The Russian Mosin Nagant Forum

I'm posting this for mikerb55. He is having a little photo posting problem and I am happy to help out!
Mike, post something under this post.
Dolk

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From Mike:

"Attached are 2 pictures of my 1939 Izhevsk M91/30. The rifle has the same arsenal mark on the receiver, bolt, cocking piece and trigger guard."

"I'd also like to know the best way to remove the cosmoline from the stock and the inside of the barrel."

"Thanks,"

Mike

Removing cosmoline from inside the bore is easy, you get a Tipton, or Dewey one piece cleaning rod from Graf's, or Midway, put some patches on the jag soaked in Hoppes 9 and push them through the bore starting at the breech end. The wood you wrap in newspaper, packing some down into the barrel channel ( with the barreled action and magazine out of the wood) wrap it in string so the paper stays in contact with the wood. Stick the wrapped stock into a dark colored plastic trash bag and them set it on the dash of your car parked in the sun. Unwrap it and check to see if there are any oil stains on the paper every couple of days, change out the paper as needed, when the stain spots get small then you should be good to go. The heat of the sun will cause the wood to give up it's trapped oils, these rifles were not stored like in the old days when they slopped cosmoline out of a bucket and all but encased the rifle in crud. The Soviets used paper wrap and more modern chemicals that leave less of a mess, but the stock could be a reused older one from the war, or the 30's, these tend to have oil in them.

Dolk,

Thanks for posting the pictures for me, I appreciate it.

Dog,

Thanks for the tip on getting the grease out of the stock. There's not a lot, but I can feel it on my hands after holding the rifle. I can't wait to get it cleaned up so I can shoot it.

Dog,

I went to Big 5 Sporting Goods where I purchased the gun and bought an Otis Technology Breech to Muzzle cleaning kit. It worked great. The muzzle is now clean but looks a little pitted. Is this OK? Cleaning of the stock comes next!

mikerb55 wrote:Dog,

The muzzle is now clean but looks a little pitted. Is this OK?

It all doesn't matter until you chamber a round and fire it at a target. Then you will know if it is OK.

We have all seen rifles that look perfect and shoot terrable. And we have seen rifles that are all pitted to heck and they are some of the best shooters.

Fire it, then you will know.

Dolk

I know the Otis is a good field kit, I sent a few over to the sandbox but never used one myself. I have dozens of cleaning kits, even antique brass rod ones so I rarely need to buy cleaning gear for myself. I have found that having a one piece carbon fiber rod that is long enough to handle even the old Model 1891 rifle is a time saver. These refurb Mosins come pretty clean from the crate, but some other rifles can be filthy beyond belief, or if I have been shooting one of the black powder cartridge rifles I need a rod that will handle heavy scrubbing. Mine is a Dewey rod, I think it's over 50" long, got it six years ago and I forget. I use a US M1916 Brass one piece barracks cleaning rod for most other rifles with shorter barrels, all the carbines, and the US M1903- M1 Garand rifles, they may be a little hard to come by today.
Most milsurp that were used in the corrosive primed ammo era, and that's just about all of them made before the 1970's will show some sort of pitting, mostly it's just a light sprinkling in the bore, but sometimes it's enough to darken the bore. This will not necessarily make the rifle shoot badly, but it will increase cleaning time as the pits will hold crap in the bore.

The ones that come from the wholesalers, or major retailers, without any stops at individuals, seem to have the best barrels. Most of the ones I have gotten from private sellers or pawn shops have pitted barrels. I suspect most of the damage; wood, metal and bore, occur in the good old USA. Some buttheads don't feel the need to clean a $75.00 rifle.

That said, I have some gritty looking bores that shoot very well. As a matter of fact, all of the Mosins I own shoot better than I do with the exception of a M-1891 that scatters rounds all over the place. That one is counterbored about 1.5" so I ain't the first to have problems with it.

My thanks to all that have given me advice and help with my "new" Mosin. Now that I know how to resize my pictures, I'll post some more.

Hi All,

Here are the remainder of the pictures I have of my recently purchased M91/30. Thanks for the help in being able to "resize" them for upload to this forum.

Hello Mikerb. The pw arms rifles are much better than most of the centuryones. I deal alot with big 5 and have checked them out and like the condition of the pw's. It should shoot fine. I bought a tough looking m38 from big 5 and i thought the barrel was in poor condition but it out shot everything in mosin except my m39's. Take it out and burn a few you'll love it