hey guys i bought a 1939 tula 91/30 off of a classified here in MI . its in ok shape , paid $80 for it and 60 rounds of new ammo (40 Olympic and 20wolf) . it shoots but i can hardly keep in on a piece of paper from 40 yards benched . from 15 yards knelling best i can do is keep it in two inches .
after shooting and a good cleaning i examined the crown . its is extremely worn . its not been counter bored . the bore is great up until the last inch or two . what should i do ? i wanted to build a clone PU sniper but now i don't think i want to due to the bore . if i can get it counter bored would it shoot any better ? i will get some pictures up in a few minutes .
edit here are the pictures .
edit got better pics , i think it may not be as bad as i thought , it may just need the crown touched up .
what is a good solvent to clean it up a bit better with ? it looks like it may still need some more cleaning .
The first thing you should do of course is give it a thorough cleaning. I start with Hoppes #9. I then use a product called Butches Bore Shine,which removes among other things copper. I then run Shooters Choice copper remover,then Shooters Choice lead remover,then JB bore polish,then finish up again with Hoppes #9,repeating the cycle except for the JB Bore Polish until it gets clean. You want to do the polish sparingly. On one of mine I spent 6 hours on it and I'm still getting blue patches from the copper removers and black patches from the others. Do not let many of these soak in your barrel for more than a 10 or 15 minutes,they are very aggressive. Once I have the whole thing clean,I run a patch lightly moistened with Shooters Choice FP10 oil down the bore to protect it.
Many of these things have layers of crud built up. I noticed that I would think I have all the crud out because a Hoppes patch is coming out clean,then I run a patch soaked with copper cleaner down it and it comes out blue. I keep going until those patches come out clean and go back to Hopes and it comes out black. When that one finally comes out clean,the copper cleaners come out blue again.
One thing to keep in mind is its a crap shoot what you find underneath. Ive found some nice,and some not so nice. I have a Mauser that came out in between. The rifling is strong and sharp,but the bore has a frosted look. It shoots just fine though.
The second thing to do is to slug the bore. First,do NOT use a cleaning rod,especially the steel cleaning rod. Get a 1/4" wooden dowel and use that. Get yourself a piece of 00 unplated lead buckshot and a good micrometer or set of calipers as well as a length of 5/16" dowel a few inches long as well as a small block of wood,like a 6" section of a 2x4. Take the piece of buckshot and start it down the front of the bore using the 5/16" dowel. I find that the 5/16" works better to start it than the 1/4 because its stiffer,but don't insert it more than 1/4" or so or you wont be able to get it out. You just want to use it to get the buck shot fully in the bore. Now take the 1/4" dowel and use it to drive the buck shot through the bore. If you need to tap it through,use the block of wood,not a metal hammer. Its nice soft pine. Once the buckshot falls out the other end,you will see the rifling engraved into it. Measure across the high spots,and that's your bore diameter. Mine range from 311-312. That is typical. Some are smaller,some are larger. Finnish ones are often 308.
Now measure the ammo your shooting. An example of the issues with bore diameter is that many reloading manuals specify .308 bullets for 7.62x54R. (perhaps because it will work in the Finnish one without creating too much pressure) Some commercial ammo may be like this as well,but I don't really know because Ive gone to hand loads. I use 303 caliber bullets for mine. I know that some companies (Hornady for instance) makes a 7.62 caliber bullet,but those are .310. 303 comes out to .311 (there are some available in .312 too).
