Mosin Nagant Bolt Discolouration

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mcgillv

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Hey, all.

I did some research and talked to a few people about how to clean the cosmoline from my Mosin and went ahead with using a degreaser and then simmering the small parts in hot water.

After removing the parts from the pot, I noticed that all the parts of the bolt have discolouration. It looks like a patina, but I don't understand why that would show up. The surface of the bolt is smooth and nothing has changed except for its colour and shine.

Any thoughts on why this happened, what I did wrong, and/or how to fix it?

Thanks!
 
I tried soaking the bolt in CLP and scrubbing the hell out of it with #0000 steel wool to no avail. How coarse could I afford to go in regards to the steel wool?

Thanks
 
mcgillv said:
I tried soaking the bolt in CLP and scrubbing the hell out of it with #0000 steel wool to no avail. How coarse could I afford to go in regards to the steel wool?

Thanks
Click to expand...

IMO a Scotch-Bright will be better than steel wool...

I have cleaned this bolt with S-bright...
Judge by yourself...

mosin-111.png
 
mcgillv said:
I tried soaking the bolt in CLP and scrubbing the hell out of it with #0000 steel wool to no avail. How coarse could I afford to go in regards to the steel wool?

Thanks
Click to expand...

You can go a lot coarser on white metal. 0000 is usually used when trying to clean up blued metal without removing the finish. I would try fine or medium. Just go slowly and don't use too much pressure.

If you do make some scratches you can always polish them out. You can polish metal by sanding with finer and finer emery cloth (wet sand) and then buffing it all up. You could make it look like chrome if you had the patience and time.
 
WHY don't people read up on heat-treatment of metals BEFORE doing something that might alter the heat-treatment of a part?

By boiling the thing in simmering water, in a pot, the bolt was lying in the bottom of the pot and thus getting a lot MORE heat. Electric and gas stoves put out a great deal more degrees of heat than most people might think. I MELT wheelweights on an electric stove.... and it is not turned up all the way. That's more than 700 degrees F.

The discolouration is from partially heat-bluing the bolt.
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smellie said:
WHY don't people read up on heat-treatment of metals BEFORE doing something that might alter the heat-treatment of a part?

By boiling the thing in simmering water, in a pot, the bolt was lying in the bottom of the pot and thus getting a lot MORE heat. Electric and gas stoves put out a great deal more degrees of heat than most people might think. I MELT wheelweights on an electric stove.... and it is not turned up all the way. That's more than 700 degrees F.

The discolouration is from partially heat-bluing the bolt.
.
.
Click to expand...

The best way to clean a bolt I find is to strip it down and use brake clean. Remove the barreled action from the stock and you can do the same thing to it. Makes short work of grease!
 
Interesting. I have never done anything to clean my Mosins outside the standard solvest/oil and I have a bolt that sort of looks like that. That one has not seen hot water through the barrel either...
 
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