7.62x54r for Moisin Nagant

Just picked up a 1933 Moisin Nagant amthat bore gauges at .3025.

Initially going to run a box of factory PPU through but will be moving to home loads there after and have already purchased 100 pieces of virgin PPU brasses.

I’m thinking to use Viht 140 and the same 174g .311 bullet heads I use for my Enfield No4. Looking at Vihts website their load date for the finish 7.62x53r seemed very chunky at the starting point of 43g…

If anyone has some proven loading data for the calibers I’d be keen to hear.

Cheers
Pete

Just asked a chap I shoot with who's had one for 20+ years.

He's using N150
174g he was loading 45.5g
180g he's loading 46g

If he uses N140 he's loading 1.5g less, off the top of his head he was loading them at 2.970 and getting 2325ish FPS.

Hope that's of some help

Pete_Cambs said:

Looking at Vihts website their load date for the finish 7.62x53r seemed very chunky at the starting point of 43g…

Click to expand...

Viht's data is fine - use that. You are likely to get poor obturation and a heavily sooted chamber and cases with lighter N140 charges. The 7.62X53R was the Finns' military cartridge for over a half century mostly powered by Viht propellants, so the company knows more than a little about this cartridge. Charges might seem 'chunky' to you after loading 303, but the 53/54R case has considerably greater capacity than the 303's - in fact not too far short of that of the 30-06 at some 6% less. Also, CIP rates the cartridge as 390,000 MPa (56,565 psi) MAP, considerably higher pressure than the 303.

The Finnish and Russian / Soviet cartridges are basically the same thing. As the case length is 53.5mm, the Finns round the number down and the Russians up. Finnish manufactured rifles used a slightly tighter bore so shoot 0.308-inch diameter bullets whilst Russian / Soviet manufactures use a nominally 0.310-inch groove diameter, but are notorious for running a huge variety of mostly larger sizes. The 311s you use in the 303 are usually the better choice, but a minority of barrels shoot very well with 308 dia. bullets, so they're worth trying. Bering a Finnish company, Viht's test barrel will be the 'tighter' version, hence its tables being for Lapua, Sierra and other 0.308-inch bullets.

With the higher [case] capacity to bore ratio, the 54R is very well suited to N150 which was my powder of choice many years go in a refurbished Izvesk manufactured M1891/30 'sniper' rifle (almost certainly not a Soviet original, but a standard rifle retrofitted in Germany in the 90s with a PU scope).