Ok, basic clean-up for the whole thing, front to back.
Get some 0000 steel wool, pure gum turpentine, and boiled linseed oil.
Strip the rifle down to getting the action out of the stock. You shouldn't need to remove the smaller metal parts. DO THIS CAREFULLY to avoid popping out chunks of wood around closely fitted areas.
Put down some newspaper to catch drips, and a piece of wood to set the parts on to avoid scratches or holing the newspaper.
Mix aproximately 1 part turpentine to 3 parts BLO to make about 3-4 ounces. Heat this mixture up until it just starts to bubble. (You should do this outside, or in the garage or something, as this is going to make a powerful, pungent, although not-unpleasant Pine-Sol-ish smell.) I usually do this in a clean tin can held with a pair of pliers, and use a candle for a heat source.
Start with the wood parts. Let the stuff cool to touchable but still warm, dip about a half-pad of steel wool in and pinch out the excess, and start scrubbing. Use moderate pressure, and a lot of repetitive strokes rather than bearing down on it. Scrub along the length, with the grain, mostly, and don't worry too much about stubborn spots. The warm oil and solvent properties of the turpentine should make short work of any old gunk and dirt, and will give the original old finish a polish and fill any scratches. Keep a goodly layer of liquid coating the surface, and dip your pad again as neccessary to maintain it. Go ahead and wipe down into the inletting, and everywhere, as this stuff is only good for the wood and the finish. (The wood parts were originally boiled in linseed oil when the rifle was built. You're just refreshing that.)
When you're done scrubbing, (Shouldn't take to long. Berthiers have a two-part stock, right?) wipe off the excess oil with paper towels or a rag, but leave thin coat or sheen of clean oil on the surface. Set the stock aside somewhere away from dust for a few hours.
For the action, the procedure's pretty much the same. Start with a fresh piece of steel wool, and be prepared to replace it as needed as it breaks down and looses it's "teeth". If your oil mix has cooled, don't worry about re-heating it. Scrubbing the rust off is going to involve some elbow grease, but once again, you don't want to press TOO hard as you could scrub away some of the original bluing. The rust is going to to be TOUGH, and if you have some serious scaling, the steel wool will not remove it. Refresh the oil in the pad often, and keep a good coat of liquid on the surface to help penetrate the scale and float off the crud. This going to be messy, dirty and drip a lot, so make sure you put a GOOD layer of newspaper down.
Getting into tight corners can be accomplished with the steel wool wrapped around a small piece of stiff wood like a popsicle stick, a tongue depresser, or what-have-you, just don't use anything metallic or you could scratch things up. You can experiment with how hard you can scrub at the surface or methods of removing scaling on the underside of the barrel where it's covered by the fore-end in order to find out what you can get away with.
How clean you get the metal parts is up to how hard you want to work at it, up to the point where the steel wool just won't touch the scale anymore. Pay particular attention to the line where the edge of the fore-end meets the barrel. The last things to do are to wipe the whole thing down with a clean rag or paper towel dipped in clean oil to sort of rinse the muddy stuff off, and then wipe it off thoroughly with a fresh rag or towel. This should leave the metal parts nice and clean, with any remaining scale darkened instead of rusty red.
Depending on how gunged-up it is, you may want to detail-strip the bolt and give it a more thorough going-over. I don't know how easy this is or isn't with a Berthier bolt as I've never done it. Instructions ought to be available at any number of Milsurp sites with a little digging.
Going back to the stock, it should be dry to the touch. If it's still sticky, leave it sit overnight. If after that it's still tacky, (Or even if it's not. Multiple oil-it/polish-it coats can only benefit the finish.) take a clean piece of steel wool, re-warm the oil mix a bit, and give the stock a once-over light scrubbing, followed by a thorough wipe-off with a clean rag. THEN rub it everywhere with your bare hands until it's no longer oily. Follow this up with a coat of paste wax applied as per instructions on the can. (Usually that's apply a thin coat, let it dry to a haze, and buff it with a clean rag until it shines.) At this point, the wood should look better than it ever has, and have some genuine sheen, depth, and beauty to the woodgrain and finish.
At this point you're ready to re-assemble the rile, unless you're going to clean the bore out also. Cleaning the bore as a seperate step is good to do with the gun apart, as it keeps the gunge from the barrel away from the clean stock, but it's not strictly neccessary.
That should do it. You're rifle ought to be as clean as it's going to get without a major restoration effort. The linseed/turpentine mix + fine steel wool is a completely safe and appropriate method for cleaning an antique of any sort, and is about the best choice to use on an old rifle you want to preserve the character of, and it's not-at-all hard on your hands and skin, so you won't need gloves.
Couple of points:
- DO NOT SKIP the turpentine. Otherwise the BLO will NEVER dry completely. The turpentine assists the mix to penetrate, and evaporates to leave behind a tough resin of it's own, which helps to bind up the linseed oil.
- DO NOT SUBSTITUTE something like paint thinner or mineral spirits for the turpentine, as these lack the drying/resin component properties as detailed above. Straight BLO is better than mixing it with the wrong stuff.
Lastly, and perhaps Most Important:
BE CAREFUL TO CLEAN UP THE OILY RAGS AND PAPER! THESE NEED TO BE SOAKED IN WATER BEFORE DISPOSAL!
As linseed oil dries, it heats up. Piled-up oily rags/papers can get hot enough to SPONTANEOUSLY COMBUST hours after you're done. A garbage can full of oily rags in the garage can CATCH FIRE in the middle of the night and burn down your house! Not fun! Be thorough about keeping track of the oil-soaked combustables, and dunking 'em in a bucket of water before you trash 'em. Setting your house on fire does terrible things to fine guns. (And to the rest of your life!
) DON"T LET IT HAPPEN TO YOU!
