New forum member...Mosin Nagant

[ASUdevil22]

As a new member to the forum I just wanted to say hi...and to share that I just got a Mosin Nagant w/a hex receiver c.1926. Great condition...great price and looking forward to firing off the 7.62x54R for the first time.

[mesabi]

Welcome. You should like your Mosin. Great rifle. Don't let anyone say you can't hit anything with it. The White Death would roll over in his grave if he heard that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_H%C3%A4yh%C3%A4

[stubbicatt]

Fun rifles.

There are a buzzilion threads on how to clean these things to assure that the cosmoline is gone before attempting to shoot them.

[RT]

Tell us how your shoulder feels ;)

[sonick808]

woohoo! Another Phoenician :) Well, I guess I'm not technically, but, in the valley anyway ;)

I am a mosin-nagant owner also. I LOVE it. I have a '45 izzy M44. 7.62x54R is a FUN cartridge. If you get a chance, grab a size small limbsaver from walmart or a gun shop. Limbsavers make shooting the mosin a lot more fun, and last a lot longer before you quit due to bruising :cool:

Congrats on the rifle, it's fun to just hold and look at isn't it :D

Edit: J&G sales in prescott has awesome prices on 440-round cans of surplus bulgarian light ball ammo in 7.62x54R. a nice scenic drive to prescott and the truly awesome J&G sales is always a good day to spend a vacation day or weekend. come home with 440 rounds for your mosin. hell yeah.

http://www.jgsales.com/product_info.php/ammo-for-rifles/7-62x54r/p/7-62x54r-bulgarian-light-ball-fmj-ammo%2C-steel-case%2C-440-rd-tins-/cPath/12_42/products_id/1789

[benroe]

I am also a mosin owner, and I love the gun. It is a real kicker, so either clothe up or buy a recoil pad!! I have found mine to be fairly accurate when shooting from the prone position.

[Peptobismol9]

Its not that bad a recoil. Or to tell you the truth I dont mind recoil one bit. But What I did Was stole some of my moms hairdryers ( hehe) and Ran A bath Of Hot HOT HOT!! water and Took all the metal parts and threw them in the scalding water. After the water cooled to flesh-freindly temperatures, but was still fairly hot, I ran some patches through it, and I scrubbed the bore with a sponge and some paper towels and ect. Then I let It sit more And repeated. I had made Russian Cosmoliner soup. My mom Was so confused. Lol. Then I Took all the parts out. And I cant stress this part to you enough. DRY IT! let blowdryers just do their thing, and Get all the water out of every crack and crevice, and everything. NO WATER! Then let it cool. Those blow dryers get that metal really hot. I returned my moms hairdryers, and she was still like "***?!?!" And I reassembled the rifle. At that point I Gave it a good coat of REM OIL. (Precious REM OIL!! MUST HAVE!!!) And Called it a night. My bolt is smooth(ish) and NO sticky Cartridges! Try 7.62x54r.net/ It is probally the best place to start. And for gods sake. Check Your headspacing, And dont Baby or Bubba her. ( I feel like an overprotective father as his daughter steps out the door on a date. eh.) But anyways. Have fun, cause once you smell that cosmoliner your in for life.

[ASUdevil22]

I am definitely looking forward to getting my 91/30 out to the range. Only bad thing is that I haven't had a chance to get it cleaned up yet. I've been reading up on the different methods of removing cosmoline and I think i am leaning towards the mineral spirits and maybe some heat for the stock.

As sonick808 knows, the AZ sun should be perfect for the blackbag/kitty litter technique for the stock...but it figures that right about now we are dealing with cloudy skies! lol

Thanks all for the tips...I'll check out the limbsaver when i get a chance...and I am definitely gonna take a drive out to Prescott and pay JGSales a quick visit to pick up that surplus corrosive ammo! I checked your link....great price! It looks like a pain in the a$$ to open the spam can, but hey, it'll be worth it i am sure.

[ASUdevil22]

Hey Pepto...thanks for the tips...I followed your advice and looked up the 7.62x54r.net website...great info!

So quick question for all...in your experience, have you found that the headspacing requires re-adjustment often?

And...is there an easy way to measure the headspacing without a field gauge?

Just curious...more than likely i'll just go buy one. But I am interested in knowing how you guys all do it.

[olyinaz]

Mineral spirits will work just fine but there are lots of options, to include more bio friendly (as in your bio, but the Earth is always cool to look out for also) choices. I bought a plastic tub at Ace Hardware that is big enough and I've been using it to clean my milsurps in. It's nice because if I want to let something soak and not get gagged by fumes I can pop the lid on and just leave it for a spell.

Here's the key however: Don't make it into rocket science. After you've taken it apart you can do most of the cleaning by simply rubbing/wiping the parts down with a pile of cheap shop rags from Wally World and getting into nooks with Q-tips. Dispose of the rags carefully - they're a fire hazard.

What always bogs me down is if there is some sort of dried yak fat on the wood that needs stripping. I hate stripping! Sometimes it just needs to be done however because what's there is so cheesy I just can't stand it. Beware strippers (not the kind that take your dollar bills) - the fumes are freakin' deadly and many of them will give you chemical burns right quick. Use rubber gloves.

If you use some sort of water based cleaning method the other option to the hair dryer is a water displacer like Gunscrubber or the Winchester brand gun blaster sold at Wally for four bucks a can. Just hose the parts down with this stuff and it displaces water/leaves parts crackling dry and stripped of oils when it dries in about a minute. Then oil up for protection.

And skip the Rem Oil fer Pete's sake! I doubt it's any better than plain mineral oil and there are ten thousand better products out there than that old junk.

Cheers,
Sun Devil Oly down in Tucson

[pelaeon]

What do you guys recommend for cleaning the stock? I doubt dipping that 70 year old wood into near-boiling hot bath water is a good idea...

[SigP6Carry]

I just wiped my stock down. A lot. Over time. With paper towels with soap, windex and water. And after a couple of months of wiping the stock down at least once a day: it's still not perfect, but it's tolerable.

[ksstargazer]

I clean my mosin stocks with TSP and hot water. It really gets the cosmoline out. I will follow with a coat of BLO mixed with a little TruOil. It gives it a non shiny, rich finish.
As far as recoil is concerned, most people who complain about the mosin recoil are shooting off a bench. I have noticed that people who shoot off a bench tend to have the butt plate high and loose on their shoulder. After about 5 rounds, they are done. If you stood up and correctly positioned the butt on your shoulder, I bet the recoil would be neglible. If you are going to shoot off the bench, get a handle on positioning the rifle correctly.
Out of my 30 mosins, none have ever had a headspacing problem.
Oh, and to keep that mosin in great shape, always clean the bore with water followed by normal cleanup after every range session when using corrosive ammo.

[olyinaz]

Mineral spirits or turpentine are good solvents for cleaning the cosmoline from a stock but again, just simply using rags to wipe most of it off first gets most of the job done. The most mild oil you can use on it is pure flax seed oil (same thing as linseed oil but not "boiled" so it doesn't dry quickly) and if you rub some on liberally, carefully use a tooth brush on stubborn spots or nooks/crannies, and then wipe the stock back down you'll find that 99% of the gunk has come off and your stock looks great. The flaxseed oil is a natural wood finish and over time it'll dry nice and soft looking, not shiny or looking like a varnish as some finishes will.

What's harder to deal with is if you find a nasty looking varnish or shellac under the cosmoline once you get it off. In that case you'll have to get busy with strippers if you want that stuff gone and that's a new kettle of fish.

Some folks swear by the water based cleaning method (with Easy Off oven cleaner often mentioned as the best solvent/grease cutter) and while I think it has its place I worry about it damaging wood fibers near the surface of the stock. Still, I had a non-collectible M1 carbine stock that I did this way because it was so horrendously dirty and blackened that I was desperate. It did work well and got a lot of the darkness out of the wood so that it looked like wood again once some linseed oil was applied. I think it would be a travesty, however, to use this process on a piece with collectible value because when I was done the stock looked completely different and I'm not sure it every looked this way (!) despite looking rather nice.

Go easy! You can always take it off and try something more aggressive later.

Cheers,
Oly

[pelaeon]

ksstargazer

I had the same issue the first time i shot my mosin. I was on a bench and had a hellacious bruise on my shoulder bone from shooting 20 rounds through it. Since i still don't have a proper bench rest setup, i just shoot sitting offhand and it's quite comfortable. I have not had any bruising since. It's all in the positioning.

[Jack O'Conner]

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c146/rushmoreman/Mosin1.jpg

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c146/rushmoreman/Mosin2.jpg

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c146/rushmoreman/Mosinbottom1.jpg

I had a great time customizing this former Soviet rifle. It took 3.5 years for the walnut to cure properly. But I sold it last Spring to pay toward my daughters wedding. So it goes.

Next one will have a shorter barrel, angled bolt handle, and custom safety. I might have it reamed to a wildcat 8mm to replicate 338 Federal ballistics.

Jack

[mesabi]

That looks like a whole different rifle jack. That $80 dollar rifle turned into hundreds of dollars. I'd like one if it had the angled bolt.

[ASUdevil22]

That's a great looking stock!

[James R. Burke]

I am not familar with the rifle, but would like to say "Welcome" to the forum. You will really like it. There are no doubt some pro's on here that are always willing to help out. Have fun, and be safe!

[ASUdevil22]

Thanks! This has proven to be a great forum so far!