Maintaining "Minute of Nazi"

[Shrinkmd]

I'm curious to hear people's experiences using fancier, more aggressive bore solvents and copper cleaners in milsurp .30 cals like Mosins, Mausers, etc. Especially ones with bores which seem dark, shows some pitting/frosting already, but still seem to have decent rifling left.

Have people had any luck with JB Bore compound or Barnes CR-10 in trying to strip away the years of neglect, rust, cosmoline, etc? I don't want to overclean, but since I'm putting 100 or so rounds down at a time, I figure that doing a decent job with the bore will hopefully keep it shooting well.

I know that the milsurps are probably different in their needs, as well as maximum benefit, from being super clean. After all, you're not worrying about going from sub-MOA to 1.5" groups, since your rifle doesn't do that anyway. I am looking from the prospective of really shooting it for fun and learning how to handle a real rifle (I love my 10/22 but the Mosin seems to inspire me more), iron sights, some offhand and practicing different positions, 100 - 150 rounds per session at the range.

I guess I'm looking for a benchrest inspired approach to taking care of an old, imperfect .30 bore, without overdoing it, causing needless damage in search of accuracy which the rest of the rifle just can't produce, even with the elusive "perfect" bore.

Needless to say, I have my JB Bore, Mpro 7, Hoppe's #9, Butch's Bore Shine, and Barnes CR-10 bottles all staring at me on the shelf. egging me on to do better.

 

[Ad Astra]

MoN?

I used to be lazy about cleaning, but shooting corrosive ammo has changed that. I bring one of those Russian 2-spout metal (Mosin Nagant-issue) bottles to the range- the "W" half has windex (with extra ammonia for copper removal) the other half, Ballistol.

Got the rifle-holding rack and carbon-fiber cleaning rod; chore's a little more fun. The Hoppe's copper-solvent stuff's working for me. Saw the bore paste, but just shooting old M-N's seems to help clear out rifiling crud. I have put a cleaning rod in a drill chuck to get out any chamber-laquer junk, but I felt bad. Still, no brass brush is going to erode steel... I think.

 

[George S.]

When I got my 1931 Izhevzsk 91/30, the bore looked pretty black and pock-marked. I ran a bronze brush down the bore a dozen times with liberal amounts of Hoppe's #9 and many patches. A lot of these patches came out pure green but the bore never really got shiny.

But after a hundred or so rounds, the bore looks shiny and bright! Still get a lot of green on the patches, but that is to be expected I think.

As far as "Minute-of-Nazi" accuracy, the 91/30 was actually designed to shoot a 6" group at 200 meters. This rifle was put into the hands of Russian peasants who had probably never seen or held a rifle and in a lot of cases could not even read or write.

Marksmanship training in the Russian Army at the start of the Great Patriotic War was limited to a degree as the idea was to get the soldiers familiar with the rifle and send them into battle to save the Motherland from the facist Nazi hordes.

My 91/30 still shoots that same grouping and has not been counter-bored! Not too bad for an $80 rifle!!

BTW, shooting 100-150 rounds at a single range session from a 91/30 can very well likely result in an inability to lift a glass of beer once you get home! The 91/30 has a stout kick to it so make sure you have a slip-on recoil pad or a a padded shooting jacket or vest. If you get an M38 or M44, expect even more recoil and a fantastic muzzle flash!!

 

[Shrinkmd]

Rust?



I was looking down the bore a little more carefully today, and I think I see a rough patch a couple inches in from the muzzle. I don't think it is "new" since my last cleaning/inspection...ah, I'm not sure. If you haven't been cleaning correctly after corrosive ammo (and I dumped plenty o' Windex and water down the bore afterwards, followed by Mpro7, which also supposedly neutralizes corrosive), where do you see rust? A fine coating everywhere? More near the throat, or muzzle? My bolt looks fine.

Maybe I will just try the JB and see what happens. It's weird, if I look from the breech into the light, it seems pretty shiny, but if I look into the muzzle close up I can see that the grooves are not so smooth, and it is dark colored.

Ah, love milsurp!

 

[Cosmoline]

Here's my approach:

--Take the rifle apart
--Soak the bore in bore gel or similar deep cleaner
--Clean, soak, clean, soak, etc. using oversized brushes to really get a deep cut into the grooves
--Shoot it a few times after the first cleaning with non-corrosive ammo.
--Repeat deep cleaning process, using concentrated steam if possible or pouring near boiling water down the bore, followed by regular cleaning.
--Reassemble, using shims if needed to float the barrel.
--Make sure receiver screws are nice and tight
--Slug bore once cleaned

 

[Lone_Gunman]

Cosmoline, what kind of container do you have that you can soak a barrel in?

 

[shermacman]

LG
I have a four foot piece of 4" PVC drain pipe for exactly this purpose. Capped at one end, drop the barrel in, drink beer, dry it in the morning!

 

[Lone_Gunman]

The solvents don't react with the PVC?

What solvent do you use? And doesn't it take a couple of gallons to fill up a 4 inch pipe that long?

 

[Niner]

As Ad Astra said

Saw the bore paste, but just shooting old M-N's seems to help clear out rifiling crud.

Some times they shoot better than the barrel looks from just looking down it with a light. Some times the ones that look pristine don't shoot that way. I find it all kind of mysterious. Other factors make a difference, ammo, trigger pull, how your eyes like the sights.... it's a combination of things. But as Ad Astra said, I find that simply shooting them helps to refine the bore of old milsurps and make them better shooters.

I never over clean any of my rifles. You could clean them all day and not get a patch that comes out as clean as it goes in. "Reasonable" cleaning is all that mine ever get, and none of them seem to be self destructing from a lot of milsurp ammo that I shoot more times than not.

 

[Cosmoline]

Cosmoline, what kind of container do you have that you can soak a barrel in?

I mean soak it inside with gel or foam, in the sense of leaving the goop in there for awhile, then clean and repeat.

 

[Shrinkmd]

After the JB Bore...

I gave it a try tonight, just one patch rolled around a jag, back and forth 10 times, chased with enough Butch's and dry patches to get them white again. Those Butch's triple twill seem worth the extra, nice and tight, seem to get more junk out.

Anyway, the bore seems a bit shinier, and I think I can more clearly see that the "fuzz" is really pitting. But I'm really sure it isn't rust. I'm sure with a bore scope it looks like the surface of the moon, but from the breech it looks great! From the muzzle you can see it isn't brand new, but I'm officially going to ignore it now, and focus on shooting and just maintaining it. If accuracy drops off or I see something looking weird and fuzzy in there someday, then I will worry.

So I popped in a 24lb brand new wolff spring, and I'm going to order that Mojo site, recoil pad. And when the weather warms up, I've got the amber shellac for a little touch up on the handguards and the scratches.

I guess if you're really going to learn the nooks and crannies of taking care of a rifle, an old Mosin is a good place to start.

 

[dfaugh]

Foaming Bore Cleaner!!!!!!

I had(have) a Mauser that had a REALLY nasty looking bore...I scrubbed and scrubbed, with all the usual cleaning methods/solvents. I got it looking OK, but still dark....

Then someone gave me partial can of Outers Foaming Bore Cleaner...I propped the gun so the muzzle was slightly down, gave it a good squirt(from the breech end)...Did this every 10 minutes for about 2 hours (until the stuff stopped coming out blue). Ran a patch through and suddenly had a NICE, bright bore. Takes no effort, and there's no risk of overcleaning! I've since cleaned up a couple other milsurps, athough none were as bad as that one.

Other observations:

Some, or even quite a bit of pitting in the bore doesn't seem to have much effect on the accuracy.

HOWEVER, the biggest problems with most milsurps I've seen, is that the muzzles are badly worn from military steel cleaning rods. The Mauser mentioned above was sporterized, so it got chopped and re-crowned, and is now pretty accurate( about 1 MOA), although we're still messing with handloads trying to make it better. If you have one with a worn muzzle/crown, and want to preserve it, you'll have to counterbore the barrel. (I'm doing this on an SMLE I'm restoring)

 

[Sam Adams]

I have to wonder if using the David Tubb's Final Finish on the barrel will help with accuracy and fouling. With a C&R, the kit is only about $23, and is just the thing for an old milsurp. No, I don't work for Midway or David Tubb.

 

[RaggedClaws]

Here's another vote for foaming bore cleaners. I use WipeOut...

http://www.eabco.com/WipeOut.htm

And it works just like the Outers version did for dfaugh. I usually only spray it down the bore once, let it sit for 10 minutes or so (or much longer if need be), run a few patches through it until they come out dry, and then do it all again. I shoot corrosive ammo all the time and this cleaning regimen has worked great so far.