I thought it would be interesting to view what was generally acknowledged as the prime sniper rifle of World War II. Certainly in numbers it was the most prolific, and the combination of rifle and scope was both accurate and strong enough to withstand combat action.

This pretty young woman was Roza Shanina, one of many Russian women who served their country against the Germans in WWII as snipers. Following the death of a brother, she volunteered to serve, and then bravely went AWOL to get in the thick of the fighting. She racked up 59 kills and actually captured 3 Germans single-handedly. The odds finally caught up with her, and she was brutally ripped open by a large artillery fragment. She laid disemboweled, unattended in agony for a day. When found after her screams were finally heard, she was trying to hold her intestines in. She told her discoverers that she wanted them to shoot her right there. She died in spite of valiant efforts to save her on January 28, 1945 after being taken to a field hospital. She had not reached her 21st birthday. In her effects was a (then prohibited) diary of her frontline life. It was preserved by a medical doctor in that hospital. It was only recently re-discovered. That diary has now been translated into English in the form of a book, Stalin's Sniper, which can be ordered from Amazon. I read it cover to cover, and it's riveting.

Note the rifle she is carrying, one of the large number of scoped Mosin-Nagants used then. Successful male and female snipers were idolized by the Russians during the war.



Here are two views of the rifle she and many other snipers in the Russian Army used. This is an original and correct Model 1891/30 Mosin-Nagant rifle, fitted with a 3.5X PU scope, which was the one most often used in the war from 1942 on. The .30 caliber (7.62mm) x 54mm rimmed cartridge used in this rifle was on a par with our .30-06 in power. The high mount of the scope permitted the use of both the scope and the iron sights. The effective range of this combination was around 400 yards. The barrel measured 28 and 3/4 inches, and the bore diameter was .311". You can click on either image for an enlarged view.





This is a closeup of the scope. It was quite rugged and securely mounted. It was considered quite superior to the Weaver scopes used on our M1903A4 sniper weapons. In fact, there are documented instances of some of our U.S. snipers adapting the PU scope to their rifles. This one was made by the Izhevsk arsenal in 1942.



Here is a view through the PU scope, showing the reticle. I took this picture looking through the scope while it was close up to some shrubbery, so it's out of focus, but you can get an idea of the type of reticle.



I recommend the movie "Enemy at the Gates" which documented the Russian snipers' lives during the war. It addressed a sniping dual between an actual noted Russian sniper and one from Germany, which was probably fictional, but some claim to be true. These rifles were featured in the film.

I thought you'd enjoy this bit of history. This gun was covered in my book "101 Classic Firearms" where many more details are provided.

John

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Must get out and shoot mine one of these days. I believe there is some high quality, non-corrosive ammo that is US made that should give good groups. Mind you, goodness knows where I could get some just now.

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Release the Kraken

It wasn't that long ago you could buy an actual PU sniper in the $300 range, then Enemy at the Gates came out and the market was flooded with cobbled together rebuit, refurbished, reconditioned, etc. snipers. Many built with original parts, but many using after market scopes and/or aftermarket or post war mounts.

I missed out on the $550 batch circa 2014-15 while I was briefly working in London. Got home, saw the price went up (less than $100 more) and hesitated, kick myself every day for that one.

I bought a 91/30 with the PU scope a few years before the movie came out. I watched its value climb like an F4 Phantom with full afterburners lit once the movie hit the big screen.

I still have it though. It's a fine shooter and reloads will hover around 1 MOA with .311" quality bullets. Sierra makes a very good .311" Match King bullet. IMR 4895 and H 4895 powders are just about optimum for the 7.62X54R case and Federal match primers keep extreme spreads and SDs down to a comparable level in well loaded 7.62 NATO or 30/06 rounds.

I've also had at different times the 1903 A4, The M1D and the No4T sniper rifles. Of all of them, I think that the Holland and Holland modified No 4T is the best of the bunch, but a 91/30 is a good way to go.

During our annual sniper train ups (with the M21 and the M24) I would bring one of 'em out to shoot alongside the more modern rifles. Generally through 300 yards they shot right with the issue rifles of the time. After that, they just didn't have the scope power to stay with rifles using 3X9 and 10X scopes with superior resolution and ranging reticles.

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Keep your powder dry.

Despite considerable artistic license taken, the story was true, including the apparatchik getting his brains blown out to reveal the location of the German sniper (unlike the movie, he did not do so voluntarily.)

My 91/30 is a Tula ex-sniper with the scope-mount holes welded over at the arsenal. The Russians supposedly test-fired at 600-1000 meters and selected the most accurate rifles for “sniperizing”.

The infantry versions were sighted to shoot extremely high, the theory being if they trained troops to aim at the enemies belt buckle, they could score a kill out to several hundred meters. All they needed were enemies dumb enough to stand straight up in the open facing them. I get the impression average WWII peasant soldier did not receive extensive marksmanship training and were issued the 91/30 largely as a bayonet platform.

I have doubts about it being prime, but like everything else in the Soviet Army, they overwhelmed with sheer numbers.

The Finnish M39 is considered the ultimate refinement of the design.

I always LOL when I see the bit about the Mosin being sighted high. It's sighted for where the Russian army, and most European armies, wanted the zero, at 300 m. That gives the infantyman the ability to take quick shots as described and probably make a hit somewhere between the neck and the navel. With a 150 gr bullet at ~2800 fps at the muzzle, it's close enough for most purposes. It is only the US obsession with the 100 yard zero that makes it appear to shoot high.

The M39 did offer a 150 m setting IIRC, maybe a nod to the distances you can actually see in the Finnish forests.

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Release the Kraken

In the movie, The Enemy at the Gates, there is a scene where soldiers are being issued one rifle for each two with the instructions being that when the man with the rifle gets shot, the remaining man is to pick up the rifle and keep going...

I have a couple of PUs that were sold as refurbs. I have one that was re-snipered. I also have a refurb PE that's a great shooter even with surplus light ball, that I'm debating to re-sniper or leave alone. All were $69 BiG5 specials.

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Thread Killer.

Back in the day I had a Russian Mosin and a Finn Mosin. Both all matching numbers, both very accurate, both with clean bores and great stocks. I paid $79 for the Russian and $99 for the Finn.
Everyone said they would never be worth much more. They were very, very wrong.

8” high at a hundred does not make for a 300 meter zero.

There was a joke back then that if you made a cash purchase at a gun shop, you were offered change in Mosins.

I think what many are arguing about regarding high zeros is what the military calls grazing fire. That's simply the distance that a rifle's trajectory will hit a standing man when held close to parallel to the ground. For many military 30 caliber rifles that extends out to or past 500 yards. That is quite different from what riflemen and snipers use when engaging point targets. While infantry can and do hit point targets with their issue rifles, infantry fire plans are based on grazing fire and thus produce what sportsmen consider a too high zero with the battle sight on many of the old service rifles.

Many older military rifles' battle sights did actually have a zero of about 8" to 10" high at 100 yards which put the actual POA/POI at about 330/350 yards with the final catch at around 600 yards.

Examples of such rifles are the 1903 Springfield's battle sight (sight folded down), the German WWI long Model 98 and the Austrian M95 when its sight was folded down.

This whole grazing fire concept is still pretty important for infantry fire plans, particularly for final defensive fires for the machine guns. For any of you former servicemen, you'll remember sighting your M14, M16 or M4 so that you could hold center mass on an E Type Silhouette (1 meter high) from 25 meters through 350 meters on the Trainfire course of fire. Simply a reduced grazing fire range of about half of what your rifle was actually capable of and probably a much more practical zero than what was used with several of the WWI and some of the WWII rifles with their battle sights.

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Keep your powder dry.

Thank You again for a wonderful Article.
I always look forward to your insights on
great Guns.

I've always felt the story and perhaps Zatsev's kill count was mostly Russian propaganda. Both sides needed "hero's of the people", but I guess we'll never know the complete story.

The Russian M-N were sighted with the bayonets attached, so probably higher than even 8" high. The reason they were sighted with bayonets attached is because the Russians determined it took more time to attach a bayonet than shoot and reload a M-N. Hence what we would call "high". To them it was reasonable.

It appears to be the position of even the Russian Ministry of Defense itself that the story of the “sniper duel” against the German major König was Stalinist propaganda.

Historically, there were no German snipers of officer‘s rank in the Wehrmacht. There is also no record of this sniper in any German records, highly unlikely if he had been as accomplished as the legend claims. There was also no sniper school in 1942/43 at Zossen near Berlin, which the fictional major is usually said to have commanded.

We‘ll never know the truth simply because there is no truth to be known.

The truth of Stalingrad is this "[Our commander] told us about Order No. 227 'Not one step back. There is no land for you on the other side [the East bank of the Volga]. Fight to the death.'"

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To cannon, all men are equal

Yup...takes only about 5" at 100 yards, for a 300 meter zero.

ShootersCalculator.com | Ballistic Trajectory Calculator

I pulled this out of my library. While concise, it's a pretty fair primer on the rifles used on the Russian Front. It's probably still available at the various book outlets as it was published in 2019.

Attached Images

Sniping on the Eastern Front.jpg (59.5 KB, 16 views)

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Keep your powder dry.