Thread: Kindling rifle

Here’s one for shits and giggles…

The lads were cleaning out the firewood shed at the homestead, right at the bottom they came across a very sad looking Toz 16. WTF?! Belonged to the grandpa of our old mate who’s in his 60s. So yeah. Been there a long time. Probably last used in anger as a general purpose cosh by the looks of things.

I really regret not taking photos of it in the condition in which it was found, just got into it one day. Bugger! Barrel was blocked all the way down with mud and crap, couldn’t get a cleaning rod down it, not even one inch. Action was seized, bolt was rusted solid, the forend was split and missing about 3x1” of timber down one side.

After some determined soaking and in various solvents and gentle persuasion, the bolt came free, followed in time by the barrel blockage. Opening up the barrel felt like a major win, thought it was tickets. More scrubbing, soaking, cleaning (repeat, many times over), and things started to move ok. The firing pin spring tension was still good, same with the wee trigger spring. Out came the Dremel and the fine wire wheels, then the metal polish. The barrel wasn’t pitted! Couldn’t quite believe that. Rubbed down the metal work with 400 / 800 / 1200 grit wet & dry, also no pitting. Amazing.

Had to bubba the front end of the stock as no way to recover that split forend. Still plenty of timber to hang onto. But the rest of it came up fine with a simple sand and oil (repeat 4 times).

Polished the woeful trigger components until creep was gone, not too bad now.

Test day came round this morning… Shoots minute of magpie at 50 yds no bother! Result!

Made in the USSR in the 1940s probably, anyone get any better idea on the likely date range?

Good fun little project for a rainy couple of days, pleased it worked out. Great to shoot cans with this with my boys. It’s going back to our old mate soon, nice.