I have a 91/30 Mosin I shoot all the time for plinking because ammo is so cheap. Anyways when I got the gun the bolt handle was definitely darker than the rest of the bolt. Also, there are a couple small rust spots on a few parts of the bolt. I have seen lots of Mosins with shiny bolts and would mine to be like that too. I am looking for relatively low cost solutions to shine the old bolt up. It functions flawlessly and I always clean the corrosive salts after firing the surplus ammo. Thanks in advance.