Gunboards Forums banner

Restored Mosin Nagant 91/30

12K views 61 replies 32 participants last post by  Tula 
#1 ·


Check out my new Mosin Nagant 91/30, that I recently restored.



The Finished Product



















The Process
-When I first purchased this rifle for $130 USD, It was in rough shape. The stock was so beaten up, and covered in so much Cosmoline that I became tired of it looking like rubbish, and this being my first Mosin, I figured that I had to experiment with it a bit.

-When the stock was removed, I used Stripper to remove the low grade Soviet shellac, and Cosmoline build up.

-I then went over the stock roughly with 180 grit sand paper.

-After reaching the base wood, I was baffled when the stock was almost all the way black!

-I decided to get abrasive, and I fashioned a large soaking tank, and I filled it with bleach.

-I allowed the gun to soak for about 4 hours.

-This removed some of the black, but I was still worried that it would not look very well.

-I then stained the stock with an antique Walnut stain. (It was created for antique guns.)

-The stain made the stock fairly dark, and hid some of the black oily sections.

- I then began to apply Tru Oil to the entire rifle.

-The first 8-10th coats were not doing much.

-After the 15-16th coat, the Tru Oil lightened dark stains, and brought out the natural grain of the wood.

The 17-18th added a slick, smooth shine to the stock. I used steel wool, and a tack cloth in between Tru Oil applications.


-I then focused on the bore, removing rust, and tarnish from the barrel.

- I used chalk to fill in the serial marks, and the stamp on the receiver.
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/688/img1254so.jpg/ [Click to enlarge]

-Then I wiped the whole gun down, and just cleaned it up a bit.

What do you guys think? What else could I do? Rate my work. I would like to know some more history on this rifle, Is it special? Was it a Finnish capture? How would I tell? I know it's not an ex-Sniper.
Thanks. -Austin
 
See less See more
10
#2 ·
You have a 1930 Tula in a prewar stock
It does not appear to be a Finn capture.
Finn weapons will have [SA] ob the side of the action.
While your rifle and workmanship are beautiful, I prefer the original finish.
I sound like Fiveshot.

Edit: your workmanship is beautiful. I can tell it took a great deal of tipe to achive these results. Fair warning though, some people will be critical of the refinish and may or may not be diplomatic about it.
 
#6 ·
The diamond you see is most likely an inspector's mark. And yes there are many stamps on these rifles. Mosin nagant.net and 7.62x54r both have a pictoral catalog of the known markings.
 
#8 ·
Thanks Kingleo. I am on 7.62x54r.net, but I do not see what you are speaking of. Could you send me a link? Thanks. :) You've been a great help to me.


Although she looks good, generally speaking, you lower the collector value when you refinish a firearm, especially when sanding with anything more than steel wool (much less 180 grit). Not sure what a soaking in bleach will do to the stock in the long-run. Also, any residual bleach could cause corrosion issues beneath the woodline.
For less money and time, an arsenal refinished one in excellent condition could have been bought.
Take these comments with a grain of salt, as it is your rifle and your labor of love.
Just remember, unlike classic cars, old firearms are best left un-restored.

TOM
I understand, I only payed $130 for the rifle, so I wanted to experiment. I really didn't do much to it, I just made it look, and smell cleaner. It was just a fun restore job.
I have another M44 Carbine that is in mint condition, and I haven't touched anything on it, and I'm not going to.
 
#7 ·
Although she looks good, generally speaking, you lower the collector value when you refinish a firearm, especially when sanding with anything more than steel wool (much less 180 grit). Not sure what a soaking in bleach will do to the stock in the long-run (perhaps soften it or otherwise alter its strength characteristics). Also, any residual bleach could cause corrosion issues beneath the woodline.
For less money and time, an arsenal refinished one in excellent condition could have been bought.
Take these comments with a grain of salt, as it is your rifle and your labor of love.
Just remember, unlike classic cars, old firearms are best left un-restored.

TOM
 
#50 ·
Although she looks good, generally speaking, you lower the collector value when you refinish a firearm, especially when sanding with anything more than steel wool (much less 180 grit).
Agreed 100%. I was willing to tolerate much of that procedure, but I stopped at the sanding part. I have never sanded the stock of a collectible firearm. If it can't be done with fine steel wool, it shouldn't be done at all.

And yeah, I understand that a lot of folks feel that it shouldn't be touched in any way to begin with. I have no quarrel with that, and I respect your views. In fact, most of the time I share them.

I have only ever refinished one 91/30, and that was because although the wood was in beautiful shape, the shellac was the most godawful peeling mess I'd ever seen. I used denatured alcohol to remove it, followed by a very light buffing with #600 steel wool and then fresh red shellac. That was it.

Why some people think they always have to reach for the sandpaper is beyond me.
 
#11 ·
After WWII the Soviet Union took all the rifles, took them apart refinished all the parts, replaced wear items and put them back together. When they did that, they did not put everything back together as the rifles were originally constructed. So you had a big box of triggers, a big box of floorplates etc. So what yo will find on these is that the stampings you see, are a marking that denotes that this or that part is good for use on a rebuilt weapon. And you will have a mixture of parts. Your rifle reflects this.
 
#13 ·
I think you did a fine job of refinishing the gun. You did erase any and all of the refurbishment process of the Soviets. The rifle as was before, not a very valuable piece - The danger lies within the newbies who read this thread and decide that their battered great grandpappy's WWII bring back, needs a new coat of tru oil.....Only to find they have ruined a potential very valuable rifle..........

I have refinished a few rifles back in the day(regret it now...), I have restored a few bubba'd Finn/ed pieces(bubba'd before I bought them...)

The shooter collector does not mind such things. The collector learns to usually reject such projects.

Pahtu.
 
#14 ·
Thank you. Eh, Oh well, low grade shellac, and Cosmoline is not much of a refurbishment. I agree, it is not a very valuable piece, that is the only reason that I refinished it. Now if anyone is dumb enough to refinish a true collectible, such as an M1 Garand, Carbine, K98 Mauser, Luger, etc. They do not deserve the right to have such a piece! I love finding cheap, and beat up (bubba'd) weapons, and giving them a new life. Although I'm not someone who buys a Mosin, and puts a $500 scope, Muzzle brake, composite stock, and other insane things on such a piece. Oh people on Youtube, you disappoint me...

 
#18 ·
I agree, it is not a very valuable piece, that is the only reason that I refinished it. Now if anyone is dumb enough to refinish a true collectible, such as an M1 Garand, Carbine, K98 Mauser, Luger, etc. They do not deserve the right to have such a piece!
Around these parts, them there is fightin' words! You are on a forum dedicated to the collecting of Mosin rifles. Get ready for it, in 3....2.....1......

John
 
#21 ·
Did I just start a sh!t storm? ;)


FIVESHOT
That is an excellent job of restoration

without any other regard .



Fiveshot
Thank you Fiveshot.

The only serial you can rely on to be original to the rifle is the barrels serial. The other serials were more than likely added during one of its possible many refurbishments. The rifles original parts were lost to history.
Oh. Well it's still a excellent piece of history, I will post the results of a day at the range with it soon. Is 100 yards good? The damn sight will go two miles!
 
#39 ·
That is an excellent job of restoration

without any other regard .





Fiveshot
I'm sorry, but no, it's not. The OP did not "restore" anything. He robbed a common, but historic rifle of its lineage and past. He has the right to do so, but I do not think that "collectors" of military rifles should be joining arms and singing "Kumbaya" like they are doing here. I'm not saying the OP should be lynched or tarred and feathered, but I think that the deliberate lowering of standards in a Rodney King-like celebration of "can't we all just get along" is wrong. Look up the term, "defining deviancy down".
 
#24 ·
There lies the other dilemma. If bubba'd Mosin Nagants are worth less to collectors then the remaining un-bubba'd ones will be worth more.:)
In the end it's the same old story. Unknowing people destroy valuable things every day. With as many 91-30s there are available for such low prices there are going to be some modified. It's just a shame when a "special" one gets bubba'd.
I think the refinished stock looks good but I would not have done it too a hex receiver rifle. I guess that's why I bought a 1933 Tula with laminated stock.
Motor
 
#28 ·
What do you guys think? What else could I do? Rate my work.
Very well done, in terms of effort and workmanship. However, many collectors would opine that the end result was to turn a rifle they might pass up because it was in rough condition, into one they would be even more likely to pass up because it has been over-restored beyond its original condition, to the point of being too pretty and shiny.

That said, you paid for it, and invested your own time and expense on it. If you're pleased with it, that's what counts, not anybody else's opinions.
 
G
#34 ·
What was there to refinish on this rifle in the first place being it is a refurb anyway?

Interesting you would ask the following questions after the fact.

What do you guys think? What else could I do? Rate my work. I would like to know some more history on this rifle, Is it special? Was it a Finnish capture? How would I tell? I know it's not an ex-Sniper.
Thanks. -Austin


NOT ANYMORE!
 
#36 ·
Well, it was a nice, original, pre-war, screwed-in sling slot escutcheon, stepped tang stock. It's nice and shiney now.
 
#37 ·
"Vibes" of an original...on restoration

At the risk of sounding a bit too Californian, there is something sort of semi-mystical about the feeling of unrestored rifles and swords to many collectors. The Japanese believe great swords have a sort of spirit of their own and many ships and boats are thought to have individual personalities -ask any Navy man. I'm not sure how much is imagination and how much is real psychic experience, but many collectors, myself included, want to see what the weapon really was like, not what someone restored it to be -the wear, scratches and dings, to "feel" the way the rifle felt the last time it was used. Attempts to "restore" old flintlocks, polish up old swords on grinders, reblue historic Winchesters and chrome SAA Colts, cut down Mosins and restock Martinis are some of the sad results of "restoration," much as new metallic red paint and chrome rims are not what an old Rolls-Royce needs. That doesn't mean don't clean them up, but keep them original, even if that shows the wear. Those are battle scars.
To a historian and collector a Mosin rifle first tells a story of the machinists, men, women and teenagers working in the Tula or Izhevsk facilities in desperate wartime conditions, trying to make weapons to save their country.
I have seen pictures of the factories and have known the children and grandchildren of the Russian factory workers and steel workers -they all speak, not of the tough conditions, but of their desire to do the very best they could, to increase production, to help kill Nazis; sort of a "Rosie The Riveter" mindset . Much like the late Japanese "last ditch" rifles carry the story of exhausted resources, the Mosins carry the story of pride in workmanship, not slave labor.
The stories of the war and of the soldiers are there, too, when you look through a scope that might have been at Stalingrad, down the barrel of a rifle that marched on some soldier's back all the way to Berlin or see the frag marks on a Tula cartouche caused by some grenade or bullet long ago.
In classic automobiles, a field where I was very involved for years, there is a whole class of rare cars beyond the good restorations, the rarest of all, the totally unrestored, original great cars such as unrestored 1934 Alfa Romeos, racing Ferraris from the early 1960s, original Cobras with original paint and wheels and the unrestored Bugattis that come to Pebble Beach every year, valued in many cases beyond the million dollar restorations at auction. A mint original early Ferrari, for example, is generally worth far more than a repaint, even if the repaint looks newer.
The Mosin rifles went to a variety of soldiers and many were picked up and refurbished from the dead. Zaitsev's "Notes of a Russian Sniper" is considered by many to be the best account of Stalingrad from a Russian soldier's point of view, but many histories and films give insight into the unimaginable horror and uncertainty of the Nazi invasion and the Great Patriotic War that followed. All this is somehow part of the mystique of an unrestored Mosin, at least to me, and much of it disappears when the finish is "restored" and the stock sanded down and the battle scars removed. Well, enough ghost hunting...
 
#41 ·
Others will parse "restoration" to precision; I'll just note that what we have here is a refinishing job. A nice one, too. But it certainly didn't "restore" the rifle to its original condition. To the contrary, it made any future restoration more difficult and less likely to be successful/accurate by obliterating cartouches and finish. The rifle is now pretty to look at, and probably no worse to shoot (shimming by trial and error could make up for the lost stock wood and altered mating of wood/steel), but I honestly wouldn't consider it for my collection for any more than $50. This is not to offend the workmanship of the refinisher; as I say, it's a nice job. But the subject of this forum is collectible Mosin rifles. The population of same is now reduced by one.
 
#44 ·
Theres many degrees of restoration and use.....

Well, first, dealing with rust INSIDE the barrel was a 'save', good one for you.
As well, removing cosmo pretty common, removing the varnish from the wood and oiling it is sorta common, (for folks who shoot them, and most likely to the soldiers who were issued them, they probly used vodka to remove the varnish and sunflower oil to oil the stock, ~~LOL!!~~ if at all).....but NOBODY....EVER......sands the wood. It too had cool inspector marks, just like the metal.

I use , shoot, collect and paw over various Mosins, I make a living with a special M-39, and they definitly are cleaned and oiled........so there it is.
 
#45 ·
The Mosin Man

Okay, you now have the entire hysterectomy, how do you feel ? From gentle glove replies to sledge hammer purists blows.

You can undo the entire experience by buying a refurb stock set (Rick Reich board sponsor has them) and your rifle is back

on the planet as a common refurb post war 91/30 and all is well. Its a parts weapon like all refurb so this is not expensive nor

a problem to accomplish. Chalk up the wood work to experience and I am sure someone will buy that shiny Tru Oiled stock

or just use it as a range stock. All is not lost here. Original stocks (parts replacement to the purist) for refurbs are easily found.

I would take one piece of advice offered: Before you refinish another Mosin or milsurp stock, pause and then not do it for all the reasons

stated in the thread. $35 for a stock and your rifle is back to normal.
 
#48 ·
What the hey......the guys got under 20 post, maybe he doesn't know, but I think we all did a little bit of this before we were sent down the right path.....keeping that in mind I hope he doesn't feel to bad, and that he continues to add to his collection and look for those specimens that can enhance his collection.....

.....that is a nice and shiny stock though.......
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top