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usnmars

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Posts posted by usnmars


  1. Here is an old 1873 Trapdoor Cavalry Carbine that i picked up cheap recently because it looked like a wall hanger.  It was crudded up pretty darn good, the lock wouldn't work and it was seized up.  Into the electrolysis tank it went this morning.  After a little "bath" it came out in awesome condition with a mirror bore.  So tomorrow I am going to let this old guy bark for the first time in probably a hundred years.

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  2. Sometimes we get a firearm that is a little on the "cruddy side."  Well rather than buff the heck out of it with steel wool, or a wire wheel I tend to like to use electrolysis to clean.  This is great if you have a historic firearm and you want to remove rust and gunk and not scrub it to look new.  This process will leave original bluing, and most of the patina and it comes out looking like it hasn't been cleaned.  You will need a plastic tub that can fit the gun, a piece of rebar,  and a battery charger.  I followed the instructions on this site and the results are amazing.  http://www.surplusrifleforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=80&t=103161

    I recently did this to the old Civil War Musket from Appomattox to help preserve it.  The rust that was on it was active and needed to be neutralized or the gun would just keep on rusting.  I did not want to remove the patina, or have it look pimp shined so I decided to do electrolysis.  Here is a before pic of the lock and an after.  Also some of the proof marks showed up after cleaning that you couldn't see before.  The electrolisys process also cleans the bore so a nasty looking bore can come out looking great.  The Appomattox rifle ended up having a mirror bore, and my gunsmith said it was the best he's seen on a civil war gun.  It ends up that the gun is actually shootable! 

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    BEFORE

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    AFTER

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  3. do your accurizing before you load test.  They overall tend to prefer a little bit of shimming under the nose cap on the stock.  I use a piece of leather and this gives about 5lbs upward pressure on the barrel, do a little shimming on the receiver end too.  Trigger jobs are easy.  Do your accurizing prior to shooting for accuracy. 


  4. reloading a mosin is quite fun especially when you find "THE LOAD."  You must remember that the surplus spam cans on the market now are not held to any tight tolerances as most of the ammo was intended for the PKM machine gun.  There was a sale a year or so ago when they were selling Lapua brass for $20 per hundred IIRC, needless to say I stocked up.  I have found that all of my mosins love the .308 Hornady 150gr SST's and some 4895 quite well.  Even though the bullet is technically undersize, for some odd reason they love that load.  I initially made the combination as a semi joke to mess with a friend when he couldn't hit the broadside of a barn, but I was shocked what it did.  By all accounts this load should not shoot at all but it shoots like a dream. 

     

    This group was from the day I discovered the dream load, shot out of my PU sniper that slugs .311  This is 10 shots at 100 before I adjusted the sights to match, this was just checking grouping. 

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  5. OK, I get asked all the time how the heck do I find some of the guns that I find at such killer prices.  The number one key is to recognize a diamond in the rough.  Like my dad told me when I went to get my first car and he didn't help pay for it, "you'll appreciate it more when you have to work for it."  This mentality holds true for the gun world also.  I went to an auction yesterday and picked up some guns cheap, almost giving them away cheap.  But the ones I was snagging people were asking why, why would someone want that thing.  Well as long as the bores are good, you can fix everything else up fine.  The first thing I do when I see a gun I like, no matter the condition it is in, is to look at the bore.  Wood can be replaced, repaired, or refinished.  Metal can be parkerized, blued, or re polished.  But once a bore is toast, there is no going back.  So as an example I picked up this Lithgow Enfield for far less than $100 yesterday, people laughed when I got it.  But sure enough the bore is a friggin mirror, the gun just really needs to be cleaned.  I will post some after pics but I assure the gun looks mint to my eye, almost perfect.  Once I clean it up and post pics, you will see my vision :)   Just be on the lookout for a dirty, ugly gun.  What can you make out of it, can you rework it to look purdy?  I picked up an original Krag Carbine yesterday for $175 because it looked like a turd, I got it home and wiped it down and its a real gem. 

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  6. I bought a few of these a while back and never had a chance to use them.  I went to a gun auction yesterday and picked up a bunch of new toys and started cleaning them.  The Remington Squeeg-E is the best invention in gun cleaning since HOPPES or M-pro.  These things drastically limit your use of patches, I still patch afterwards to pick up any residue left but this took care of 90% of the gunk.  I only used maybe 1 or 2 patches per gun.  I use them on a cleaning rod because I cannot stand pull throughs so they work great on a rod. 

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    http://www.cheaperthandirt.net/product/75107?utm_source=GoogleShopping&utm_medium=organic&gclid=COmSmqbLlbwCFSvxOgodQAkANg


  7. Well I brought it over to a well respected civil war collector and he was wanting it bad.  It seems like the note has a possibility of being written in the early 1900's to help preserve the history and some details got mish mashed.  The bayonet is legit Confederate, it matched 100% to an example in his books.  Its a Preston made in Manchester UK and has an extremely light engraving of a number on the socket and a tiny stamped anchor.   According to the book he had it showed all the characteristics of a Confederate bayo.  The rifle was of the right time period, and considering I paid less than $100 for it he is guessing the note wasn't put on by a humper trying to get more money.  Hmmm, gotta love a mystery. 

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