Please Welcome the New Baby!
Fighting For Liberty is very proud to announce the adoption of our new baby! She’s from Russia (Izhevsk, to be particular), and she came cheap and covered in cosmoline!
Measuring up to a full 5′6″ (with her bonnet bayonet on), and weighing in at a substantial 10lbs, even unloaded she’s quite a handful!
Oh, I can’t stall any longer, everyone loves new baby pictures:
Quite a few birthmarks on her, too. Concentric 0 accuracy proof, point of aim proof, black powder proof and final proof, and matching serial numbers on her bolt, stock, receiver, and her cute little baby buttplate. Yep, she’s a 1932 original! She even has a hex receiver and inner ring (At least, that’s what the Doctor told us. I didn’t look).
Here’s a picture of some of those markings:
Cigars all the way around!
Liberty on November 29th 2007 in Boomsticks!
Gregory Morris [Visitor] responded on 30 Nov 2007 at 5:07 am #
Congrats! I didn’t realize just how much cosmoline was in mine until I recently did a complete disassembly (every screw, every pin.) I found that a mini butane torch and some cotton swabs were helpful, then finally I sprayed out all the nooks and crannies with Birchwood Casey gun scrubber.
Liberty [Member] responded on 30 Nov 2007 at 7:06 am #
Thank you! Yeah, the cosmo shouldn’t be too bad. Everyone says heat does the trick. I don’t trust myself with a torch, though.
I’ll be taking her apart soon, to both clean and see some of those marks that are buried below the wood. It’s an interesting piece of history and that it goes “BBBOOOOOOMMM” makes it that much cooler.
Sailorcurt [Visitor] responded on 30 Nov 2007 at 7:18 am #
I bought a long, shallow $15.00 “under bed” plastic storage tub from Walmart.
Disassembled the rifle and put all the pieces parts in the tub.
Used about 4 or 5 4 quart saucepans of boiling water (enough to cover all the parts) along with a couple of squirts of “dawn” dish detergent. Poured some of the water through the barrel while still very hot. The cosmo just melted off and floated to the top.
Let it soak until the water cooled enough to handle and then cleaned everything up with regular gun cleaning supplies.
Didn’t take any less time than scrubbing with caustic chemicals to get the cosmo off, but it was much less effort and less toxic to boot.
Sailorcurt [Visitor] responded on 30 Nov 2007 at 7:20 am #
By the way…nice looking rifle. Mine’s not in nearly as good condition…but I like her.
Eric von Michigan [Visitor] responded on 30 Nov 2007 at 7:22 am #
Is that a 91/30? I like! I picked up an M44 a few months ago just because. 7.62×54R is cheap and shoots a giant ball of flame out the naughty end.
Angus Lincoln [Visitor] responded on 30 Nov 2007 at 7:57 am #
Congratulations! She’s a beauty! I was up to the VGS yesterday and adopted her younger sister!Couldn’t resist picking one out of the litter displayed in that wooden crate; born in the same Ishevsk factory, 12 years apart. Christmas portraits will be forthcoming.
Liberty [Member] responded on 30 Nov 2007 at 8:12 am #
I like the tub idea - anything so I don’t have to inhale trippy fumes. Hot water and dish detergent is my kind of solution (though the blow torch would probably be more fun).
It is an M91/30. It’s huge with the bayonet attached. Angus was kind enough to let me fire off a few from his Mosin when we went shooting a few weeks back and I was hooked. Cheap. Purdy. Big boom. (out of the “naughty end” … heh) What’s not to love?
They had another with a laminated stock (don’t know if they still had it when you were there, Angus) which was quite nice, but the markings were much clearer on this one. No cracks in the wood, everything is in excellent shape, and the bolt is nice and smooth.
Now to actually hit a target with it!
Liberty [Member] responded on 30 Nov 2007 at 8:14 am #
And Angus … you take a photo of that thing with a Santa hat on it, send it and I’ll get it up in a heartbeat!