Mosin follow-up

As I mentioned on Sunday, I left the bore of my M-1938 Mosin-Nagant carbine soaking in Hoppe's No.9 in the hopes that it would dissolve some of the metal fouling. Boy, did it.

I took the rifle out of the closet tonight and when I removed the bolt I saw that it had a green streak of dissolved copper which had dripped down out of the bore. I've never had that happen before.

So, I ran several patches wet with Hoppe's through the bore, but it still looked like there was some fouling. I decided it was time to break out the JB Bore Cleaning Compound. This is a mildly abrasive paste, sort of like jeweler's rouge. It should not be used for regular cleaning, but only when a gun's bore is really fouled. The Mosin qualified.

I scrubbed the bore with a couple of JB-coated patches. Note that if you have JB on a patch and run it through even a clean bore, it will come out pitch black. Don't go overboard with it.

To get the JB out of the bore and for further cleaning, I followed up with several patches wet with Kano Kroil. This is a pentrating oil, not specifically intended for use as a gun cleaner, but is used as such by a lot of people, including very particular benchrest shooters. (It's good to have around the house even for non-shooters. It's a better penetrating oil than WD-40.) I ran enough Kroil patches through the barrel until they came out clean, then left the bore wet. I'll come back tomorrow or Thursday and see what else comes out.