I picked up a Russian M44 at the gunshow yesterday.  The blueing and wood were great, it was the best looking one in the show.  I gave a quick peek down the bore and saw sharp rifling, so I jumped on it...$89.  

When I got home and stripped it down I noticed the gritty stuff I thought was cosmoline was not coming out after about 20 patches.  It looks like sandpaper in between the grooves(which are very dark).  

Is this "pitting".  If so , is it not safe to shoot?  I'm pretty pissed, the guy said it was unissued.   Does anyone know of a website that has pictures of various degrees of bore conditions and a good explanation of how to properly check one?  
Thanks

btt

Sounds like RUST to me. The good news?? You'll find the pitting under the rust! OH, ya may wanna post this over in the firearms forum, this is the fun forum!

 You may be able to polish out some of the worst of it with auto polishing compound.  It is safe to shoot, but very likely will be inaccurate.  Good luck.

Pitting by itself does not necessarily make a barrel inaccurate.  However, it does mean that the barrel will foul much faster and, once the barrel is fouled, accuracy will decrease.

It’s safe to shoot once you’ve scrubbed the rust out.  Otherwise, the rust actually decreases the bore diameter a bit and can jack up pressures (though your barrel doesn’t really sound that bad).  

While normally a bad idea, running a stainless steel bore brush through this barrel a few times would be a good way of getting the rust out.  Depending on how bad the rust is, you may need to pull the brush through the barrel rather than trying to push it through.

Agree with Beer_Slayer: scrub it with bore paste – this should smooth things out a bit and keep it from fouling quite so quickly.

Keep the barrel clean and you probably won’t have any problems at all (it’s not like a M44 is a match rifle anyway!).

For the price, it still sounds like you got a pretty good gun.