Need advice on cleaning Mosin-Nagant

[Guest Fastzntn]

I've got two rifles that I really enjoy shooting. One being an M1 Carbine, the other is a Mosin-Nagant. The M1 is fairly easy to clean due to using modern ammunition (Remington is my favorite), and even the surplus seems to be pretty clean.

The Mosin is another story. I'm using surplus ammunition from Poland. It's readily available, and comes sealed up in a metal container. The surplus is so cheap and readily available that I haven't been able to find any offerings from Remington, Winchester, etc. I believe Remington did make some, but due to cheaper alternatives did not sell much of it.

Even if I can find some newer commercial ammo that is cleaner, I would still like some help on cleaning this thing. Bottom line, I shot it Sunday, and cleaned it as soon as I got home. Used almost 1/3 bottle of Hoppe's Powder Solvent with minimal results. I then went to Academy, bought more powder solvent and also bought some Hoppe's Bench Rest Copper Solvent (what I'm currently using).

I worked on cleaning for over two hours Sunday night, let it soak overnight. Cleaned it for about an hour monday morning let it soak during the day. Took about 1.5 hours cleaning it Monday night, let it soak overnight. I spent about an hour cleaning it this morning (Tuesday), and my patches are still coming out with blue on them (indicating copper fouling coming out).

I would be here until the end of time if I just used regular patches, so I'm using a bronze brush with a thin layer of paper towel wrapped around it, soaked in Copper solvent then follow up with a dry patch, working from the breach of course. Help me! I want to keep shooting this gun, but I can't justify shooting fifty rounds then cleaning for 3-4 days.

[TGO David]

Um... Bronze is an alloy with copper in it. It's no wonder your patches keep coming out blue, the solvent is reacting to the brush itself.

Several companies make stiff bristle nylon bore brushes. I'd use that with my copper solvent to scrub the bore.

[Guest Fastzntn]

I don't think a lot of, if any of it is coming from the bronze. When I run a clean patch through the front half of it is blue, and the back half of it is clean, indicating it is still pushing some fouling out of the bore. Hopefully you're right though! I'll go looking for a nylon brush tonight.

[Guest Fastzntn]

Update:

I went home last night after work, didn't have time to go out looking for a Nylonâ„¢ brush. I switched to patches soaked in Hoppe's Bench Rest Copper Solvent, then followed that up with bronze brush wrapped tightly with a dry paper towel. It took about 45 minutes to get all of the fouling out of the barrel. I followed that up with a few swabs with a patch soaked in powder solvent, still using the bronze brush/dry paper towel trick. That took another 30 minutes or so until the patches came out dry. Finished it up with a light coat of oil and stored the gun.

This is the first time I've used Copper Solvent, so I'm really hoping that is why this took so long to clean. We will see next time (and try a Nylon brush).

[James Yeager]

Barrett Firearms has a new solvent out. Works like a charm!

[Donnie]

It shouldn't be as hard to clean from here on out. You were probably cleaning a lot of copper fouling from the past. How long have you had this rifle and was it used / surplus when you got it??? Some of the surplus rifles aren't cleaned very well when you get them and it takes some time to thoroughly clean them up.

[Guest Fastzntn]

I bought the rifle used- surplus a little over a year ago. It was completely caked with cosmoline. The only thing I found effective in removing that was acetone.

This is the first time I've personally used copper solvent on the rifle. I hope you're right about not having to clean as much from here on out!

[towerclimber37]

When ever I shoot my k98 with 2nd world ammo, I wash it out with soap and water first..this is pretty important since some of those countries still use corrosive powder, and soap and water is the easiest thing to use to neutralize that powder.

let me know what kind of results you get with different brands will you?

I like the copper solvent, but being old school, I like military grade rbc too.

[Guest jaypee]

Hey Neighbor, you've got it backwards......you're supposed to move from California to Tennessee, like I did. Ventura native, but otherwise not a bad guy.

When it comes to cleaning rifles everybody seems to have his own ideas, especially when it comes to old military rifles. For the past couple of years I've been handling the Vintage Military Rifle and Pistol Matches up at the Cherokee Rod and Gun Club in Kingsport, and we shoot a lot of surplus, corrosive ammo. As for the corrosive primers, the old timey way to clean a rifle after shooting it is to immerse the muzzle two or three inches into some hot, soapy water, then take a rod with a patch in a loop, run it in from the breech, and use the patch to draw the soapy water up into the bore and clean it out. In fact some of us in days of old used to take jugs of soapy water to the range with us just for this purpose. But so many guys use and swear by Windex these days that we wrote it into our Club's Military Rifle Match Manual. Here's basically what it says:

1. With the bolt removed and the rifle held vertically (downward)at the balance of the piece, squirt Windex into the chamber until it starts to run out the muzzle. Do this twice, rotating the rifle to get the Windex thoroughly around the bore's circumference.

2. Run a minimum of six Windex-soaked patches through the bore from chamber to muzzle and let the patches drop to the ground. Don't pull them back through. If you've done a great deal of shooting you might need to use eight patches. Anyway, do this until they don't get any whiter.

3. Run two or three patches through the bore in the same manner to dry it out, letting them fall to the ground also.

4. Wipe off the muzzle, front third of the bolt, and any other parts that may have firing residue on them, like folding bayonets and front sights, with a cloth saturated with the Windex. Don't forget to dry them off and lube them. The corrosive residue is now gone.

5. Clean the bore as you normally would.

In the manual we warn against making the mistake of thinking normal bore solvents and CLP's and so on will necessarily remove corrosive fouling. It sometimes won't and you run a very good chance of ruining your bore, i.e. eat it up in a day's time. Also, like I said above, soapy water is the standard old-timey solution and always works, but Windex carries in the range bag handily and always works too.

This is how we do it on bolt action rifles and gives you the general idea, so you can adapt it to other types of arms as well. DON'T forget to clean the gas system this way as well if you are shooting corrosive ammo in a gas operated semi-auto arm.

As for cleaning the bore after removing the corrosive elements, a gunsmith buddy suggested a 50/50 mix of Kroil and Hoppes Bench Rest Solvent, and it works very well, even on copper. So on my Mosins, Mausers, and K-31's, I do the Windex regimen followed by normal cleaning with the Kroil/Hoppes mix.

We have two rifle vises mounted on benches on both of our rifle ranges and most of us clean our rifles right there before we go home. I have never suffered bore damage using this procedure.

I hope this helps in the discussion. Best,

JayPee

[Mike.357]

I have a Mosin Nagant, a 1948 M44 that was unfired when I bought it. At least it looked like a NIB rifle. I was lucky and it had been cleaned of cosmoline. Of course I paid a little extra for all that. But still it was only $120.

I find it fairly easy to clean. After shooting I remove and disassemble the bolt. I take the smaller pieces and put them in a small cup of ammoniated window cleaner. ( IE: WalMart brand windex.) I wipe down the larger piece of bolt that does not fit in the little cup. I only use maybe 2 ounces total to clean the gun. I then dip a patch into the same windex the bolt is soaking in and run it through the bore. It will come out very dirty. I then run a dry patch through the bore, followed by a windex patch and another dry patch. I tell you after two passes of each the bore is fairly clean. That second windex patch I pass back and forth a few times, and also the second dry patch. I will then use Hoppes on the bore, one wet and dry , then again one wet and dry. I use one of the cleaner windex patches on the chamber area and then a dry rag to what I can reach. Use one of the windex patches on the muzzzle and bayonet (if you shot with a bayonet attached or extended) This then followed by a bore mop with some Rem Oil on it. My bore is as shiny as the day it was made. I take the bolt parts and dry them off, re-assemble and apply Rem Oil liberally on it. Wipe it down put it back in the gun, wipe down the rest of the rifle with a little oil and you are done.

I have been shooting this gun for a year and there is no visible wear and tear on the bore, bolt or chamber. This is about 500 rounds of use. Looks like new still.

Of course YMMV.

I am not going to spend all day worrying about a $100 rifle.

[Guest Spuds]

I may have missed it, but I didn't read anything about your addressing the corrosiveness of the surplus ammo. Windex as Mike suggests will handle that chore. My method is to squirt a bit of Dawn or Joy into a 16 oz water bottle and take this to the range. When finished with the Mosin, pour a bit through a funnel in the chamber with the muzzle pointed down and let it flush out all that corrosive junk. Then clean as normal, Hoppes, Montana Extreme, Butch's Bore Shine, whatever.

I also clean my surplus rifles while at the range, when the barrel is hot. Especially with new-to-me rifles, as it seems to help loosen up old fouling.

Sweets 762 is an old copper solvent that has proven effective for me as well.

[Guest jaypee]

Who were you addressing about the corrosiveness of the surplus ammo?

[Guest Spuds]

The OP, certainly not you! Somehow I missed your entire posting, which addresses the situation quite well. So well in fact, it makes my reply pretty pointless.

[Guest TN.Frank]

If shooting non-corrosive ammo clean as you would any other rifle, if using corrosive ammo use a couple patches soaked in Windex with ammonia D thru the bore and on the bolt face then clean as normal. The ammonia will kill the corrosive salts. You can also use Ballistol, which is what I've been using for years and it works great. Do a google on it and you'll see why it's my only cleaner now.

[Guest jaypee]

A well-intentioned courteous reply is never pointless, Spuds. Heck at my age it's easier to keep track of the ones I didn't miss then the ones I did! JP

[Guest Fastzntn]

Wow, looks like it's been over a year since I posted this thread! It's kind of funny, but I just got the gun clean, or at least reasonably close.

I was patching Hoppe's #9 through it until those started coming out clean. Then I started patching with Hoppe's Bench Rest copper solvent. I got some really blue/green patches followed by dark ones. Apparently, the copper fouling and powder fowling were layered over and over again! I used the bore snake a few times, then went back to patching.

I got to the point where the copper solvent patches were coming out relatively clean. Then I bought some Outer's foaming bore cleaner and applied per the instructions. Immediately after use I would get some really nasty patches out. The foaming bore clean loosened up even more copper and powder.

So I put a heavy layer of copper solvent in the bore, let it sit for a few days then patched some more. The first few came out somewhat dark. I repeated the solvent soak for a few days a couple more times, with an application of foaming bore cleaner in there.

Finally after off and on cleaning for several weeks the patches are coming out the same color as when they went in! I finished it off with some Breakfree CLP in the bore for storage.

(I still think I'm going to run some Sweet's 7.62 through it just to see what happens, but can't find any locally)

Edit: also disassembled the bolt last night and cleaned it up. It was fairly nasty on the inside, but wasn't nearly as hard to take apart as it looks.

Edited March 5, 2008 by Fastzntn