I have cleaned up a few Fin's over the years & seen to be noticing a trend. All the refurbed stuff doesn't seem to be put together with the same care as originally taken & these guns are packed in cosmo. Both the guns I have cleaned off the grey grease off of were in orginal condition with original parts, lots of wear to the bore & other parts & some rust. Its like they were picked up after some battlefield trauma, deemed too much trouble to fix but not bad enough to melt down & packed up in not a whole lot of that graphite stuff. Anybody else notice this or was it just my two? BTW does anyone know what resin the fins applied to their guns? Its hard, waterproof & looks like varnish. I am not talking about the later pine tar/linseed,tup stuff, that dries fairly soft. Boiled pine sap maybe?
Finish mosin preservative & condition
- Thread starter desporterizer
- Start date
Pre-winter war mosins, especially civil guard guns, often were varnished or shellaced, the most common finish is Pine Tar though.
Seems to be no rhyme or reason as to which guns were refurbed vs. which were left as-is. I take the opposive view that the really bad guns ewre likely refurbed first. Bear in mind, when these guns were rebuilt, they were still front line issue.
Seems to be no rhyme or reason as to which guns were refurbed vs. which were left as-is. I take the opposive view that the really bad guns ewre likely refurbed first. Bear in mind, when these guns were rebuilt, they were still front line issue.
Have you looked in here: http://7.62x54r.net/ Not sure if the answer to this thread's specific question is in there, but man there's a lot of info.
Lou
Lou
The stuff I am talking about seems to have been applied both as a finish & as a glue. Everywhere there was a crack they just glopped this stuff on. My 91/24 hanguard was cracked along the whole length & they just pored it on top. Now to properly repair it I have to chip it all out & off. Maybe a pic would help. As for the refurb question, let me give you my two examples. The first was the m-28 we both loved. Not a refurb part on the thing, plenty worn, rusted bore, into the graphite it went. Now that was obsolete by wars end so maybe they just put it away for parts. Next up, my straight stock m-39. Right serial range for a straight, plenty of wear, light rust(no reblue), rough bore, & more importantly a hole in the forestock that was caused by high velocity shrapnel. How do I know what caused the hole? It was still in the stock where it stuck between the barrel & the stock. Matches the shape of the hole too. Thats either ww2 left over or they are doing some serious training in Finland. The m-39 wasn't obsolete at wars end, why no refurb? Again this one had the graphite. Screw it, I think it time to go for a Finish vacation.
PerversPépère
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Shawinigan (Quebec)
Try some denatured alcohol on the finish. If it melts, it is a kind of shellack, the same stuff the Russian slopped all over their rifles.
One advantage is that you can repair a cracked finish just by rubbing in some fresh shellack over the old and they melt and mix together.
Some other districts like Lapland used part pine tar mixed with reindeer tallow.
Other places used plain pine tar or pine tar with turpentine and beeswax.
It all depended on the geographical location and the place's resources.
PP.
One advantage is that you can repair a cracked finish just by rubbing in some fresh shellack over the old and they melt and mix together.
Some other districts like Lapland used part pine tar mixed with reindeer tallow.
Other places used plain pine tar or pine tar with turpentine and beeswax.
It all depended on the geographical location and the place's resources.
PP.
Well, for starters, NO M28's would have been refurbed after the M28/30 was adopted. The only M28's upgraded to M28/30 were private purchase guns that owners paid to have converted. M28's were issued on an emergency basis during the war, but ceased being standard issue along with the M24 in 1931. If an M28 was damaged anough the require repair after that time, it was torn down and the receiver & internals used to make an M91 or a M39. That is why we never see any unissued looking M28's. No refurbs and years of hard wartime use.
M24's are another matter. When the SkY was rolled into the SA, M24's just became M91's for all intents and purposes and were refurbed with the same frequency as M91's were. These guns mostly got used for training after 1944 when enough M39's were on hand.
M39's were standard issue until the adoption of the AK. Guns requiring service between 1945 and 1968 or so, when the M39 was largely supplanted by the Valmet family of weapons, would have been refurbed to like new. Guns showing use and wear are just guns that were on active issue when the M39 was recalled for stores during re-armament with the newer assault rifles. Enough "like new" M39's were on hand that most of the worn M39's were just packed away if they met minimum service standards for function.
Most of this is outlined in Rifles of the White Death and Drei Linien Gewehr.
