I have three 91/30's, 1929, 1936 and 1943. While I like the rifles and find them very much fun to shoot none of mine even come close to the accuracy of the $127 ($20 off on sale) H&R 17HMR I got at BiMart. At 100 yards the cheap H&R does 1.5moa groups with mild wind and the bull barrel will shoot faster than you can load it without deviation or complaint, while the Mosins are good for 5moa on a good day slow cycling new, medium expensive, non surplus ammo. When I shoot surplus ammo about 8 moa groups are to be expected. In addition, I've scout scoped two of these Mosins using the dove tail under the rear sight, and without that mod I can't even do 5 moa on the irons through my progressive trifocals. I've spent many hours cleaning these beasts, bedding, floating, recrowning, messing with the triggers, trying to coax a little more accuracy out of them without much reward for my time. But even given all this frustration, I've had great fun pretending that I know what I'm doing and still love these darn things. If nothing else it shows me of how poor my mental model of what makes a rifle accurate is.
But don't buy one for accuracy.
P.S. this isn't going to stop me from trying dry molly on one of them this weekend because I'm still seeking the holy grail, I've begun to think of all my newer rifles are boreingly accurate, most especially the stevens 200 in 223 with the 24 power scope on it that only needs a better trigger.
But don't buy one for accuracy.
P.S. this isn't going to stop me from trying dry molly on one of them this weekend because I'm still seeking the holy grail, I've begun to think of all my newer rifles are boreingly accurate, most especially the stevens 200 in 223 with the 24 power scope on it that only needs a better trigger.