Cosmoline (storage grease) cleaning and removal

Slyder73

Slyder73

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I just picked up a nice Mosin Nagant 91/30 and the thing is pretty much embalmed in cosmoline. Does anyone have a really effective and condo friendly way of removing it? (Meaning I don't have a big back yard to go out and spend the afternoon on a tarp scrubbing it with chemicals)

I've read that boiling water works well to melt the stuff. Has anyone else done this on their Nagant or similar firearm? Any good chemical cleaners out there that will remove it and not damage the wood parts?

*EDIT* Sorry, I see this is the wrong place to have posted this, I just speed read the WW2 in the title line.
 
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Varsol works well. Or any other grease remover. Put the bolt and any other small parts into a tin foil roasting pan and let 'em soak for 24 hours. The cheapest plastic garbage can will do nicely for the rest of it. Lock, stock and barrel. I'd be using the balcony if you have one.
Do not dump the resulting sludge down any drain. It's toxic. Take it to a hazardous chemical disposal site.
 
If you feel brave, and this method is very controvercial, you could try the dishwasher method. Some people say it is fine, others say; "Are you nuts!". As I said, controvercial. Some say it contaminates the dishwasher and you will poison yourself, others say no big deal, just run the dishwasher empty afterwards.

Dis-assemble completely first, bolt and small bits go in the cutlery basket, but be carefull you don't put in any really small pieces that might get lost down the drain.

Some people do the stock as well, some don't. If you do the stock as well, it will need to be re-finished and you may lose some of the stamped marks, so generally frowned upon. Not sure how a shelaced laminated stock would turn out, so I don't recommend it.

Use regular dishwasher soap or tabs. Goes without saying, don't do dishes at the same time! Parts come out clean and dry, and since the heat of the dry cycle evaporates all the water quickly, no chance of rust, though you will have to oil everything afterwards. If/when doing stocks, some recommend taking the stock out wet and let it air dry, to aviod cracking and warping, others say they have had no such problems.

BTW, I haven't tried this myself (don't have a dishwasher), so no warranty implied or stated! I recommend you Google and check it out yourself, it is discussed on several other forums, Surplusrifle.com, for one.

If this seems to risky for you, I second Sunray's methods. The black garbage bag is great for stocks. I prefer low odour paint thinner to varsol for the initial layers, and MPro7 or Hoppes Elite for the final cleaning, it disolves cosmo off small oarts like nothing else.
 
Get yourself a heat gun and a scraper and have at it. Do it outside on a tarp, I hear it will make your condo quite smelly.
 
A dishwasher, assuming your other half doesn't do you bodily harm, will raise any stock cartouches you may not want removed and you're sending toxic chemicals(Cosmoline is thick petroleum jelly) down a drain.
Varsol doesn't raise cartouches. Mind you, it's far easier if you can drop the whole thing into a vat of it for 24 hours then wipe off the excess.
 
sunray said:
Varsol works well. Or any other grease remover. Put the bolt and any other small parts into a tin foil roasting pan and let 'em soak for 24 hours. The cheapest plastic garbage can will do nicely for the rest of it. Lock, stock and barrel. I'd be using the balcony if you have one.
Do not dump the resulting sludge down any drain. It's toxic. Take it to a hazardous chemical disposal site.
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Varsol is a favorite of mine too. Using a paint brush on the parts while in the Varsol bath melts it right off.

As for disposal, if there is no hazardous disposal site handy, just give the stuff to a rural friend to burn with their yard waste outside.
 
I went through the problem on how best to remove cosmoline. After checking several websites, I settled on using my wifes` portable steam cleaner. Best way there is. No harsh chemicals. No soaking for hours. Just break the gun down and blast away. The pressure of the steam melts and flushes out the cosmoline from every nook and crany, and the heated metal quickly evaporates the remaining water.
I bought a garand that was caked in the stuff, but after a leisurely one hour (waiting for the tank to heat up, cool down, refill..repeat..), there was not a speck of cosmo left. And these steamers only cost about 70-80$. Tell the wife you bought it for her...:)
 
I've used a pressure washer hooked up to a hot water outlet and it worked very well. I've tried the dishwasher method too, but only on things like an SKS stock that I wanted to refinish anyways. The hot pressure washer is more delicate than the dishwasher and allows you to be selective about where you target more and how long you go at it. The portable steam cleaner that some mention does sound very interesting though...
 
I purchased a little hand sized steam gun and thats what I've been using to do most of the cleaning.. I find it works quite well. But gets metal parts DAMN HOT so watch out.

Other then that I use boiling water.
 
HappyCamper said:
why is it so important to remove cosmoline ? sorry, noob here.
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It has the consistency or a bit thicker than a thick, vaseline, brown couloured. After WW2, the rifles were dipped in the stuff and set to storage in warehouses for the past 65 years. Now, us collectors get these guns and the cosmoline is in all the cracks, on all the moving parts, the bolt, inside the firing pin assembly and in the barrel. It can make the bolt really sticky, has to be cleaned out of the barrel no matter what, is messy, looks terrible and makes an all round mess on anything coming into contact with it. In the case of the Russian Mosin Nagants, it's a common problem that the bolt gets so sticky as to make it hard to smoothy cycle it.
The good news is after the time consuming first clean to get it all off, it's just regular cleaning and maintenance after that.
 
sunray is right, go with varsol for all strip down general cleaning, it's cheap,it works well. keep it simple. don't forget to apply a light coat of grease to those important operating parts before reassembly.
 
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