Rust on my Mosin barrel (the outside O.o)

[ThePenguinKnight]

Got my Mosin yesterday, and while cleaning up a bunch of the cosmoline I found a significant patch of rust on the righthand side of the barrel, just below the rear sight. The little bit that was sticking above the stock looked like caked on cosmoline, and for the price I got this rifle I'm not going to complain anyhow .

It is nicely pitted at this spot. Actually, there is a patch of black paint on this side of the rifle, so it looks like someone back in the 40s-50s painted over a small rust spot and it's been slowly working its way back out (or it worked out somewhat more recently... who knows ). I cleaned up the spot with a steel wire brush and coated it with oil, so that should be the end of the rust for now.

I wanted to see if anyone thinks this will compromise the safety of shooting the rifle, but more generally I'd like to know at what point rust pitting (from the outside of the gun) becomes dangerous. I can't shoot it anyway till I get the bolt in the mail (no bolt = why I got it so cheap), and the rifle is going to a gunsmith to check it out regardless, but I like asking my friends on the interweb

Thanks all.









On the plus side, the rifling in this Mosin appears bright and strong

 

[adelbridge]

that rust spot wont compromise barrel integrity.

 

[BCRider]

I would not be that worried about it failing at that point. But it's removed enough metal that it's likely that the barrel will flex differently than it would have otherwise and slightly affect the POI of the shots.

 

[fishshocker]

It will still shoot fine and can still be used as a club, shovel, can opener, pry bar, tent pole, hammer............ gotta love the mosin's.

 

[jdownj]

I firmly believe that it's almost impossible to kill these things...

 

[meanmrmustard]

Take the steel down to bare and niter blue. Other than that, shoot it like nuts.

 

[kingcheese]

Well with barrel pressure being at 40-50k oak, it would be stupid to risk it, gunsmith to check that and headspace is a good idea

 

[hang fire]

My opinions posted here are just the way I would do and in no way recomend any procedures for others to perform.



Just consider how deep rear sight dovetails are on some rifles, "me", I would not worry about safety issue.

"Me", I would thoroughly clean the area and entire barrel, fill corrosion spot with black colored epoxy, sand smooth to barrel profile, paint entire barrel with a good quality black paint. Black paint was a often used on MN rifles by Russian armory's during refurbes, as some rifles have soft soldered rear sight bases which could not withstand the hot bluing process..