The ship supported a campaign by the Imperial Russian Army to pacify newly-conquered territory in the Caucasus in the late 1830s and 1840, and thereafter patrolled the Black Sea in the early 1840s.

The eight Sultan Makhmud-class ships of the line were ordered as part of a naval expansion program aimed at strengthening the Russian Black Sea Fleet during a period of increased tension with Britain and France over the decline of one of Russia's traditional enemies, the Ottoman Empire.

Beginning in the 1830s, Russia ordered a series of 84-gun ships in anticipation of a future conflict, and the Sultan Makhmuds accounted for nearly half of the nineteen vessels built.

From 1838 to 1840, Sultan Mahmud participated in a lengthy operation to transport Imperial Russian Army troops to newly conquered fortifications in the Caucasus area that had been seized during the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–1829.

The largest of these operations took place on 14 May 1839, when Sultan Makhmud and four other ships of the line, three frigates, and five smaller vessels under the command of Admiral Mikhail Lazarev carried soldiers to Sochi.