So as a Father's Day gift, my wife was kind enough to treat me to a Mosin Nagant. I've always wanted one, but never bought one. She did all the work and bought it without any real knowledge (she though the wood was pretty - is it, BUT read on). I'm so grateful for the massive amount of work it took for her to make this happen, and the wood IS pretty. the bore is not pitted, but very dark and filthy.
I spent about an hour scrubbing the bore with Hoppes this evening and feared I would find a pitted mess under the crud. Military surplus is not kind to the bores of the rifles they are designed for. But I began to get concerned when the patches didn't start to come out - at least a little - cleaner than the first one. I swabbed, then scrubbed with my bore brush, the swabbed, run a dry patch and repeated - for an hour.
Perplexed, I stepped away for a minute. Fresh eyes often make for a fresh point of view - this time was no different, but the culprit wasn't the bore. it was the brush I was using. I never even bothered to look at it before I rammed it into the bore. Closer inspection revealed that the brush was caked with crud from sitting in the bottom of the cleaning box.
I felt like an idiot.
a few scrubs with a clean, new brush and the patches were coming out almost perfectly clean and the bore was shiny! voila! Sometimes it's not the usual suspects (I suspected the bore). sometimes it's the tools. Needless to say, the old brush found it's way into the trash after this evening.
I spent about an hour scrubbing the bore with Hoppes this evening and feared I would find a pitted mess under the crud. Military surplus is not kind to the bores of the rifles they are designed for. But I began to get concerned when the patches didn't start to come out - at least a little - cleaner than the first one. I swabbed, then scrubbed with my bore brush, the swabbed, run a dry patch and repeated - for an hour.
Perplexed, I stepped away for a minute. Fresh eyes often make for a fresh point of view - this time was no different, but the culprit wasn't the bore. it was the brush I was using. I never even bothered to look at it before I rammed it into the bore. Closer inspection revealed that the brush was caked with crud from sitting in the bottom of the cleaning box.
I felt like an idiot.
a few scrubs with a clean, new brush and the patches were coming out almost perfectly clean and the bore was shiny! voila! Sometimes it's not the usual suspects (I suspected the bore). sometimes it's the tools. Needless to say, the old brush found it's way into the trash after this evening.
