New Makarov, New Questions

[sterno]

After all of the helpful advice I received here and from Makarov.com (which someone here refered me to), I purchased a Bulgarian Makarov just afer hours ago. It was a pretty good deal, $179 for the Mak in really good shape just some holster wear, an extra magazine, the original "star" grips, another set of black grips with a thumb shelf, an extra grip screw, and the screwdriver/cleaning rod.

I very happy about it.

I have one question right now. It came with this really thick lube on it, I guess it's cosmoline or something. Should I clean all that off before I go shoot it?

I'm off to look up the serial number and find out when it was made...

Look's like it was made in 1988.

 

[Eric Larsen]

You have to detail strip it. The easy way to do it is tear it down and either boil it....yes boil it until all the cosmoline floats to the top of the water or an easier way is to buy a can of break cleaner and spray the crap out of it.
Make sure to get the Firing Pin / chamber clean. Thats critical.
Shoot well............Eric

 

[tanstaafl4y]

Yep thats cosmoline and you sure need to remove it before you shoot. Run a search here to find a million and 2 ideas on how to remove cosmoline. Pay careful attention to cheaning the firing pin chanel. I have a Bulg mak and its a blast to shoot.

 

[sterno]

Well, bye bye cosmoline. According to some info I found around here I found that Simple Green works wonders for removing that nasty stuff...and it works great! No more cosmoline and my Mak is clean, lubed, and ready to be shot.

Thanks again for all the help!