SVT 40 typical referb

Lebel

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I had bought an SVT 40 "new" from Marstar some time back. It was in the cosmo as expected but when I cleaned it out I found a bore with more pock marks than a Saskatchewan highway. This was the first time from cosmo that I cleaned out a bore and didn't have a bright new nickel shining back at me. I thought this was a one off, sent it back for exchange, comes a second one, sent it back for refund. Is this really the norm cause if it is boy's, these are parts guns and overpriced. Guy at Saskatoon gun show 2014 has one tagged as “new”, I ask to see the bore cleaned out, gives me a look and says its new. A new bore sells its self, no need for the cosmo. Is this really typical bores or are most of them form guys not knowing the real cost of cheap milsurp ammo and than using that as an excuse? Every time I got money burning a hole in my pocket I can’t find the “new” ones.
 
I wonder if there are many SVT-40's with "new" barrels? Mine is re-furbed and put into an AVT stock but the bore has black grooves
and pitted lands. Still shoots great! All my other re-furbs, including my Mosin have great, brand new looking bores. Now if I could
just get them to shoot as good as my SVT-40.;)
 
They were used and used hard during the war. Most barrels are dark. There are some with nice / new barrels but they're not as common.
 
There are some with as new barrels but it is like 1 in 20, best is to find the dealer that will actually check the barrel for you before the shipping.
 
They were used and used hard during the war. Most barrels are dark. There are some with nice / new barrels but they're not as common.

This, these were battle rifles that saw service for the most part, unlike a lot of sks the bores are pitted and frosted. If you want a shiny minty bore, your best bet is to buy one from Martin at Corwin Arms. The last one I bought was from him and it's shiny with crisp rifling, beautiful rifle. Polish refurb, it's a never sell rifle for me.

A lot of people still say the frosty pitted barrelled one still shoot pretty nice, so I wouldn't discount them altogether.
 
A lot of people still say the frosty pitted barrelled one still shoot pretty nice, so I wouldn't discount them altogether.

May be but I'm not paying top dollar for those ones. I wounder what the rate of deterioration is for one with a parts gun grade barrel vs. a clean bore with every trigger pull. I sure wouldn't want to be driving the rusted out car in the parade no matter how well it ran.
 
i bought 3 or 4 when one of the dealers was selling them for 199.99. all were excellent but one, and even it wasnt too bad.
most guns with really poor bores were scrapped. its not much of a refurb of its nfg!
standards may have dropped and they started scraping the bottom of the barrel though
 
It's seems the military refurb rifles were usually quite good, but the more recent ones may be refurbed for civilian sales and not so much attention to detail...

They seem to shoot amazingly accurate regardless based on others feedback
 
I've had several with dark/frosted or pitted barrels and they all shot fine. I have a couple now with mirror like bores, oddly enough both are very low three digit serial numbers.
 
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Can confirm.

My 45 SVT-40 and 42 Mosin 91/30 both have 9.5/10 bores. That being said, the Mosin has a .313's bore, but still shoots .311 and .312 bullets very, very well.

My 43 SVT-40 has a frosted bore with darker grooves, but shoots just as well as my 45.

Long story short: buy foaming bore cleaner to get all the initial gunk out, and repeat every few hundred rounds. It'll save you a lot of rod work.


Buy what you can when you can. SVT's were made in limited number (comparitively) and will only go up in value.... unless JT and the rainbow/unicorn/hug brigade decide to ban anything that triggers them.
 
I don't know where you are finding mint bores. They seem fairly comparable to 91/30's from what I've seen. Pretty bad.

Corwin Arms, Martin's red rifles are top notch. He hand selects them from what I understand, you can tell when you see one of his. His polish mosins were just gorgeous. Still kicking myself for not buying some of the carbines while he had them.
 
Most bores on Soviet refurb SVTs are grey and 6 to 8 out of 10. They still shoot great. Several rifles with 6/10 bores I shoot after some number of shooting and cleaning turned they bore into bright and shiny, but not mirror shiny and my evaluation of rifling increased to 8. So I would not be so hard on these rifles.
For your information: most refurbs have original pair barrel-receiver. And if you're looking for great bore it's definitely 1 of 20 rifles and most likely will shoot with same accuracy as 6/10. Another option - look for Bulgarian light refurb, most of them have pristine never fired bores.
 
What I can say based on all SVT 40 that went through our hands. Only 10% of Tula made rifles had excellent barrels, 90% were dark. Izevsk made rifles we were getting as much as 1/3 of the rifles with Very good to Excellent barrels. As new barrels I would say only 1 in 15 rifles.
 
This, these were battle rifles that saw service for the most part, unlike a lot of sks the bores are pitted and frosted. If you want a shiny minty bore, your best bet is to buy one from Martin at Corwin Arms. The last one I bought was from him and it's shiny with crisp rifling, beautiful rifle. Polish refurb, it's a never sell rifle for me.

A lot of people still say the frosty pitted barrelled one still shoot pretty nice, so I wouldn't discount them altogether.

+1. I bought Corwin import 1940 SVT from one of CGN'ers. Bore is nice and shiny, rifle itself came in 9 out of 10 condition overall. Just some cosmetic wear.
 
This, these were battle rifles that saw service for the most part, unlike a lot of sks the bores are pitted and frosted. If you want a shiny minty bore, your best bet is to buy one from Martin at Corwin Arms. The last one I bought was from him and it's shiny with crisp rifling, beautiful rifle. Polish refurb, it's a never sell rifle for me.

A lot of people still say the frosty pitted barrelled one still shoot pretty nice, so I wouldn't discount them altogether.

+1....bought one of Corwin's select no stock repair SVT-40's for X-Mas last year...sent some boiling water down the barrel adn it was gleaming and crisp like new, has the crossbolt screw at the back but no stock repairs, matching cept magazine...only seen non-corrosive so far...barrel looked great....+1 for Corwin
 
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