but some years ago an old friend now long gone to the other side, Captain Fred Christensen, gave me a Mosin Nagant. I bought several of those "tuna fish cans" full of ammo. Back then 400 rounds was about $60 if I remember correctly. Anyhow, I shot it some and put it up .. dug it out once in awhile when we wanted to light up the night.

During the initial panic about the Kung Flu when the country was locked down I decided to modify the Mosin just to give me something to do. So I started by removing the bayonet and all the "top" wood on the rifle. The big ole bayonet lug looked weird so I turned it down.

Shooting it I discovered that the gun tended to walk the shots around the target when it got warmed up. I floated the barrel and it still did it so I figured maybe the bayonet lug attachment, even though turned down, may have something to do with it. And possibly the muzzle end of the bore was worn. So I cut the barrel off.

I cut a dovetail and installed a Marble's White Bead front sight.

The accuracy improved some but I was still having problems. One was the rear sight. It was mounted in front of the receiver and now the sight radius with the shorter barrel was only 13"!
And I could not get the sight low enough to get onto the black at 50 yards. I cut up the rear sight and milled off as much as I could with my portable mill - a mill bastard file - but I really needed a new rear sight and would prefer a peep!

This did not work well!

I could not figure out how to mount a decent sight on the gun with that durn straight bolt handle sticking right in the way. So I put the gun away. Every once in awhile I would think about it but could not come up with a way to do it easily.

FAST FORWARD A YEAR AND SOME MONTHS .....

I found myself thinking about the Mosin one day and suddenly got the idea of "Why not ask Papa God? He would know how to do it." so I said out loud, "Lord, How would you mount a peep sight on the Mosin?" and almost immediately the idea popped into my head, "Mount it on the cocking handle."

My first thought was "Would that work?" .. so I dug out the rifle and went to the shop. I got a straight edge and my calipers and by golly it WOULD work!

Now boys, I ain't saying I heard God's voice. But when I asked the idea came to me immediately.
You can attribute that to whatever you wish but I will stick with the thought that He answered me.

So I went to work to make a rear sight.
I milled a flat on the cocking handle.

I cut out a rear sight.

Once I had it fitted I clamped it in place and drilled the hole for the screw. When it was in place I used a straight edge to measure where the hole for the peep sight should be and drilled that.

During that time I removed some of the wood from the stock to lighten it a bit and installed a recoil pad.

On the range I fired the first shots at 25 yards to make sure I was at least on the paper. Then I moved to 50 yards. The rear sight is adjustable for elevation, the front sight for windage. I got it hitting pretty close to center.

Today I shot it some more with same powder charge but with soft point hunting bullets.

This ain't too bad for my old eyes. It is certainly Minute-of-Whitetail. The old gun has become fun again.