Saturday, January 25, 2014
Bedding the Russian
My goal is to make the Mosin as accurate as possible. To that end, I decided to bed the action. Basically, it comes down to this: every time you fire the gun, the action moves around in the stock. This leads to inconsistent shots. On something like the Mosin, there are huge gaps between the wood and the metal, so it's all over the place. The solution is to bed the action. The basic idea is to fill the gaps in some key areas between the stock and the action so that they move as one piece. They sell special bedding resins, but they're not much more than expensive epoxies. I decided to use tried and true JB Weld. The areas I'm going to bed are the recoil lug and rear tang, both are the areas where the action screws go through the stock. I decided to do the bedding before finishing the stock in case I spilled and had to resand anything. Here I've got the wood cleaned and prepped in the areas I'm going to bed.
I sprayed the action with silicone, and put some heavy coats of wax to keep the JB Weld from sticking to it, mixed up the JB Weld, and screwed everything together. 24 hours later, I pried the action back out of the stock.
After bedding, the action fits like a glove. You can see just how much gap there
was between the stock and the rear tang. Now it's good and solid.
Friday, January 24, 2014
Merry Christmas to the Dodge!
One of the things about this blog is that it usually lags behind real life by a couple weeks. In this instance, the delay is much greater. Not only is it well past Christmas, I actually bought these parts before Thanksgiving when they were on sale. I did buy them as a Christmas present to myself though. Everything was made by Ipsco, a company that specializes in improvement parts for high end cars.
The first one is a practical necessity. It's a billet aluminum power steering pump bracket and pulley set. The stock die cast Viper PS pump bracket is notoriously weak and prone to breaking. The stock plastic PS pulley also has a habit of cracking unexpectedly. Either will ruin your day pretty quick. These aftermarket parts will outlast the car, and give me one less thing to worry about. When I put them on, I'll take pics of the stock parts next to these, and you'll see why they're necessary.
The second thing I bought is also a safety item, and will enhance the driving experience. Anyone who's ever driven it has heard me say "Don't accidentally shift into 2nd when you mean to hit 4th, it doesn't end well." This is because the stock Viper shifter is only "adequate" at best, and not very precise. Without excellent technique, you can easily go 3-2 instead of 3-4, and there's a very good chance you'll end up backwards in a ditch when it happens. Since these cars actively try to kill their drivers, anything to make them easier to drive is welcome. To fix this particular issue, I bought an aftermarket shifter. The Ipsco unit is commonly regarded as the best Viper shifter ever made(never mind the fact that it's the only one currently available that doesn't require modifying the car to install). It also shortens up the shifter throw, so you don't have to move the lever as far between gears making shifts quicker. The more positive action and shorter throw add up to a better(and safer) driving experience.
The first one is a practical necessity. It's a billet aluminum power steering pump bracket and pulley set. The stock die cast Viper PS pump bracket is notoriously weak and prone to breaking. The stock plastic PS pulley also has a habit of cracking unexpectedly. Either will ruin your day pretty quick. These aftermarket parts will outlast the car, and give me one less thing to worry about. When I put them on, I'll take pics of the stock parts next to these, and you'll see why they're necessary.
The second thing I bought is also a safety item, and will enhance the driving experience. Anyone who's ever driven it has heard me say "Don't accidentally shift into 2nd when you mean to hit 4th, it doesn't end well." This is because the stock Viper shifter is only "adequate" at best, and not very precise. Without excellent technique, you can easily go 3-2 instead of 3-4, and there's a very good chance you'll end up backwards in a ditch when it happens. Since these cars actively try to kill their drivers, anything to make them easier to drive is welcome. To fix this particular issue, I bought an aftermarket shifter. The Ipsco unit is commonly regarded as the best Viper shifter ever made(never mind the fact that it's the only one currently available that doesn't require modifying the car to install). It also shortens up the shifter throw, so you don't have to move the lever as far between gears making shifts quicker. The more positive action and shorter throw add up to a better(and safer) driving experience.
Sunday, January 19, 2014
Strip tease
I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a woodworker. Generally speaking, I don't like wood as a building, or decorative, material. So, I don't really do much with it. I decided from the get go that the Mosin would get refinished, and since I don't do it much, I was looking forward to it. For future reference, when planning to strip the varnish off a vintage
Russian rifle, do NOT enter search terms that include the phrase
"stripping old Russian." Most of the results have nothing to do with
firearms...
If you're not familiar with Cosmoline, it is both the most wonderful, and most evil product used on surplus firearms(and surplus material in general). It's a mixture of oil, grease, and wax that melts at around 130°F. When putting guns in long term storage, they get a big vat of it melted, and dunk the whole rifle in. It soaks into everything and penetrates all the cracks and crevices, completely protecting the gun from the elements, and preserving it indefinitely for future use(that's good). That future use being me, I had to remove it all(that's bad). It meant taking everything completely apart because Cosmoline will gum up the action. Since the whole rifle was dunked in it, it also soaked into the stock. The problem is that on a warm day, it will start to weep out of the stock, leaving you with Cosmo covered hands and a messy gun case. It could also cause problems with the new finish. Before I even got started refinishing the stock, I spent two weeks using a heat lamp to sweat Cosmoline out of it.
As shown a few posts ago, the varnish on the stock looked terrible. It was peeling in places, and not very even. It was definitely applied by a Russian peasant, not a master craftsman. I decided to use Citri-Strip brand stripper. I don't care about fumes or being environmentally conscious or any nonsense like that. I chose the Citri-Strip for one big reason: it won't remove bluing from the steel parts left in the stock. Other strippers could. I slathered it on, and the varnish practically melted off as I was putting it on.
It mostly came off in just one coat, but I used two coats with the hope that it might pull more Cosmo out of the wood. Here's how it looked after two coats of stripper. The wood is still discolored in some areas, but it'll be restained anyway(it's still wet here too, so it looks darker than it really is).
If you're not familiar with Cosmoline, it is both the most wonderful, and most evil product used on surplus firearms(and surplus material in general). It's a mixture of oil, grease, and wax that melts at around 130°F. When putting guns in long term storage, they get a big vat of it melted, and dunk the whole rifle in. It soaks into everything and penetrates all the cracks and crevices, completely protecting the gun from the elements, and preserving it indefinitely for future use(that's good). That future use being me, I had to remove it all(that's bad). It meant taking everything completely apart because Cosmoline will gum up the action. Since the whole rifle was dunked in it, it also soaked into the stock. The problem is that on a warm day, it will start to weep out of the stock, leaving you with Cosmo covered hands and a messy gun case. It could also cause problems with the new finish. Before I even got started refinishing the stock, I spent two weeks using a heat lamp to sweat Cosmoline out of it.
As shown a few posts ago, the varnish on the stock looked terrible. It was peeling in places, and not very even. It was definitely applied by a Russian peasant, not a master craftsman. I decided to use Citri-Strip brand stripper. I don't care about fumes or being environmentally conscious or any nonsense like that. I chose the Citri-Strip for one big reason: it won't remove bluing from the steel parts left in the stock. Other strippers could. I slathered it on, and the varnish practically melted off as I was putting it on.
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
No purchase necessary
Many moons ago I dated a girl who worked at a movie theater. Consequently, I was able to acquire a few of their display banners. This is one of them. It's another one of those seemingly run of the mill, yet actually incredibly rare things that I seem to acquire. No one on my Viper forum has one, and some of these guys have memorabilia collection valued at more than their real cars. I never had a reason, or the wall space, to put t up before, I might make some room now. Cingular actually did give away the car pictured on the banner, though I've no idea where it is now.
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
Spam Spam Spam! I don't like Spam!
Most of it anyway. There are some varieties that are acceptable. For instance, this Soviet stuff:
The Soviets didn't put questionable meat products in their Spam cans though, it's bullets. Military surplus bullets. Lots of military surplus bullets. This particular Spam can contains 440 rounds of 7.62x54R for the Mosin, and is dated '89. The best parts is that the whole thing was just over $100 shipped to my door. The only ammo cheaper is .22, and these day's it's not too far off. The only downside to the surplus ammo is that they still use corrosive primers. Cleaning the gun with one of the many water based gun cleaners will neutralize the salts and doing it the same day as shooting it will keep any rust from developing though, so it's not as big a deal as people make it out to be.
Sunday, January 12, 2014
From Russia, with love
After my recent purchase of a .22 dressed as an EBR(Evil Black Rifle as the anti-gun media hype would have you believe), I decided I wanted a gun to shoot long range. Very long range. I decided my target goal would be 450-500 yards. I have an 03A3 30-06, but 30-06 rounds are expensive, and the rifle it's self is in great shape and worth too much to modify. I stared kicking around the idea of another military surplus gun, the Russian Mosin-Nagant. Designed in 1891, it was the standard Russian service rifle up through WWII. Consequently, there were millions of them made. By some reports, including all variants, they made 50 million of them. Every gun shop in the country has got to have at least a dozen on hand at any one time. It uses the 7.62x54R cartridge, a round that has been in constant military use for 120 years. This means bullets are cheap, really cheap. 440 rounds of mil-surp for under $90 cheap. The only thing cheaper is a .22.
Cheap gun, check. Cheap ammo, check. Long range capable, check. Common enough I don't have any qualms modifying it, check. The Mosin fit the bill. A few days before Christmas, I stopped down to the local Gander Mountain just to see what there was to see with no intention of buying anything. I walked out with a new used gun.
On the shelf, they had a relatively rare Tula Armory all serial numbers matching 1932 hex receiver M91/30. It was the only hex receiver they had(later ones have a round receiver, and the war time guns were poorly machined). What really sealed the deal was that they had a rebate on them, so it only cost $130(including bayonet and original Mosin cleaning/tool set).
Given it's age, and the state of the Soviet Union in WWII, there is nearly a 100% chance this rifle has been fired at real, actual Nazis. The bore is acceptable for a Mosin-Nagant(the corrosive military primers typically do a number on them), and the bluing is in great shape. The shellac that the Russians used is in pretty bad shape, discolored and peeling in places, but the wood it's self is great and I plan on refinishing it from the get go anyway.
Cheap gun, check. Cheap ammo, check. Long range capable, check. Common enough I don't have any qualms modifying it, check. The Mosin fit the bill. A few days before Christmas, I stopped down to the local Gander Mountain just to see what there was to see with no intention of buying anything. I walked out with a new used gun.
On the shelf, they had a relatively rare Tula Armory all serial numbers matching 1932 hex receiver M91/30. It was the only hex receiver they had(later ones have a round receiver, and the war time guns were poorly machined). What really sealed the deal was that they had a rebate on them, so it only cost $130(including bayonet and original Mosin cleaning/tool set).
Given it's age, and the state of the Soviet Union in WWII, there is nearly a 100% chance this rifle has been fired at real, actual Nazis. The bore is acceptable for a Mosin-Nagant(the corrosive military primers typically do a number on them), and the bluing is in great shape. The shellac that the Russians used is in pretty bad shape, discolored and peeling in places, but the wood it's self is great and I plan on refinishing it from the get go anyway.
Saturday, January 4, 2014
Two stall shack
Just a quick pic of my garage. There is a "Show your garage" thread on one of the Viper forums I belong to. Some of those guys have amazing garages. The running gag is that I've got the unofficial worst garage on the forum :)
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
Viper Radio
Though the radio worked fine, the stock CD player in my '97 GTS didn't work when I got it. Here's what it would do: any time I turn the ignition on, the player tries to eject a disc, even if no disc is present. When I try to insert a disc, it will not suck the disc in, doesn't matter if the radio is on or off. If I push a disc in, it won't play, but still ejects ok. Any time it ejects, the ejector mechanism click multiple times. Here's a video showing exactly what it's doing:
The sensors that sense when you're putting a CD in are optical, and it seemed that they weren't sensing the CD. Here's what I discovered when I took the head unit apart. I had the CD player section out of the radio chassis(only 4 screws hold the CD player assembly into the radio chassis). The bottom of the CD player has three ribbon cable connecting the CD player to the main radio circuit board. When I pulled them out of their housings, I noticed that there were little dents in the contact surfaces. From the digital speedo in another car of mine, I know that this can cause all sorts of odd behavior. The way these contacts work is that there is a spring loaded "finger" that presses on the cable contact pad. Over time, the spring tension can dent the cable, making contact spotty. I wiggled these cables around a bit, and reassembled everything. Low and behold, it works! Here's a pic of the bottom of the CD player section. You can see dents in the cable. All three of the ribbon cables have similar little cable dents. All you need to do is slide the cables out of the sockets enough so the contact fingers are sitting on a new part of the ribbon. I did this fix back in July, and it's worked perfectly since.
The sensors that sense when you're putting a CD in are optical, and it seemed that they weren't sensing the CD. Here's what I discovered when I took the head unit apart. I had the CD player section out of the radio chassis(only 4 screws hold the CD player assembly into the radio chassis). The bottom of the CD player has three ribbon cable connecting the CD player to the main radio circuit board. When I pulled them out of their housings, I noticed that there were little dents in the contact surfaces. From the digital speedo in another car of mine, I know that this can cause all sorts of odd behavior. The way these contacts work is that there is a spring loaded "finger" that presses on the cable contact pad. Over time, the spring tension can dent the cable, making contact spotty. I wiggled these cables around a bit, and reassembled everything. Low and behold, it works! Here's a pic of the bottom of the CD player section. You can see dents in the cable. All three of the ribbon cables have similar little cable dents. All you need to do is slide the cables out of the sockets enough so the contact fingers are sitting on a new part of the ribbon. I did this fix back in July, and it's worked perfectly since.
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