BCRider
Member
Got myself a very nice '39 Tula 91/30 a couple of weeks back. But problems struck right away when I tried to use some mineral spirits (aka "low odor paint thinner" to wash away the cosmo from the stock. Some big patches of the shellac came away far too easily and I was left with either living with blotches or scuff off all the shellac..... CURSES ! ! ! !
So out with the coarse steel wool and add some lacquer thinner to the solvent and scuff down the stock...... Hmmm.... the grain isn't too bad looking for military wood. THis may not be so bad. Tinted the color a bit darker with some dark brown leather dye, let dry for a day and then laid on some polymerized tung oil.
That was about a week ago. Today I took a break from my house reno work and fiddled with the Mosin some more based on my reading from the web. First off was to use a bit of soft steel pipe strapping as a sear spring shim to reduce the pre-tension that leads to such a heavy trigger.
That left the trigger flopping around. After a bit of thinking I made up a trigger tensioning spring. The opposite of a return spring. In this case the light strength spring holds the trigger back against the sear spring and SLIGHTLY helps you pull the trigger. But it ain't much at all. It does mean that the trigger is politely back in contact with the sear spring so there's no floppy pre-travel. Trigger pull went from around 15 to 17 lbs down to around 6 to 7 with the shim and tensioning spring.
Also played with shims for the action in the stock so I was able to get it to where the forestock wood was down about a millimeter or less from the barrel. I then "corked" it with some file folder card stock. The barrel is now fully floated with only contact at the shim. I'll try it with and without to see how it works for accuracy.
Anyhow the first picture is the newly put back together '39 Tula wearing a second coat of PTO.
The tuning work went so well that I went nutz and made up a little jig for the trigger tensioning springs and just did my M44 as well as a set of shim and spring for my '43 Izhevsk.
The second picture shows the M44 action with the shim and spring in place with a closeup of the spring in the inset. Scattered around the action is some pop can shimming which punched out nicely with a three hole paper punch which makes a hole just a nice bit bigger than the bolts for the action. Also shown is the sear spring shim for the '43 and the spring made up. That soft steel strapping also has just the right size hole and squishes down into the arc like shape needed very easily. The tensioning spring slips in using pliers to hold it collapsed and the trigger hinge pin slips through the hole.
The spring is 2.5 turns of 1/32 music wire. You can get a 3 foot piece at the hobby shop for under a buck which will make loads of such things. And you don't need the jig shown in the picture. It's there if you want to make one though. It's a scrap of steel with a 5/32 hole for the shank of the drill to fit into for the coiling form. The small stop pin shown is a 1 1/4 finishing nail driven into a 1/16 hole and clipped off then filed smooth so it sticks out just a little more than 1/32. Just be sure to leave some extra length as it likes to draw the wire from both ends.
Happy Mosin Mod'ing....
So out with the coarse steel wool and add some lacquer thinner to the solvent and scuff down the stock...... Hmmm.... the grain isn't too bad looking for military wood. THis may not be so bad. Tinted the color a bit darker with some dark brown leather dye, let dry for a day and then laid on some polymerized tung oil.
That was about a week ago. Today I took a break from my house reno work and fiddled with the Mosin some more based on my reading from the web. First off was to use a bit of soft steel pipe strapping as a sear spring shim to reduce the pre-tension that leads to such a heavy trigger.
That left the trigger flopping around. After a bit of thinking I made up a trigger tensioning spring. The opposite of a return spring. In this case the light strength spring holds the trigger back against the sear spring and SLIGHTLY helps you pull the trigger. But it ain't much at all. It does mean that the trigger is politely back in contact with the sear spring so there's no floppy pre-travel. Trigger pull went from around 15 to 17 lbs down to around 6 to 7 with the shim and tensioning spring.
Also played with shims for the action in the stock so I was able to get it to where the forestock wood was down about a millimeter or less from the barrel. I then "corked" it with some file folder card stock. The barrel is now fully floated with only contact at the shim. I'll try it with and without to see how it works for accuracy.
Anyhow the first picture is the newly put back together '39 Tula wearing a second coat of PTO.
The tuning work went so well that I went nutz and made up a little jig for the trigger tensioning springs and just did my M44 as well as a set of shim and spring for my '43 Izhevsk.
The second picture shows the M44 action with the shim and spring in place with a closeup of the spring in the inset. Scattered around the action is some pop can shimming which punched out nicely with a three hole paper punch which makes a hole just a nice bit bigger than the bolts for the action. Also shown is the sear spring shim for the '43 and the spring made up. That soft steel strapping also has just the right size hole and squishes down into the arc like shape needed very easily. The tensioning spring slips in using pliers to hold it collapsed and the trigger hinge pin slips through the hole.
The spring is 2.5 turns of 1/32 music wire. You can get a 3 foot piece at the hobby shop for under a buck which will make loads of such things. And you don't need the jig shown in the picture. It's there if you want to make one though. It's a scrap of steel with a 5/32 hole for the shank of the drill to fit into for the coiling form. The small stop pin shown is a 1 1/4 finishing nail driven into a 1/16 hole and clipped off then filed smooth so it sticks out just a little more than 1/32. Just be sure to leave some extra length as it likes to draw the wire from both ends.
Happy Mosin Mod'ing....
