1938 mosin

I picked up the rusty old mosin with the force matched bolt today. The junk dealer held out on his price of 75 bucks, but I traded him two ak bayonets that were missing frogs, and he threw in a box of ruskie bullets for it. Cost me 55 buck out the door. I had fun trying to get a bore brush down the barrel. I thought it may have been a surplus rifle, or maybe a bringback, but under the rust was the cai import stamp. This was obviously shot and never cleaned. I mean the bore looked like a sewer pipe, and I found propellent in the action meaning that he lost the bullet on extraction probably to a dirty chamber. Not caring about the bore so much, I took aggressive actions with a power drill, bore cleaner, steel wool, and scotchbrite. I got most of the rust out of it, and knocked off the concretions inside, and can now get the jag through. Actually, it started to look almost ok. Passed the bullet test, and I will shoot the rest of the crud out.
I might use as my truck gun, can't hurt it by banging it around.

Peektures?

I'm with ya Festus.shoot the rest of the crud out. :tongue_sm .I'm waitin for my oversize 6 banger lee mold to get here next month,so I can see how well my Enfields and Mosins will do.

Peektures?
I don't have a camera, but believe me that most any sane person would have passed it up. The three hours I spent trying to
clean the bore were priceless. Something about redemption and all that philosophical stuff comes to mind.

LOL I aquired a rusted shut .22 revolver when I was 12 and got it freed up took longer than 3 hours though

Reminds me of the M-44 Tula my step brother had me work on. After seeing the 2 I had refinished he wanted me to work on his. When he dug it out of his truck I couldn't believe he had neglected it so. The rifle had rust all over it along with some white paint splaters. The action was all but froze shut and the bore was so full of rust and crap that you couldn't see light through it. I had to laugh and told him I would refinish it if I could get the bore clean.:laugh_sma I did the drill and brush trick for a couple of hours and I'll be damned if it didn't come clean, actually looked good! Re-blue and re-finish, The look on his face when I gave it back to him was well worth all the elbow grease!:sidegrin_

The year on receiver is 1939. The gun is marked Tula, and the interesting thing is that it wasn't reworked by the Soviets, but was captured by the Finns, and reissued to their army in WW2. It has the box stamp with SA inside indicating Finnish capture. Think I'll leave it as is.

The year on receiver is 1939. The gun is marked Tula, and the interesting thing is that it wasn't reworked by the Soviets, but was captured by the Finns, and reissued to their army in WW2. It has the box stamp with SA inside indicating Finnish capture. Think I'll leave it as is.


The Finnish capture rifles have that BTDT (been there done that) look. Far from pristine and well handled.