I took my surplus Yugoslavian Mauser (M48A) down to the range for the first time yesterday, loaded her up, chambered a round, pulled the trigger and...nothing. Well, that was disappointing, I thought. I tried a few more rounds - a mix of old military surplus ammo and more recent commercial-manufactured cartridges - and no kaboom. Where, I wondered, is the earth-shattering kaboom? The trigger felt very sloppy, and barely made an audible click when I pulled it. The primers were showing exceedingly light strikes, so there was a firing pin, it just wasn't moving with sufficient force to ignite the primer and send the projectile on its way.
I researched the problem on the internet for awhile, and found out, after taking apart the bolt assembly, that the interior workings - firing pin, firing pin spring, cocking unit - were absolutely slathered with cosmoline, a rust preventative frequently applied to military and police surplus firearms that are bound for long periods of storage. I never saw a trace of the stuff on the outside of the rifle, even on the visible part of the bolt and the magazine follower, but, sure enough, the bolt's innards were coated so thickly that the rifle didn't function. So, I soaked the bolt assembly in mineral spirits, reassembled the bolt (a major pain in the gluteus maximus which required an assist from Mrs. Paco's brain to figure out), cocked the rifle, dry-fired it and heard a resoundingly loud click, as God intended for there to be. Today I returned to the range and was rewarded with an enormous kaboom! (quite a few, actually). The rifle is accurate and the recoil is not as bad as I thought it was going to be (I was a bit concerned because the rifle features a stainless steel butt plate). This rifle is going to make a great regular shooter.
3 comments:
Yeah, cosmoline is SO MUCH FUN!, isn't it?
I had a Mosin-Nagant once, and it came out of the box completely covered in cosmoline. Including the stock. Getting that cleaned was a stone cold, er, issue. Even the barrel was full.
I use a citrus based cleaner for the wood stock, but I cheated on the metal components -- I poured boiling water over them. Once, and the grease was largely gone. A bit hazardous if any of the water splashed onto me, which it didn't.
No need to dry the metal, the water steamed right off But I used a typical rifle solvent, immediately after the metal had cooled to where I could touch it, followed by a light coat of oil.
The Mauser design is very reliable -- I think it's easier to count the number of militaries which did NOT use that rifle type. Some collectors go around tryng to get an example of each.
One of the M1 Carbines I got from CMP was heavily dosed with cosmoline (it was an Italian turn-in). First I ran hot water into the downstairs tub and dunked the action in it for maybe five minutes. Pulled it out, not only was there still lots of the gunk in it, but the tub had a horrible brown ring. And I laughed.
Then laughed some more, because I was having a Jeff Foxworthy moment: "If you ever leave a ring of cosmoline in the bath tub, and your first reaction is to laugh, you might be a bachelor!"
Anyway I turned the oven to low heat, put the action on a foil lined baking sheet,and put it in for a half hour. Everything had run out so all I needed was to wipe it all with Hoppe's #9 and then with come CLP.
By the way, the tub cleaned up just fine with Clorox spray.
Previously, my experience with cosmoline has been limited to a couple of ComBloc pistols. Mineral spirts work great, but hot water is good, too. Some people use brake-cleaning fluid. I think getting it out of a wood stock would be the trickiest part. You can out it in the oven, as Steve did, or leave it outside on a tarp in the sunshine.
For me, one of the greatest challenges I ever had, with respect to firearms, was getting the firing pin assembly out of, and then back in, a Yugo M57 Tokarev-style pistol. I did that prior to soaking the parts in mineral spirits. Ain't ever taking that thing out again!
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