My new Mosin 91/30

mosinmaster

CGN frequent flyer
Rating - 100%
62   0   0
1943 Izhevsk from West Rifle $100 shooter grade:

DSCN3914.jpg

DSCN3948.jpg
 
Last edited:
for 100 bucks its a nice rifle. id strip the stock and do something nice with it though. makes a great deer rifle. how do you like the mfs ammo? i have the m44 carbine and with the mfs hardly any recoil at all. shoots nice too.
 
The $100 rifle I got from Westrifle was an absolute beauty, matching and I believe well worth the money. I would not touch my stock, I doubt I could improve on it.
Congratulations on your terrific purchase:)
 
The $100 rifle I got from Westrifle was an absolute beauty, matching and I believe well worth the money. I would not touch my stock, I doubt I could improve on it.
Same here. I like the look of the old warhorse. Scratches, dings and nicks even if refurbed by the original arsenal reminds me of what it really is. A piece of history.

If I want pretty I'll build a nice modern rifle.
 
I could refinish the stock, but I'll just leave it as is because I respect its history. I just gave it 2 coats of paste wax for protection and a little shine.
 
Better yet would be to give it whatever they were fed while in the military. The British used raw linseed oil monthly. The US Garands apparently used tung oil. So that leaves me wondering what the Russians used.
 
Better yet would be to give it whatever they were fed while in the military. The British used raw linseed oil monthly. The US Garands apparently used tung oil. So that leaves me wondering what the Russians used.
Learn something new everyday!
I know the Swiss used their special [Waffenfett] grease to cover their stocks, in fact for everything else in and on the rifle.
 
Not trying to be a #### but I ordered 3 mosins from west rifle (two $100 rifles and one $150 rifle) and the stocks on all of them were in much better condition :/

Oh well maybe it means yours was used to bash some nazi heads in :p
 
I think the stock looked better, but during the cosmoline removal process, I think rubbing off some of the stuff also took some of the shellac off with it. Either way, I like the way it has that worn look to it. I could refinish it but I doubt it. I spent $100 for it, but I don't think it's worth my time making it look prettier and destroying it's value. There aren't really any gouges or dents or scratches, just chipped off shellac.
 
Vodka, comrade! :D

Nobody would use vodka. It was too valuable in that time.


Better yet would be to give it whatever they were fed while in the military. The British used raw linseed oil monthly. The US Garands apparently used tung oil. So that leaves me wondering what the Russians used.

As I was told some soldiers used bacon or pig fat.

Cheers

Al
 
.....As I was told some soldiers used bacon or pig fat.

Cheers

Al

So much for that on a rifle that has to live indoors. Seems like the animal fats would turn rancid and rather stinky after some time. In lieu of that I'd likely use a bit of raw linseed just to keep the original shellac "fed" and flexible as practical.

In my own case in a fit of poor judgement I washed my stocks down with lacquer thinner to try to soak out as much of the cosmoline as practical. Needless to say it also took off most of the shellac as well. I ended up refinishing it with some leather dye to bring back the colour and then a couple of coats of Lee Valley polymerized tung oil. This has given it a nice soft sheen that would be fairly typical of a well handled rifle. It's not "correct" but it looks pretty close. The best part is that only two coats of the PTO has made it so water resistant that a splash of water that sat on a part of the stock wood for a couple of hours didn't have any effect at all.

Mind you from this point I'll likely just give it an annual "feeding" coat of raw linseed or maybe a very thin wipe of raw tung oil.
 
So that leaves me wondering what the Russians used.


I'm not sure what they used, but it seems to me that either the finish or coating is very old or it was sloppily done during a stock refurb process. The coating comes off very easily, and in some spots almost flakes off on some rifles. Its easy to touch up, and as long as you get down to a wood base, it would last longer than the last coating that was put on. I think many of them were made to look pretty real fast in order to sell them, however, many of them have really good coatings that don't scuff or chip off. Hit n miss in my opinion, but it has nothing to do with the way its gonna shoot.
 
Can BLO soak into the wood through the shellac applied by the Russians? And will it react with whatever remnants of cosmoline are embedded in the stock?
 
Back
Top Bottom