The Russian Mosin Nagant Forum

I posted on here a few weeks ago regarding my first 91/30 purchase. I got great responses. Thank you, this board is great.

However, I haven’t cleaned it yet. I have probably watched every video I can find online or YouTube about cleaning. Lol. Hot water, mineral spirits, etc. The barrel / receiver is the problem in almost all the videos. Cleaning one end in a bucket or container at a time. So I had two ideas that stemmed from a couple videos.

1. A window box / flower pot. It’s long, not too wide, and not too deep. I found a 36” long one for $10. I think the receiver / barrel will fit into this and be able to soak.

2. I could get some cheap pieces of 1x6 lumber and build a similar box and seal the cracks to hold water or mineral spirits. It would be whatever length I needed and probably around $25 to quickly build.

If I can clean the grease out when I’m through, I could probably have future use for it to clean the barrel of my black powder rifles when I’m done shooting those.

Then I got thinking what if I put a drain valve on the end of the container so I could drain out the funky water /solvent into a bucket and replace with new water / solvent. The thing is, I don’t have any idea how to do this, and also keep it cost effective. This is the purpose of my post, any ideas? Does this sound like a good idea? What is the receiver and barrel length? My rifle is packed away at the moment.

Am I over thinking cleaning this rifle. Probably. I’m in NY and it’s still cold, so I wanted to wait for a hot day to put the stock outside, or in a trash bag, or in the hot car, etc. I want to stay away from heat guns and the oven.

Thanks. I hope everyone is safe and doing well.

Read read read! There is a lot of great info about cleaning on this site. This is a preservation site. There are also great stories about how to do it wrong.
Once you disassemble the rifle (or pistol) you can find containers that fit the various parts so you don't need 5 gallons of solvent. Take pictures as you disassemble.
for the bore I started with boiling hot water, dry it, then put the front end in a small (8 or so oz) container of solvent and brush from the receiver. Invest in a good coated cleaning rod, like a Dewey. A lot of crud will come out. I found a nice solvent mix on an old Makarov site. 40% kerosene, 40% mineral spirits, 15% Marvel Mystery oil and 5% Rislone.
https://www.makarov.com/tech.html
It is great for soaking any metal parts. Add a good brush and you can clean almost any metal part. Don't use this mix on wood or plastic or rubber.
For wood do some more reading. I just clean it best I can with mineral spirits, some people like lemon oil. The hard and fast rule is do not do anything that you can't undo. The word sandpaper should be eliminated from your vocabulary.
I have a Chinese SKS that cleaned up well using this method. It had literally been dipped in grease..
One last thought: I like SKS's and Mosin's. I have bought about a dozen in the last 10 years. Guess which one is worth the most. The Albanian SKS I bought for $275 with the beat to hell stock.

For barrels I use a length of 4" diameter pvc pipe with one end capped off. I secure the pipe upright to a shelving unit in my garage to keep it from getting knocked over. For the cleaning solution I use Zep heavy duty citrus degreaser concentrate. A pint of concentrate into the pipe along with enough near-boiling water from a tea kettle, I lower the barrel chamber end down with some electrical wire looped behind the front sight and add enough water to fully submerge the barrel. Got an inexpensive air pump for a fish aquarium, tied a loop in one end of the hose and weighted it with heavy fishing sinkers to get the end to stay submerged at the bottom of the pipe. Let this agitate the solution until the water had cooled enough to not burn me and then shut off the pump and let it sit until the foam dissipated and the cosmolene was congealing at the top so I can skim it off with paper towel before drawing the barrel out. I have an ultra sonic cleaner that works great with the zep solution for the smaller parts, including the oil bottle and cleaning kit parts and bolt tool. Figure disposing of the Zep / water solution is a bit less environmentally unkind than dumping mineral spirits, kerosene, etc., down the sewer and it's not as nasty on my hands.

A quick note: Terence W. Lupin, in his 'The Mosin-Nagant Rifle' book, cautions that the stock bolt is not meant to be removed, and damage to the stock is possible if the bolt is removed.

Ok. Thanks very much! Looking forward to getting this cleaned up.

I tried the 4" PVC pipe method in the past. I guess it works ok. But, even with this method, you use a lot of mineral spirits and it evaporates rather quickly. Really, I have found that removing excess grease with an old rag and then using the hot water/grease cutter method in my set tub followed up with one last wipe down and then a coating of CLP worked the best. After initially using a rag to get the heavy stuff off, using mineral spirits in a rag to remove the grease works ok too. That's been my experience after almost 400 rifles.

goda 61 wrote: ↑Tue Apr 28, 2020 11:18 pm A quick note: Terence W. Lupin, in his 'The Mosin-Nagant Rifle' book, cautions that the stock bolt is not meant to be removed, and damage to the stock is possible if the bolt is removed.

Best practice is to leave them assembled as much as possible. This opinion is based on advice from old timers not take anything apart that does not need to be taken apart, along with personal experience. I'm better at this than I was 20 years ago still this advice has been skipped by myself a few times and I have learned from a few mistakes.

I fired tens of thousands of rounds from many different weapons here in NY , all seasons. These refurb rifles, and even the issued ones, they do not use cosmoline. Cosmoline is a wax like substance that is applied hot, and penetrates to every tiny crevice. Getting it off is the work of hours with rags and solvents, but it is also the best preservative there is. Cosmoline is our stuff, product of a first world economy, the commies used grease, cheap grease, much easier to remove. Spray oil like PB blaster and a pile of rags will do it, swab out the chamber and bore same as you would during routine cleaning after shooting. I was buying refurb and issued 91/30's five at a time at one point, carbines also, and M91's plus the entire spectrum of Finn Mosin. I had this own to a science and it rarely required more than half an hour to have the rifle ready for a range test. I would only shoot ten rounds and then disassemble the rifle for stock cleaning, or oil removal. I would wrap the stock tightly with newspaper and string, place it in a black plastic trash bag that was then placed on the dash of my truck in the sun for a day or so. Some of the issued ones leeched so much oil that it took several cycles of paper to get it done as much as possible. The metal was easy, spray, wipe, swab, boiling water down the pipe, swab some more, clean the chamber with a 20 gauge shotgun bore brush that I kept chucked in a drill. The brush was wrapped in 0000 size steel wool, and coated with JB bore paste. The chambers on these rifles are known for having iron hard layers of old lacquer transferred from the cheap steel case ammo the commies used. That crap heats up and turns to glue holding in the fired round until you want a hammer to open the bolt. I always found it was easier to treat sticky bolt before it happened than deal with it later. Winter didn't change the routine, just wear gloves, coat, and hat, and it's been in the 40's and 50's with a sometime 60's during the day of late, not that bad.

Be careful of the cheap plastic planters, some of them do not handle solvents well, they aren't made for that. Hands on cleaning means you become familiar with every inch of that weapon. This is critical for spotting any potential problems that could become life ending. Things like cracks, missing parts, loose screws, worn parts, and check the headspace, do not ever take somebody else word that it's good. Trust but verify. Brownells has the No/Go heaspace gauge you need for this simple test, Midway also probably.

I’m going to clean it this weekend. Probably tomorrow. That’s good advice on the stock bolt, so I won’t remove it. I’ll dissemble everything else, soak the metal, clean, dry, and oil. The stock I’m going to wipe down with rags, then mineral spirits, then clean rags. I’ll probably assemble it back and leave the stock outside on a hot summer day after I take it to the range. Thanks for the advice.

Another option for a cleaning/bluing tank is to go to the local hardware store and buy a length of metal gutter and end caps. There are various methods of attaching the end caps and sealing them watertight. If you’re collecting milsurp rifles, it’s a reasonable investment to make.

In case anyone cares, lol... the 36” flower box was too short. I spent all last night taking it apart and manually wiping the grease off each part, so I could clean today. The stock wasn’t too bad, I wiped it down and then tried Murphy’s oil soap on a damp cloth with warm water. That seemed to do it. I cleaned all the parts today, I just used hot water and dish detergent. I had three shoebox sized containers, soak, wash, rinse. The soak container got nasty because of that stupid silver powder container. That was full of grease. I just put the receiver in a five gallon bucket with hot water and dish soap and ran a brush through it over and over. After it looked good I used Hoppes copper bore cleaner then rem oil. It’s a shiny bore with deep rifling.
Here’s the kicker, even though I figured the wood was clean, and the rags weren’t getting anything else off, I wrapped it in a towel and put it on my dashboard all day. It’s about 75 and sunny in NY. I went to put it back together and there was so much yellow staining in the towel!! That step was really needed! So I wrapped back up and I’ll put it back out tomorrow just for the heck of it. Anticipation of cleaning this was MUCH worse than actually doing it. Thanks for all the input.

Vaseline and graphite powder mix seems to be what they used. Edison came up with it for lubricating the motors in his phonographs, and it caught on. Messy to clean up, I know, I service antique phonographs and scrubbing the motors can be very messy. Newspaper will suck more grease and oil out with less mess. Trick is to tightly wrap it around the stock and tie it in place with string. It's getting harder to find newspaper just sitting around. Last time I had to go buy five papers at the deli, and wrap them around the stock. Good use for them as the content is mostly crap these days. Clean out the insides on vintage engine and even the most greasy firearm will not impress you. Crack open a 1950's oil pan and you can scoop out the sludge like the worlds most disgusting pudding, and that smell....

All finished. She’s a 1934 hex with all stamped matching parts. Low serial too, 122. Thanks for the help and advice. This was my first, and I can see it being addicting. Thanks again.

I just disassemble everything. Metal parts get sprayed with automotive brake cleaner, lightly scrubbed with a soft nylon brush, dried, and oiled. It takes any grease, cosmoline, or preservative right off, and it does not harm bluing. Just do not get it on paint, varnish, or wood.

For the stock, I just wipe it down with a mild furniture polish and wax. Old English lemon oil or Howard Feed-n-Wax. They cleans, seals, and preserves what is there without altering it.

I know I'm late to the string here but I disassemble the barrel, trigger assembly and butt plate from the stock. then I spray metal parts with WD40 and wipe down with rags and (Q-tips in the picky areas)_. I clean the wood with Murphy's Oil Soap (- a lemon furniture cleaner). (I was showing my daughter my latest toy one day and she said "I just love how these old guns smell, the new one's are just not the same). For long term storage I regrease the metal with a very light coat of generic petroleum jelly (vaseline) - it seems to last at least a couple years before needing to be reapplied.

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Under cleaning. No need for a "tank" or anything like that. I disassemble it and take JUST THE BARREL and put it in the sink in the garage and run very hot water through it. It will remove any of the "grease" that is caked on it. Cleans it right off. After that, pick your favorite gun cleaner (I use Hoppes, but most of them work well.) Clean the boar, and use plenty of oil on it. There is a thousand way to clean a barrel that work fine. They even have electronic barrel cleaners that work well. I have a webpage how to make one if your are interested. They are very simple things.

Take it slow. Don't put anything on the stock, or you could ruin it. Also, keep your Ammonia in the other room. That stuff can strip the bluing off of metal.

If you have questions, ask them here before you try them.

Darryl

I just always troweled off the thick stuff an then wiped it down with mineral spirits and a lot of paper towels. I never used more than probably a pint of the stuff on one gun, and I have cleaned them that were totally covered inside and out.