Went to the range and shot my Nagant, seeing corrosive ammo I have to clean it....thus begins the horror...I'm just not used to rifles with wood, but...I am now

Started with cleaning the barrel really good, using the break free barrel cleaner. Man the barrel was sparkling, since I was using the Nagant's rod I was working from the business end. Then I went to clean

up the chamber when I noticed all that break free completely stripped several nice lines off my rifles finish. I assume the 'red' is a lacquer of some type. Well...looking like crap at this point I decided to just

keep it going...heck it worked wonders and didn't raise the grain. Once I completed it I used some teak oil and then a nice rub in of min wax.

Lesson 2 - figured what they hay...never slugged a barrel before, might as well try. Having range scrap I melted it with my torch into a 9mm shell, then my kinetic puller to pop it out. Then my plastic mallet to

hammer it into the barrel. then wooden dowels to get it through the barrel. So the lands measure right at .300, my grooves measure .3115 , So I assume when I decide to reload I should go with 3.11

projectiles?

Anyhow, here are some pictures, the wood actually looks nice, shame they covered it up with that red shellac.

water, hoppes 9, oil

leave break free for the ars not the milsurps. At least you fuked up the finish on a refurb and nothing more valuable. You would be jumping off a bridge if you did that to an authentic pu.

http://forums.gunboards.com/showthread.php?364289-I-screwed-up-the-varnish-on-my-PU-sniper

^ that shit was just from his hands. Lucky he was able to blend it.

Nice 3 line rifle.  You gonna stain it now?  How did it shoot?

If you going to load some Cast I would go .312-.313" with some red det or green dot you would have some nice plinking rounds that would not stress the brass - might get a dozen or more reloadings out of it.

Yeah, that's exactly what I was telling myself. I've got a german mauser and a k31 in my sights for the next year and I'm glad I learned it with this one verses those.

But....it is a shame the ruskies covered up such pretty wood. :-/

She shoots beautiful. First time out with her a few weeks back I had four people at the range all with nagants in their inventory amazed at my 100 yard target with it. I

was in about a 9 inch radius and didn't think that was that great. but they seemed to think it was wonderful for a nagant. Guess maybe because I looked for the best

barrel I could find when I was looking through the crate.

Yea, at this point I may try to redo it back to its original or maybe go with a walnut type stain on it. dunno.....Figure it may be something I do in the next few days after

wood dries out a little more. Run another 220 across it then stain it. Probably do a poly coat afterwards. Heck may even just poly it as is. Perhaps a trip tomorrow to

home depot and see if I find anything I like for stain.

I haven't gotten into casting yet. Once out of this corrosive ammo i'll grab dies and stuff to reload. Just gotta find some reloadable brass for this, or...buy the bullets to make the brass :-) Then i'll get

whatever copper plated I can find. I'm assuming I would need to go .311 in size as 3.12 might cause excess pressure and wear even though it's really smack between the two now. Plus I'd really like to find

a load that works with h335 if possible :-) (since my AR's eat that) but am open to getting other powders if available local.

Lead bullets are generally .001 over the jacketed bullet diameter. Like in .45acp, a jacketed bullet is .451 inch. I size my .45 lead bullets to .452 inch. Your large diameter is .311 so I'd go to .312 to start and maybe .313 if leading is a problem with .312 sized bullets.
I'm sure H335 could work in '54r. Works in 30-06 so why not?

My M91/30 Nagant is the only rifle I have that absolutely refuses to shoot lead bullets accurately.  Has a new barrel and all matching parts, so dunno what's up.  

My old shellac/alcohol finish wore right off to, so I stripped it completely off and redid with MinWax, and Spar Varnish(I think).
The modern finish can be made to mimic the previous period finish, but is WORLDS better and tougher.

I'd copy the old finish too.  What the heck it's a milsurp, may as well look like the real deal.  I might try poly too as you already got the shellac off.  

As far as the mosin not shooting lead well.  You slug your throat and go 0.001 or 0.002" over that diameter?  I'd also check the muzzle end, push a slug in a inch or so and tap it back out.  You might have an issue with the muzzle is more loose than the throat.  That's a bad thing for lead shooters but you might get by with jacketed.  

so went to local HD and seems Cabernet is the close match that I could find for the original color. I may try to stain it and do a satin poly once done. I grabbed some 220, 300 and 400 grit sandpaper while it at to smooth it out.

Get get yourself a proper cleaning rod so you can clean from the breech.
The Mosin's cleaning rod is meant to be used with the muzzle cap/bore guide that you might or might not have gotten as part of the tool kit.
Even if you have all the issued tools, you're still better off pushing a rod through from the breech.
And yes, you'll want .312 bullets. With cast bullets, you might even need to go up to .314 to get best accuracy.

Shellac is a poor finish for a gun stock. It just doesn't hold up very good so, you need to take care.
Ivan was not worried about what the wood looked like. Hell, he didn't really worry so much about the color. I have Mosins with shellac finishes that run from dark red to amber. I like the dark red ones more.
Here is a M44 stock that was given to me. Just about all the shellac was flacked off when I got it so, I used it to practice on.
 

So what product did you use to do that? It looks like original from the pictures. I've got a few more coats to do for mine and i'll post pics, doesnt look like the original since i stained it but I'm liking the color so far. Two more satin poly coats with 400 grit sanding between and i'll be done :-)

If you mean the aerosol Breakfree barrel cleaner then that stuff will melt a lot of things..including the plastic grips on a P-83 pistol...Ask me how I know this...   If it smells like oranges  beware.

The finish is Pine Tar with a Shellac overcoat. Over at Gunboards, a few years ago there was a discussion about the finish on Mosins. Some say that it has always been shellac and others say that oil was used, but what I have seen from guns that show use is that most have very little to no shellac and all have some type of oil finish on them. The ones that have some shellac seem to have some type of under coat. When the action is removed from the stock there is the faint smell of pine tar on most. This is what gave me the idea to apply the finish. It turned out great, but I had no use for the stock. I gave it to a friend in OH. that picked up a M44 with an over sanded stock.