New SKS - Cleaning it up

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smitty223

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Just took possession of a new SKS from Frontier Firearms. I have numerous firearms but have never received one still coated in the preserving coating, compound. Any tips on what to use to clean up/remove this material.

I am new to this site and look forward to learning a lot
 
Whatever you decide on, make sure you completely strip the rifle. From what I hear, that crap gets everywhere. Kerosene Was recommended to me.
 
LeeEnfieldNo.4_mk1 said:
Whatever you decide on, make sure you completely strip the rifle. From what I hear, that crap gets everywhere. Kerosene Was recommended to me.
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A friend 15 years ago told me about using coleman cook stove oil (easy to come by) which worked great, I would think kerosene would work the same. I just did not like using it in the house, so I tried the carb cleaner and it worked so good I have been using it ever since for the tough jobs.....
 
I striped mine, used Simple Green on the stock so that I did not do any damage to the shellac and cleaned all metal parts with brake cleaner and then applied a light coating of my favorite gun oil over all metal parts except the firing pin and gas tube.

Search the RED RIFLE section for removing Cosmo.
 
I used brake cleaner and it seemed to work. Nothing to compare it too though.
Cosmoline is still in tight places.
 
Hey, bought a refurb Russian SKS. Very nice. Has spring firing pin (bonus IMO). How many patches does it take to clean the barrel (usually)? I must have ran 40+ patches through it using hopps #9. Maybe more...This was after soaking barrel in kerosene for 1 hour. last patch is almost as black as the first patch!

Barrel looked nice and shiny before cleaning... I don't think I can visually see the difference before and after cleaning so far. LOL! Looks like I still have a long way to go. Read from the sticky that it may take a few more cleaning sessions to complete the job. Well, I guess i can keep going but I gave up. Got way too bored after doing a complete strip down for cleaning.
 
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If yours is an early production (spring firing pin) like my 1950 Tula, your barrel is not chrome lined, and will therefore not look as "clean as a whistle". Maybe the kerosene is reacting with the cosmoline to give you the oily black residue. Try shooting some aresol brake cleaner down the bore, and then run some patches through it, see if they turn brown or grey which is more acceptable than coal black. I also find CLP "Breakfree" works much better than Hoppes. (It's used by the military, so it must be good stuff!)
 
Brush your bore before patching, made that mistake too when I first got my SKS.

john777 said:
Hey, bought a refurb Russian SKS. Very nice. Has spring firing pin (bonus IMO). How many patches does it take to clean the barrel (usually)? I must have ran 40+ patches through it using hopps #9. Maybe more...This was after soaking barrel in kerosene for 1 hour. last patch is almost as black as the first patch!

Barrel looked nice and shiny before cleaning... I don't think I can visually see the difference before and after cleaning so far. LOL! Looks like I still have a long way to go. Read from the sticky that it may take a few more cleaning sessions to complete the job. Well, I guess i can keep going but I gave up. Got way too bored after doing a complete strip down for cleaning.
Click to expand...
 
gommee said:
i striped mine, used simple green on the stock so that i did not do any damage to the shellac and cleaned all metal parts with brake cleaner and then applied a light coating of my favorite gun oil over all metal parts except the firing pin and gas tube.

Search the red rifle section for removing cosmo.
Click to expand...

x2.
 
Thanks for the tips all! I'll see if I have time to do more cleaning tonight. I will give the bore a good brush cleaning first with brake cleaner, which I have not done. I just ran it up and down with the patches and it turns black after running it up and down 3-4x... If I have to rate my cleanining job. I may have just got it cleaned by 30%.

The barrel is indeed 1950 and rifling looks good to me, although I don't have anything else to compare.
 
Seriously, put it anywhere that the cosmoline will melt off. Hot garage attic on a sunny day, hell even sitting in the sun on a hot day will melt lots off.

Then you can use simple green, kerosene, varsol, brake cleaner, etc. on the METAL, and just varsol on the wood.
 
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