A friend called yesterday after picking up a Yugo SKS and invited me out to his farm for a little shooting and a cook-out. Being such a beautiful day I couldn't pass on the offer. I grabbed my favorite Chicom SKS, couple of pouches of loaded strippers, a can of mixed ammo and for the hell of it grabbed a few old USA detachables (just in case) and headed for Hocking county. Another friend was already there and their neighbor was supposed to be coming over.

My buddy paid quite a bit for the Yugo but it was a real beauty. Stunningly attractive to be honest. We were taking pot-shots at a couple of old out buildings towards the back of his property when his neighbor showed up with an SAR1. We sat around BS'ing while we ate and the neighbor mentions that he has a .223 AK at home that he only had 2 mags for. He said he'd tried to trade it in towards the SAR but the gun store only offered him $100, he figured he could get more for it so he wanted to sell it and buy an SKS "because he likes 7.62x39 better". I told him I'd be willing to take a look at it and after we finished eating he drove home to get it.

He came back carrying what appeared to be an 84s but turned out to be an NHM90 in pre-ban clothes. His 2 mags were a 5 and 15 rounder. I told him I had one similar and we got to talking. He said he couldn't find "clips" anywhere and I told him they're pretty easy to find on the internet. I told him they usually run $30 or more and the look in his eyes told me I'd soon be the owner of yet another NHM. He only had one box of ammo and I had a couple of boxes of varmint ammo in my truck so we shot up what we had. Shot just fine. At that point I was ready to throw a little more lead so I popped the trigger group out of my old Chicom and grabbed one of the USA mags. Dude was quite impressed. (Do you see where this is going? )

After a little haggling, he was the proud owner of an SKS and I was now the proud owner of yet another Norinco .223. It isn't in mint condition externally, the wood set is near perfect but the gas block has some discoloration from rust (I'm assuming), the bolt carrier has a fair amount of rust as well as the receiver. (not like old car rust, more like it had been put away wet a few times). The bore appears excellent,the fire control group looks fresh. I'm happy, sure that Chicom was my favorite blaster but I have another...

On the way home it hit me, the gun had probably never seen a 30 round mag! He'd gotten the gun from his brother cheap due to the mag situation. It's sitting here with a 30 rounder in it, I think it's happy now too!

I'm pretty sure I can clean the bolt carrier up with Naval Jelly but what about the rust on the bluing? When oiled it's not extremely noticable, but I wiped it dry and there are little pocks of rust on the receiver. I can live with it to a degree, none of my AK's are "perfect" but I'd like to clean her up a little.

Find some "Bull Frog". It will take care of that rust. Sounds like you did OK.

I'll have to see if I can find this "Bull Frog", I'm assuming it's safe to use on a blued surface? There are a couple of hardwares a few miles from where I'm working today, I'll have to hit a gunshop tonite for the cold blue, have to check Brownell's site too.

Gonna have to get some US parts and some mags,I sold some of mine to a friend who bought a .223 MAK off an auction site. I suppose I'll be kicking myself for that all day!

Oh well, I can't really complain.

I don't know what 'Bullfrog' is, but anything that will remove rust by chemical action will also remove blue (Naval Jelly, anything containing phosphoric acid). On a factory hot-blued polished surface you can use extra-fine steel wool with an oily solvent like 'P-B Blaster' or other penetrant - be gentle! On a matte blued surface, it will be hard to get the rust off without making a shiny spot. You can get a bottle of cold blue at Wal-Mart. Look for Birchwood-Casey products.

Well whatta ya know, it's raining again.

Thanks for the advice, I definitely wasn't gonna use the Naval Jelly on anything but the bolt carrier. Well, plenty of time to hit the local gun shop and hardware...

#@*!@#-#$%# rain!!
From the forecast it appears I'll have plenty of time to mess with this project.