.30-06 Mosin Nagant - the Bannerman Conversion

Today I'm taking a look at a Mosin Nagant converted to .30-06 caliber in the early 1920s by Francis Bannerman & Sons. They were a huge surplus arms and equipment company for many decades - the Century International Arms of their time, in some ways. They bought a bunch of surplus Remington and New England Westinghouse Mosin Nagant rifles as surplus after WWI, and converted many of them to .30-06 for the American hunting market. While a military rifle that was sporterized yesterday has little remaining value, these Bannerman guns are old enough that they have acquired newfound collector status as an interesting curio of the 1920s.

Common legend is that these is particularly unsafe, but I think that is significantly exaggerated. I wouldn't run hot 220 round-nose loads through one, but I think mild ammo is just fine (if you own one of these, you can make your own decision about firing it or not). Anyway, let's take a look, and see what the characteristics of the Bannerman conversions are...

http://www.forgottenweapons.com/