Hey all, I have an old Mosin Nagant 91/30 rifle that started life in 1943 in Izhevsk Russia. Being a midwar non-Tula round receiver with nothing special to be spared for I hacked it up some years back. The problem I had is it would never shoot right. It has always sent bullets downrange in 10-12" random patterns. I probably incorrectly assumed that the old wooden stock and full length hand-guard was to blame and I fitted it with one of those black plastic ninja tacticool stocks made by Archangel. To be fair I was a bit younger and the stock is kinda nifty. This obviously didn't fix my issues so I went further and cut the barrel down to 18" and threaded it for a muzzle brake. I also went ahead and trued the end and cut a really nice 11 degree target crown in the barrel. This also did nothing. I had installed a cheap Nikon scope originally with an ATI mount, thinking that this may be the issue I bedded the scope mount and installed a SWFA 10X40. I could now see my crap shooting better, but it did not improve my results. I then went ahead and installed a Timney drop-in trigger and while I had the stock off I milled out all the area in the stock ahead of the receiver and checked it for clearance. I also took the receiver and trued the back of the recoil lug on my mill and bedded it into the stock with Marine Tex. I then bore-scoped the barrel and slugged it to check sizing. It came back right at 0.313" I also spent some time checking the bore for straightness. It seems okay with no obvious indications of a defect. I have tried different ammo from the spam can surplus to the PPU blue box stuff and even some hand-loads with 0.311" SMKs. I am bench shooting it from a concrete table at 100 yards and literally it is difficult to keep it on paper. I would say the average group size is 10" or so and it is not centered ever. I don't pretend to be the worlds best shooter, but I think I'm better than that. My Savage 10 FCP-SR in .308 is a 1/4 minute gun at the same range on the same table using the same bipod and bag setup. I feel that this thing is starting to challenge my intelligence now. For it to be that far out it seems to me that the problem must be huge and probably obvious. I came here fishing for suggestions, so all comments are welcome even if they seek to understand why I'm wasting my time on this thing. It's all principal now I refuse to let it go until I have a valid diagnosis of the issue even if it results in "wall-hanging" this thing. Sorry for the long post and thanks in advance.