My mosin rusted...

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andpinger

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So last weekend (june 9) I went and shot my mosin nagant. I put only about 10 rounds through it. I took it home, put windex through it, dried the barrel. Ran Hoppes through on patches many times. Ran dry patches through. Ran oily patches through to finish up. I look at the bore today and its f****** rusted:cuss::cuss::cuss:

What the hell should I do? Should I run more windex (or boiling water through) or should I just run more hoppes patches through it?

Thank you for the help


BTW I live in PA... its been really humid lately, but I thought my thorough cleaning should have prevented rust...
 
Get the rust out with penetrating oil and a bronze brush, clean with some powder solvent to make sure nothing is trapped in/under the fouling, clean it WELL with patches wet with water, dry it completely beyond any doubt, and apply a good protectant like CLP or the like.
 
I've had excellent results with M-Pro sprays. I'm pretty sure household windex has a lot of water in it. Which may be how you ended up with the rust. Anyway I never use the stuff. Just Mpro, CLP and sometimes 99% rubbing alch.
 
Boiling hot water is the answer you seek. No heat? cold water and a couple patches after scrubbing

It's suprizingly easy, pour it in and scrub the bore, the heat will dry the metals and barrel itself and the water will dissolve and flush away the corrosive salts used in the priming. 109 shots or 1, all you need to do is flush and scrub with WATER, ...............and the rust too will be easier to get out, too, using water.

After a water scrub, all the salts that attract the moisture from the air to the pores of the barrels metal will be dissolved and flushed out and you can just clean as normal. Oils and slovents will NOT dissolve the salts. They will break up and remove the metals and soot left, fore sure, and are a good part of metal care, with some oil to seal the metals after cleaning.

It seems contradictory to use water to prevent rust, but it works 100% of the time, as I have done so, without fail, for the last 27 years of shooting corrosively primed ammo.
 
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Windex, if it has ammonia will get to most of any copper fouling you may have. It will not prevent rusting or corrosion. As stated, hot water flush, regular clean. Happiness!
 
Any oil and a .284 caliber brush wrapped with 0000 steel wool so it is snug in the bore. Water and metal don't cooperate.
 
Any gun left around in a humid environment is going to rust, corrosive ammo will just make it happen faster. You may well have neutralized the corrosive primer compounds with the windex, but the area was still humid, so rust will set in.

I like to liberally apply Breakfree CLP to the metal surfaces of my guns after I complete the cleaning like you described. It gives a good level of protection against the humidity (and it does get darn humid here in VA too). It doesn't hurt anything, so I just liberally apply it and leave it on and just give the gun a wipe down when I next take it out. It's worked a treat for me so far.
 
You might want to try cleaning it with some Outers Black Powder Bore Cleaner Solution after shooting corrosive ammo. I used it to clean mine up when I first got it worked wonders. I did not think I was ever going to get all that old powder out of there till Dad suggested I try using it. We use it to clean our muzzleloaders which also has corrosive salts so it made since. Worked like a charm now I have a bright shining bore instead of one that is as black as a cast iron skillet.
 
Hoppes #9 fixed this same problem my brother and I had, notice I said had. Windex changed their formula, I know because my mom switched to Glass Plus because they still have ammonia. I have seen Windex with ammonia but it is less prevalent than the non ammonia.
 
I'd take caribou's advice about a mosin anytime!

Do you think it would make a difference to use the "let it dry" tactic idf your water is reallly hard?

We dont all live next to a glacial stream caribou!

(I'm just jealous)
 
Cleaning

There seems to be two sets of thinking here. The clean with oil set and the clean with water.
For modern, non-corrosive, ammo using nitro solvents and oil is fine.
Much of the 7.62x54r ammo available for the Moisin rifles is corrosive. Corrosive salts must be dissolved by and flushed out with water. You literally wash the bore.
About removing rust......depending on how bad the pitting is, the methods mentioned may help some. Understand, though, that using water has little or nothing to do with dissolving or removing rust since iron oxide (rust) is not water soluble. Brushing with a bore brush will remove a good bit of the rust but there may be more work involved.
The more work intense method is to lap the bore with a lead plug and lapping compound.....too involved to explain here.
Pete
 
I would use a brass brush, some kroil oil and this: http://www.brownells.com/gun-cleaning-chemicals/solvents-degreasers/bore-cleaning-paste/j-b-reg-non-embedding-bore-cleaning-compound-prod1160.aspx to get the rust out of the barrel.

Once it's clean, run a patch or 2 moistened with Barricade through the bore to keep away rust.

As others have said, I usually just clean with warm soapy water and then Hoppe's and then barricade. Then I wait a few days and do it again (I'm paranoid).

Here's the Kroil/JB combo and Brownell's instructions on using them in unison: http://www.brownells.com/gun-cleaning-chemicals/solvents-degreasers/bore-cleaning-paste/j-b-bore-compound-kroil-prod1159.aspx
 
There seems to be two sets of thinking here. The clean with oil set and the clean with water.
Click to expand...

I think there's actually only one camp really. Clean with hot water/windex (the windex is basically water, but it evaporates quickly, the same reason for the hot water) and then oil for a protective layer.

I flush everything with hot water (neutralize/wash away corrosive salts), do my standard clean (self-explanatory) and then just oil it up for safe keeping (prevents rust from setting in, in a humid environment). It's easy and quick to do.
 
I never let water near any of my metal bits. Water = rust.

Hoppes will neutralize any salts (says so right on the bottle), is not water based, and will clean too! Then run an oil patch down the bore to keep everything rust free!

My office just got AC recently (yesterday) and when I took my carry gun (CZ75B) out for the night a few days ago, my safety and slide release all had light rust on them from my sweat. Gross.
 
tyeo098 said:
I never let water near any of my metal bits. Water = rust.
Click to expand...

Way too simplistic thinking. Water doesn't magically cause instant rust and is very useful in cleaning corrosive residue.

tyeo098 said:
Hoppes will neutralize any salts (says so right on the bottle), is not water based, and will clean too!
Click to expand...

No, it doesn't. Current Hoppes formulation does not claim to remove corrosive salts.

OP, I think your issue is that you ran the water (Windex) through before anything else. I always do a cursory cleaning first to get the majority of the fouling out, then run a few wet patches through to get the salts. If you just run the water down first, the salts are still going to be present mixed in with the powder fouling.
 
Water = rust.
Click to expand...

Well there's a big difference between using near boiling water to blast clean a bore and using cold water to clean. The near boiling largely evaporates itself esp. when the bore gets hot (use gloves). Notice Caribou is talking about "Boiling hot water", not a cold wet rag. You quickly follow up the hot water with dry rags and oil. Cold water doesn't evaporate and you may not get all of it off with rags. Thus standing water may remain in cracks and pits, leading to rust.

A little Kroil and some scrubbing will help get the bore and internals back to normal.
Click to expand...

Just be careful with that stuff. It's a potent penetrating oil not a general purpose preservative or lube. If you get it on for penetration purposes, be sure it all gets removed.
 
Did the OP scrub the bore with patches which were dipped in water, or simply spray Windex, but Not using wet, watery patches to scrub the chamber and bore?

I've used watery patches to scrub my bores:Windex or plain water, then used dry patches and a brush.
This is always followed by a hair dryer for about three minutes into the muzzle and the chamber.
The Yugo Mauser has the same shine after about eight sessions, using only corrosive ammo (Yugo and Czech).
 
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My experience is that clean is clean and if you actually get the barrel clean it doesn't matter how you do it.

I say that because I found out that some of my 7.62x25 ammunition was corrosive the hard way. I had been shooting that ammo for years with no ill effects because I had always cleaned immediately after shooting and because when I clean a bore, I do my best to remove ALL of the powder AND metal fouling. Then after one shooting session, I got in a jam for time and left the gun for a day or two before cleaning. The bore was badly rusted when I got around to cleaning it--clearly the ammo was corrosive.

So if you really remove all the fouling from the bore (regardless of how you accomplish that task) then the bore won't rust because there is nothing left in the bore to make it rust.

That said, it's also been my experience that very few people actually try to get their barrels completely clean. Most folks are content to patch out the worst of the gunk and leave the rest--especially the metal fouling and whatever is trapped underneath it. For those who take that approach, and most do, it's important to use something that will effectively dissolve and flush most of the corrosive salts out of the bore. Then a good coating of corrosion preventive is required to try to seal the remaining fouling to keep moisture from getting to it and starting the corrosion process.
 
I've seen some good suggestions on clearing the rust and won't try and top them. For cleaning in the future though I do have a suggestion based on how I've always cleaned my AK, which only shoots corrosive ammo. I spray water (from a $0.50 spray bottle) down the bore until it's running out the end of the barrel, at which point I keep spraying a little bit longer. Then I spray WD-40 down the bore to chase the water out. Again I do this for a decently long time. After that I just clean as per normal. In my case I like to use a boresnake and CLP but whatever you like to do will probably work fine as well.
 
I use Barnes CR-10. I know it stinks BUT on corrosive ammo of any type it dissolves the salts and all residue. I like using the coiled type bore brush. These are more money but they last a long time and do really clean my Mosin's bore very nicely. Barnes only needs a few minutes to work and I do the bolt while I wait. Then I use good 'ol Hoppes#9 and brush it again and again. Then it is patch time. Then high quality oil in the bore. One thing I like to do though is run a good oil patch down the bore after several days. My Tula had a dark bore when I bought it but great rifling. Now after several cleanings the bore is actually shining. Corrosive ammo is a pain in the rear but timely and a very good scrub will fix it up and stop rust.
 
I learned to clean black powder & corrosive primer residue by sticking the rifle muzzle in a small can of warm soapy water and using a relatively tight-fitting patch to pump it up into the bore and back several times, then changing to hot clear water once or twice to rinse the soap out. After that, bore cleaner and oil of choice, and never a problem. I would also add that in the Army, we cleaned our weapons for three successive days after shooting them, even though we didn't use corrosive primed ammo in the 60's & 70's - old habits die hard. Since I haven't been shooting BP lately, I use good old USGI WW2 corrosive bore cleaner (the black foul-smelling stuff in the little OD green tin) of which I have a pile of (bought a box of 144 years ago at an army surplus store). :cool:
 
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