it was like a high powered Remington XP-100, while it's owner compared it to a Super Thompson Contender. I can't find that link right now but if I do I'll post it.

So it'd be a fun gun to have and to shoot, and to shoot cheaply. With great power. With a laser attached, you could hit a hog or a good sized snake with ease at some distance, and with lots of knockdown power.

And a good bit of flame.