Wednesday, February 23, 2011

A Shiny Surprise

Remember that Mosin Nagant 91/30, the one I picked up about 2 1/2 weeks ago at the White Plains Gun Show? My only regret was that the bore seemed somewhat frosted looking. Well, I cleaned it, and cleaned it and cleaned it and there was some improvement but still what looked like frost in the barrel. Then went to the range and shot it and got some fairly decent results with it when using some heavier ammo, the light stuff was all over the place. Then I brought it home and gave it a quick field strip and clean.

Well, tonight I was watching Sons of Guns (a fairly to pretty interesting show, I have only seen 2 episodes) and I got to thinking about guns, particularly the ones in my house, and I decided to give the barrel of that 91/30 a good cleaning again. After about an hour of running wet patches (wetted with Windex, then Hoppes Copper Solvent, then regular Hoppes #9), dry patches and 2 different type of bore brushes through it, it came out all nice and shiny. Now I am not saying there isn't a bit of pitting down that long hole but if you took a look right now you would certainly think there was none of it. Maybe there isn't either, it is quite possible what I saw before was only surface rust. I can tell you this for sure, right now, it is almost as shiny as the day it was cut. The lands and grooves are well defined, certainly much better than my other 2 Nagants. I like it and I cannot wait to shoot it again! Sometimes, a bit of extra elbow grease pays off.

The thing is, although I like it a lot, I'll not be keeping it. Don't be sad, I am not. It will soon officially be given to my son as a gift. Of course, even then it will still be in the house and I'll be able to take it out to shoot it whenever I want - unless Brendan has it at a range somewhere and forgot to take me along for the fun.

All the best,
Glenn B