First time milsurp owner and proper gun care.

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HandsomeDan

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Hi everyone, welcome to my first post! I will shortly be coming into possession of a nice Lee Enfield No4 Mk1as well as a Soviet sks.

While both are in quite good condition, the bluing on the sks has almost entirely faded. I live on the west coast where it is quite wet most of the year.

I understand that rebluing a milsurp firearm is widely frowned upon and why. With the climate I live in and the frequency I will be shooting out in the elements I would appreciate any firsthand tips or experiences on protecting bare metal/worn finish milsurp.

Is it as simple as regularly oiling the necessary parts or are there some tricks or specific products I should know about?

Thanks for any help!
 
Oil on metal works. You are asking about milsurp rifles - the No. 4 and the SKS might be 75 or 80 years old or so - I doubt the original designer thought they would be in service so long. I think their expected service life was measured in weeks, not years. So, oil on the metal - find some "good stuff" for the wood. Is the innards that will create problems - so learn to field strip and clean and oil the inside of metal - inside of bolts, coil springs, etc. and then where metal rests on wood. Sitting in GrandPa's closet or basement for 50 years probably did a lot of harm - the wood may have "dried out", inside of the bore and inside of various metal parts may have rusted out.

What a soldier did then, was probably adequate for the expected service time - may no longer be "enough", if it has not been touched for decades.
 
Consider that water vapour can come out of the wood anywhere - so probably a soldier at the time never removed the butt plate and re-finished the wood, nor worried about the magazine mortice or the holes that the sling swivel screws went in to. You might want to consider that - these days. I have seen and handled various parts that I think were in the tropics - like a "green" paint on the magazine and inside of the trigger guard and other internal places - probably the armourers attempt to hold off rust action in places a soldier would not normally deal with.
 
Someone on this site recommended this product to me for cleaning my Carcanos. You would not believe what it flushes out of these old military barrels. You could actually see the steel again.
https://budgetshootersupply.ca/prod...eout-brushlessbore-gun-cleaner-5-0oz-aerosol/
You just apply it and leave overnight.
Good deep clean is what I always do and as potash said a very thorough inspection of what you can't see. There's usually rust but you can get rid of/ retard almost any rust with some work.
 
Welcome to the disease!

Your rifle, your choices. Unless you are truly without shelter or a means of caring for your rifles, you probably don't need to worry about rebluing.

I lubricate with a ten-year old bottle of red Automatic Transmission Fluid. I do have other products, but unless I need to remove powder fouling I don't use many solvents. In fact, after shooting a hundred bucks of ammunition to get my zero with a good layer a copper jacket material into the pores of the barrel, I try hard not to dissolve it. The carbon on the piston of the SKS is really the only surface you should clean back to bare metal. With moving parts, the army teaches the wrong thing. A thin coat of oil isn't going to oil up the moving parts. I learned that to shoot Browning pattern machine guns without stoppages, they had to be the wetter the better. A slobbering machine oil inside the mechanism reduced unnecessary friction.

Ammo will always be pricey. My advice is buy a couple hundred rounds of 174-gr FMJ .303 and about the same of Chinese steel cased 7.62x39. Neither one is s3xy but shoot as often as you can to learn the guns' performance and you'll be a better shot when you can afford the better stuff. Buy it cheap, stack it deep.
 
If I buy an 80 year old rifle, I would want it to look like it was 80 years old. Some others want it to look as if it were new - built yesterday - each to their own, I imagine - but, generally, I agree with you - if you attempt any re-finish (wood or metal), most collectors will see that as reducing the value of the thing - which may or may not be important to you. My own attention goes to the screw slots - they should be close to pristine - if somebody can not get screws off and on without messing up the screw slots, how likely are they to properly care for the internals?
 
These are all very good points, and I appreciate the broad considerations, and suggestion on the gun cleaner.

I will certainly be firing corrosive with the sks, so I will familiarize myself with a good post-firing cleaning routine.

I know my basic gun cleaning and maintenance but certainly do not consider myself a veteran. So I would likely catch obvious defects, damage, etc. with my own inspections but would equally likely miss things a more experienced eye would not.

The No4 Mk1 is coming through auction, which means I'm relying on the provided pictures and the lot description for its quality (which seemingly looks good). Does anyone recommend me bringing the rifle to a machinist for inspection before firing it?
 
I have seen various "crack testing" done on industrial stuff, but I have never seen it done, nor done it, on a firearm. Cracks on the receiver will get you, even if the bolt lugs are bearing properly (evenly) and are not "set back" when in battery. If there is any hint that the thing is or might be a problem to fire - lash it down to a spare tire and use a longish pull string on the trigger - get a round off - hopefully not at yourself - that should assuage any concerns.
 
A lot of Lee Enfields have suffered from the effects of corrosive ammo (ie pitted bore). Still shootable in most cases, but a detriment to the value of the rifle. Have you been given a description of the bore???
 
cosmic said:
A lot of Lee Enfields have suffered from the effects of corrosive ammo (ie pitted bore). Still shootable in most cases, but a detriment to the value of the rifle. Have you been given a description of the bore???
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The auction listed the main material components (wood stock, metal parts, bore) on a general condition sale. The bore and rifling were listed as Good-Very Good.

I got my hands on a bore scope. Like I said before, I'm no professional but am confident I could identify pitting, frost, etc. At least cases bad enough to warrant concern.
 
Bore Scopes - I have owned and used a couple over past 10 or 15 years - I still can not tell you what are the consequence of what I am looking at. About only use I have made was to find a gouge in a chamber where buddy dug out a "stuck" round, and then tried to scrape the crud out of the chamber with a screw driver, and to see progress as I clean the bore - especially in the corners of the rifling grooves - other than that, I still can not predict how the thing will shoot, by just looking at it through a bore scope. I have read much commentary about people getting excited about what they see or do not see through a bore scope - maybe after a hundred different bores, one can tell - until then, I suspect actually firing the thing - and measuring the resulting targets, is more important?
 
Potashminer said:
Bore Scopes - I have owned and used a couple over past 10 or 15 years - I still can not tell you what are the consequence of what I am looking at. About only use I have made was to find a gouge in a chamber where buddy dug out a "stuck" round, and then tried to scrape the crud out of the chamber with a screw driver, and to see progress as I clean the bore - especially in the corners of the rifling grooves - other than that, I still can not predict how the thing will shoot, by just looking at it through a bore scope. I have read much commentary about people getting excited about what they see or do not see through a bore scope - maybe after a hundred different bores, one can tell - until then, I suspect actually firing the thing - and measuring the resulting targets, is more important?
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I don't disagree at all. My reasoning with the bore scope is not to get a 100% accurate diagnosis on the bore and rifling quality, but simply to determine if I got a particularly damaged/worn item before firing it and potentially lose the ability to return the bid item.
 
Potashminer said:
Bore Scopes - I have owned and used a couple over past 10 or 15 years - I still can not tell you what are the consequence of what I am looking at. About only use I have made was to find a gouge in a chamber where buddy dug out a "stuck" round, and then tried to scrape the crud out of the chamber with a screw driver, and to see progress as I clean the bore - especially in the corners of the rifling grooves - other than that, I still can not predict how the thing will shoot, by just looking at it through a bore scope. I have read much commentary about people getting excited about what they see or do not see through a bore scope - maybe after a hundred different bores, one can tell - until then, I suspect actually firing the thing - and measuring the resulting targets, is more important?
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I had a pitted bore Mauser that still would do an inch at 100.
 
Ballistol. If C&RSenal trusts it on their 100+ year old firearms, so do I. I use it exclusively for the last few years

 
HandsomeDan said:
Does anyone recommend me bringing the rifle to a machinist for inspection before firing it?
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What would a machinist know about vintage Enfields ... or rifles of any kind?


HandsomeDan said:
I'm no professional but am confident I could identify pitting, frost, etc. At least cases bad enough to warrant concern.
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What concern would a pitted or frosted barrel warrant?
 
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