The Russian Mosin Nagant Forum

I've spent a couple of hours cleaning the bore of my newly acquired M91-30 (Tula, Hex). The chrome looks shiny and bright and the rifling looks good. Using Hoppes #9 and new patches; have easily run about 100 patches through, but I'm still getting a LOT of powder, especially after running a brass brush through. Plus, the carbon, which is black/dark gray in color on the patches when first extracted, turns a greenish color after 20 minutes or so. Cleaned it a second time several days later, same result.

Haven't had the opportunity to fire it yet, which may help according to some of the other posts I've read. But yet to see a clean patch, like I used to see after cleaning my M16 when I was in the Corps.

Is this common, or normal?

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"...and we will lay off their largest city, and listen to their...rock and roll...while we conduct missile drills.

Normal. Some people have horrible cleaning habits. It may also be the residue left over from Soviet times. In any case, after you shoot it and then clean it, you may find it cleaning up better and faster.

The M16 bore issued by the Marines may have been chrome but your Mosin does not have a chrome bore. If it is clean, and the corrosive salts are washed away and your bore is oiled, you are done. Excess scrubbing can do more harm than good. I always get a green patch after using a brass brush and bore solvent, and I have always felt it was more a chemical reaction of the brush and solvent along with the steel barrel as opposed to the solvent and bore contaminants. Black, or tiny specks of brass or copper, or anything in the bore that you can see is one thing, but once it is clean and shiny looking it is better to oil it up and put it away.

I see I am not the only one who loved The Hunt For Red October! Did you read the book before watching the movie?

Your wasting your time scrubbing a bore like that. Your bore is probably pitted, in which case you'll never get all the powder fouling out. Flush the corrosive salts out, brush it a bit, run a dozen patches, till you get lighter grey, lightly oil, and quit. There's no point scrubbing it till the end of time, as the next time you fire it you'll be right back to square one. Your over thinking the whole cleaning process.

Hello captain! I was getting similar results out of my newly bought Tikka 91/30 and I was on the verge of just leaving it be when I finally got at least a grey patch rather than the black I was getting. I only got those results after actually shooting it, so it will probably get better the more that you shoot, clean, and repeat. (I don't mean after every shot, just after each trip.)

Take a cleaning patch soaked in solvent and rub down the cleaning rod, and see what happens. It is made of the same steel as the barrel I believe.

Thanks folks. Glad to hear this isn't rare. Will follow your suggestions - they all make sense. And I read the book first, bunkysdad; but in this "rare" case I liked the movie even more.

I think I did too. A young Alec Baldwin. He was great in that movie, but of course Sean Connery was the best.

Concur, buckysdad! Baldwin was the perfect Jack Ryan. I had the opportunity to talk with Tom Clancy several years ago at a book signing at Quantico. He agreed that Baldwin was the guy he envisioned as Ryan. Too bad he didn't continue in the chain of films but once he revealed his take on things it would have been hard to imagine he was genuine in the role.

You might try a foaming bore cleaner. That might be able to work its way into the pores/pits and clean them out. It won't restore the bore, but it will get the difficult to get at junk. That worked for me with a rifle I have with a pitted bore.

That Baldwin is a douchebag, and I am being charitable with that assessment. Foaming bore cleaner works well, I like to use it on the very old iron barrel rifles that I don't want to be scrubbing the hell out of.

Don't get carried away with bore cleaning! I once fixed up an SMLE for a fellow, and it shot a fairly good saucer sized group at 100 yards. (10 shots) "Experts" at the rifle range looked at his bore later, and declared it shot out. They attacked it with JB paste, steel wool, etc. and at the end, it wouldn't keep all of its shots on the target frame, let alone hold a group. One of the SMLE hot water cleaning funnels really work well for bore cleaning. Pour a kettle of boiling water through the bore, and clean, dry and oil it. All you need in most cases.

Oh for Pete's sake. Forgive my hyperbole, but what kind of a fool thinks using steel wool on a barrel makes a rifle better?

That was what I said! LOL!