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Mosin Nagant M44 Sporter
***Disclaimer: No collectible firearms were scavanged from, butchered or altered for this project. This is being built from discarded, rusty/pitted, broken parts obtained through trades, online auctions and trash. Otherwise, parts with no collector value. A few of the parts were bought but not necessarily for a M44. Bubba...Don't do this to your collectible rifle.
This project was initiated by my youngest son, who just turned 9 years old. He has watched me restore rifles that someone has sporterized, as well as collect various military rifles. He has also grown a little tired of watching me build race cars, go-carts and the present '51 Studebaker I started working on. He wanted to "build" something of his own, for when he can go hunting. His mom, my wife, feels he still a little too young yet. Not to mention he isn't one to stay out all day quietly in the woods. We decided to pick something other than a Mauser. There are plenty of them around already sporterized. I had the barreled receiver of a rusty 1952 Polish M44 to start with.
I initially bought an ATI fiberglass stock and scope mount setup for it. After realizing how fast the project would've been done and how much he wouldn't had learned, I changed my mind. I stole the broken and split stock from one of my Russian 91/30's. The butt stock was also slightly warped and cupped. The original Russian 91/30 that was in the broken stock, now temporarily sits in the ATI stock, until I pickup another. It was bought complete, with 98% bluing, with mismatched bolt. This sporter is being done with very little time involved. Unfortunately, I started to take pictures after some of the work was done.
Above is the barreled receiver, right out of a solution safety-clean. It has a couple of spots that are lightly pitted below the wood line. The bayonet lug and the bayonet are still attached. I used naval jelly to strip the rust and the very little remaining bluing. Using naval jelly on this M44 proved to be a mistake. Since it's a low cost or low budget project, cold bluing was the way to go. However, cold bluing left a "marbelizing" or swirling effect to the metal, which we would have to correct later.
Above is the rusty and pitted trigger guard to be used. It's origin is unknown. Got this and the trigger parts from a friend who was going to throw them out. This was after some light sanding with a scotchbrite pad. This was actually the good side.
Above is the all the metal parts re-blued. Like I stated earlier, cold bluing with Oxpho-blue cream caused a "marbelizing" effect. The picture isn't the greatest but that's no longer the case. The trigger guard is blued perfectly. With suggestions from others, we tried boiled tap water and also boiled salt water. That seemed to help but wasn't enough. I then decided to stick all the parts into the oven, set at 275 degrees. We applied the Oxpho-blue cream while the parts were still hot. The cream melted right into the metal. We did that a few times and the results were 99% better. Although not totally perfect, it isn't noticeable. We probably could've prepared the metal better but it's better than good enough.