This one needed cleaned up BAD (an orphan rescue..)
Just read zeebills' post on another thread. To quote in part: >>Mineral spirits is a lot easier on the finish of a stock. Good Luck cleaning and don't judge the inner parts of the Mosin by their looks as I have a bunch of them that look horrid but work just fine. Remember the axiom of if it ain't broke don't fix it and you will save bundles of time and effort and at the same time keep the integrity of the original Finnish Mosin intact and thus the value too. I and lots of collectors value that quite a bit! Congrats on the find! Bill
<< Well said zeebill!!
Local gunshow and a fellow boards memeber whom has a table turns me onto a walkin. (This is AmmoSgt form Gunboards. She's great!) Chase this dude down and what was thought was an M1891 turns out to be a "Finned" Dragoon dated 1898. An antique! Turns out the guy is a car salesman and got the rifle in as part of the down payment!
It's an obvious Finn rework. Three piece stock, finger jointed forestock with a a butt splice. With what appears to be copper ends on the handguard, solid bands and it's pretty much unmolested.
The "unmolested" was the bad part. Obviously shot over here in the states and not cleaned properly (bore looks trashed) though the "car salesman" says "it has a nice bore, shiney with no pitting." OooKay....No doubt that was before he shot corrosive ammo through it and didn't clean it properly. It gets waay worse....
Tore it down. Huge active rust patches on the barrel. There is MOLD growing in the stock!! Dried dirt and grease everywhere! DANG!! The tube starts out with the red rust rivers flushing out of it.
This is the first rifle I have shot to clean out the tube. Once I figured a bullet could go down the tube out went six 70's dated LB Romo's. (Things started to look up a little after that!!) The real bummer was bad active rust pits under the wood. When I lifted the action out of the stock in the area of the rear sight a pile of reddish rust remained in the barrel channel of the stock.
The good news after arresting the rust she cleaned up using zeebills minimalist approach...Some bleach was applied to kill the mold and the stock was finished off with some light cleaning and raw Linseed oil was applied (after some judicious application of Super Glue on obvious cracks in the inletting).
She should shoot! The barrel cleaned up better than anticipated. It really is a nice looking "warhorse" of a rifle. It has a "been there, done that" sort of look. Nice to have brought one back from the brink! Been awhile....Nice to be back in the MN fold.
Draybo : )
Just read zeebills' post on another thread. To quote in part: >>Mineral spirits is a lot easier on the finish of a stock. Good Luck cleaning and don't judge the inner parts of the Mosin by their looks as I have a bunch of them that look horrid but work just fine. Remember the axiom of if it ain't broke don't fix it and you will save bundles of time and effort and at the same time keep the integrity of the original Finnish Mosin intact and thus the value too. I and lots of collectors value that quite a bit! Congrats on the find! Bill
<< Well said zeebill!!
Local gunshow and a fellow boards memeber whom has a table turns me onto a walkin. (This is AmmoSgt form Gunboards. She's great!) Chase this dude down and what was thought was an M1891 turns out to be a "Finned" Dragoon dated 1898. An antique! Turns out the guy is a car salesman and got the rifle in as part of the down payment!
It's an obvious Finn rework. Three piece stock, finger jointed forestock with a a butt splice. With what appears to be copper ends on the handguard, solid bands and it's pretty much unmolested.
The "unmolested" was the bad part. Obviously shot over here in the states and not cleaned properly (bore looks trashed) though the "car salesman" says "it has a nice bore, shiney with no pitting." OooKay....No doubt that was before he shot corrosive ammo through it and didn't clean it properly. It gets waay worse....
Tore it down. Huge active rust patches on the barrel. There is MOLD growing in the stock!! Dried dirt and grease everywhere! DANG!! The tube starts out with the red rust rivers flushing out of it.
This is the first rifle I have shot to clean out the tube. Once I figured a bullet could go down the tube out went six 70's dated LB Romo's. (Things started to look up a little after that!!) The real bummer was bad active rust pits under the wood. When I lifted the action out of the stock in the area of the rear sight a pile of reddish rust remained in the barrel channel of the stock.
The good news after arresting the rust she cleaned up using zeebills minimalist approach...Some bleach was applied to kill the mold and the stock was finished off with some light cleaning and raw Linseed oil was applied (after some judicious application of Super Glue on obvious cracks in the inletting).
She should shoot! The barrel cleaned up better than anticipated. It really is a nice looking "warhorse" of a rifle. It has a "been there, done that" sort of look. Nice to have brought one back from the brink! Been awhile....Nice to be back in the MN fold.
Draybo : )
Hopefully some pictures will appear. The group size with the
Albanian was about 1-1/2" at 50 yds. happy camper! The rifle was in pretty dire straits upon receiving it. Glad she cleaned up and is a
"shooter" to boot!
still ELT!
