Melonite a Mosin?

So I have a friend who is going to be sending out a lot of stuff to H&R for meloniting/QPQ nitriding and he says if I pay shipping there and back I can throw some stuff in up to the 50 lbs limit of the lot, which would leave me about 12 pounds and change of stuff to send off.

Soooo....

I have a round receiver M44 that has a beautiful bore, and shoots great, but the finish is beat to living shit, like it looks like it was dragged behind a truck or something.

I am thinking, of sending the barrelled action out, among other things, to be treated after smoothing out the dings and polishing her up nice.

I have had a few guns done, including a vz-2008 that came back GREAT as well as my leatherman minus blades and bushings and the removable wire cutters, and all of them came back looking and functioning great and so hard I can't scratch them with a file.

Is this desecrating the gun? After all is said and done it will look nearly exactly like very dark shiny polished bluing on an SKS barrel, only be hard as a rock and be inside the bore as well as outside, making it nearly impervious to the corrosive ammo I'll be shooting out of it, as well as keeping the bore in shooting shape for my kids down the line.

I really want to do this, and think I've talked myself into it, but would like some other opinions.

One other good thing about the process is that it will make it very unlikely that headspace issues will arise on the part of the recesses in the barrel. I could probably get the bolt minus springs and firing pin done as well, but i don't want to chance that even though there are people who say it's safe, and I have a couple AR-15 bolts that are nitrided that work great.

What do you guys think?

After it's finished it should look externally IDENTICAL to how it did when it was new, other than being much much much more wear resistant and nearly rust proof

I'm told the steel they make the russian mosins out of is especially conducive to meloniting.

Go for it. If it were cost effective, I would have one done in a heart beat.

Do it, and post pictures when it comes back.

Love to see it myself

Would the melonite help with corrosion resistance from surplus ammo? I have heard both yes and no?

I'd be interested if it's possible to melonite a 75yo barrel that's been dirty most of its life. I know there was a company that was meloniting suppressors a couple years ago and they stopped the service (in part) because it was so hard to get the parts clean enough to treat.

I have a melonited Adams Arms upper in 5.45x39 that I shot Russian surplus 7N6M out of, without cleaning for a few days. The piston was seized up from the corrosive ammo and I could see a small amount of rust starting to form. I don't know if all nitrocarburizing processes would react like this or not.

dude, you are really on this melonting/nitriding thing lately, eh?

bluesmike said:

I have a melonited Adams Arms upper in 5.45x39 that I shot Russian surplus 7N6M out of, without cleaning for a few days. The piston was seized up from the corrosive ammo and I could see a small amount of rust starting to form. I don't know if all nitrocarburizing processes would react like this or not.

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I had the same problem with my AA upper a couple times. You've got to be fairly uptight about making sure you clean out the piston cup after shooting - even just pulling the piston until you can find time to clean it is a good idea. There is some irony that by protecting the expensive bits (BCG, barrel, etc.) you wind up moving the corrosion issue to somewhere that can be slightly more sensitive to it. Makes me appreciate those long-piston actions a bit more! Plus side, I don't know about yours, but mine shoots like a house on fire, even with 7N6. Had a great time on the 100yd range with it yesterday.

I don't see a problem with meloniting a particularly-beloved Mosin, but it's not going to be magic protection against corrosion.

I'm more of a purist when it comes to this sort of thing but if the finish is already bad now then I guess it's not a big deal if it's just a common import M44. However, I would like to see some pictures of the rifle before hand and possibly make a determination whether it is something rare or uncommon. Do you know what date the rifle is? Matching serial numbers? Import marked?

All too often I see nice rare rifles that have been ruined because somebody thinks it's something that's a dime a dozen. I'm not saying that's the case with you though.

I am definitely interested, try it out,and post pictures to us of the result. I would like to know the cost of the treatment. I might try it myself if I get a 91/30 again and shoot corrosive. Right now I just have a Finn M91 and M39 that I just shoot reloads to preserve the bores from corrosive ammo.

Remove the barrel before having it nitrided or melonited. or it may loosen when shooting. When AR barrels are melon item with the barrel extension installed the loosen badlt.

I have an unissued M39 I have not shot yet. I would love to get it done. Where did you get your VZ doe, and where do you have the barrel removed? I doubt it is something I could do.

denimdan85 said:

Would the melonite help with corrosion resistance from surplus ammo? I have heard both yes and no?

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I have a melonited barrel in my family blaster rifle that lives at the family camping property and is used hard by pretty much everyone who stays there.

Since there is no electricity it stays in a locker with no temp/humidity control, and it has been fired many times with corrosive ammo with poor cleaning.

The rest of the rifle has rust on it in places, both cosmetic and pitting.

The barrel has literally not a speck of rust.

Sirex said:

I have an unissued M39 I have not shot yet. I would love to get it done. Where did you get your VZ doe, and where do you have the barrel removed? I doubt it is something I could do.

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if you can press out an ak barrel, you can remove a vz barrel. It is not hard at all as long as you have a press and a soft piece of metal

clandestine said:

Remove the barrel before having it nitrided or melonited. or it may loosen when shooting. When AR barrels are melon item with the barrel extension installed the loosen badlt.

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thanks for the advice, I had the same thought.

Will inquire with the provider if they can do that since I gave it the old college try and it will not budge AT ALL.

SWO Daddy said:

I'd be interested if it's possible to melonite a 75yo barrel that's been dirty most of its life. I know there was a company that was meloniting suppressors a couple years ago and they stopped the service (in part) because it was so hard to get the parts clean enough to treat.

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apparently as long as you get all the copper out it's fine, and the bore looks AMAZING on this rifle, and it shoots better than any mosin I've ever had- it just looks like shit on the outside.

Love to know what happened to this rifle

I'm going to do what I did with my last send-ins, clean the crap out of it with copper solvent and send her on in for processing with the company's ultrasonic/copper removal rigmarole.

So far everything's been peaches except one barrel that came back with a burr in the rifling that we didn't catch, and that was shredding bullets left and right when it came back.

bluesmike said:

I have a melonited Adams Arms upper in 5.45x39 that I shot Russian surplus 7N6M out of, without cleaning for a few days. The piston was seized up from the corrosive ammo and I could see a small amount of rust starting to form. I don't know if all nitrocarburizing processes would react like this or not.

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I have not seen any tendency to rust so far on any of my nitrided parts/guns other than some stainless, and that has something to do with chromium that is not in solution as carbides that would naturally form a passivation layer being bound in some kind of lattice that leaves it's electric potential such that it promotes galvanic corrosion, but this problem has been solved, just make sure you tell the company your part is stainless and they treat it with a different process using lower heat or something, and it's working well if smith and wessons newer M&Ps are any indication

I have fired Yugo brass cased corrosive ammo, as well as old Tula Cartridge Works corrosive ammo through my camp blaster rifle, which is an AK build with a nitrided barrel by buddy and I put together, and it has shown no tendency to rust at all.

Maybe the piston is not treated? I don't know.

I got an adams arms retrofit kit, and the piston appears to be stainless or something.

protegeV said:

dude, you are really on this melonting/nitriding thing lately, eh?

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You have NO IDEA. I have been so impressed with it that it's ridiculous. It just wears so well, shoots so accurately, and cleans so easily, all while protecting the inside AND outside of the barrel. I love it.

Sirex said:

I have an unissued M39 I have not shot yet. I would love to get it done. Where did you get your VZ doe, and where do you have the barrel removed? I doubt it is something I could do.

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H&M metal processing is the vendor we are curretnly using, but WMD and others are doing the process as well, go wherever you can get a good deal if the reviews are good. Mimi trutec did a couple jobs for some friends and I, but the turnaround time was long and communication was not the best. Also, I do not think they do inidividual loads anymore, and may not be processing firearms at all.

Alright, I've decided I will be sending her out, and will pass her down through the generations!

MilsurpDan said:

I'm more of a purist when it comes to this sort of thing but if the finish is already bad now then I guess it's not a big deal if it's just a common import M44. However, I would like to see some pictures of the rifle before hand and possibly make a determination whether it is something rare or uncommon. Do you know what date the rifle is? Matching serial numbers? Import marked?

All too often I see nice rare rifles that have been ruined because somebody thinks it's something that's a dime a dozen. I'm not saying that's the case with you though.

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Not matching, not completely anyways, and it does have an import mark on it- if i have my mark right it's an izzy.

I am going to obliterate the import markings while removing the deeper knicks and dings around that area. I'll see if I can post a picture, although she's in pieces right now.