Yesterday I took the Argentine Mauser receiver out of the WD-40 bath and knocked off the major crud with a few taps of a rubber mallet. After this initial removal, I went out and sprayed the part down with some heavy duty oven cleaner. This sounds super ghetto, but the person who told me to do it has been a gunsmith for 45 years and never has a lack of work. The first couple pics of the part on the white rack are with the foaming, caustic spray on there.
After rinsing off the oven cleaner, I dried the part as well as I could and went to work with the sand blast cabinet. Now, my compressor is small and cannot really stand up the rigors of sandblasting for any sort of extended period. Now, I know the part is nowhere near completely clean as I was only trying to free up the action. The bolt release is still stuck shut, so I might have to end up drilling out the screw and knocking the part off.
I am not going to invest any money into the part until I can confirm that the mating surfaces inside the barrel threads and where the locking lugs of the bolt (the thing you crank down to lock the round in the chamber) are fitting well. At a minimum, this will be good practice for me in metal preparation and surface restoration. The stamp is beyond saving as can be seen, but I am sure I can make a good use of the parts somehow.
Good times.
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