who shoots corrosive ammo?

[Knobgoblin]

Mam Tom and cosmoline taste great together.

 

[40Garand]

When I was raised up early with firearms the boomers were still in corrosive mode even though I was not buying or shooting corrosive ammo. They beat it into me that I had to clean every gun I used after every outing, no exception. Well I don't quite adhere to those practices. Certain guns like 10-22s for example get a bore snake. a teeny tiny bit of oil if needed, and a good wipe down. I don't clean them until they stop shooting. I've yet to roach a 10-22 under those conditions.

 

[CLT65]

Back in the '90s a neighbor brought me an SKS that was "jammed up". It has an empty case stuck tight in the chamber. I pounded the case out, then brushed and polished the rust out of the chamber and gas system. Chinese SKSs have chrome lined barrels, but the chamber and gas cylinder can sure rust if left long enough. I told him all about corrosive ammo and how to properly clean after using it. He assured me he would.

Months later he brought it over again, "Jammed up" again. Once again I cleaned it up for him and told him about cleaning after corrosive- "Oh yeah, forgot about that..." The third time he brought it to me, I told him I'd charge him to clean it up. It wasn't too long after that, he went through a really nasty divorce and sold me all five SKSs that he had (one for each of his kids, he told me), and a very large quantity of Chinese ammo in sealed tins, for CHEAP. I ended up passing on the rifles to friends, for cheap (I'm not a gun dealer), but wish I'd held onto some of that ammo. I went through a LOT of it back in the day.

 

[rjmt]

me to

View attachment 1130475

I have a half dozen boxes of this LVE 54R 200 gn match ammo

I'm told it shoots exceptionally out of the Finn M28 with the Sig barrels

haven't tried it yet - next range day

 

[PORSCHE928S4]

it pertains to older surplus military ammo with corrosive chemicals in the primers

leaves salts in your barrel and chamber after firing

lots of ways to neutralize the salts, including human urine, just check on line and choose your favorite

but you need to clean your firearm immediately after shooting

Pee on it sounds like the cheapest most environmentally friendly way to do it therefore I'm in!

 

[rjmt]

Pee on it sounds like the cheapest most environmentally friendly way to do it therefore I'm in!

OK, I'm an old guy
you drink the water from your canteen, then at the end of the day piss down the barrel of your Garand, Mosin or AK to neutralize the salts from your corrosive primers
in the end, it's just water

 

[osprey]

Pissing down the barrel of an AK sounds like a SOP, I can't quite get behind that regimen for a Fal.

 

[PORSCHE928S4]

Pissing down the barrel of an AK sounds like a SOP, I can't quite get behind that regimen for a Fal.

No pee on the Fal got it lol just Ruskie stuff

 

[gmerkt]

About ten years ago, I had a chance to buy nearly a thousand rounds of Austrian 8x56R ammo very inexpensively. Here's what prepping / hoarding will get you: It was dug up from the back yard of an old guy who'd buried it for "The Day." It was buried in some kind of USGI hard plastic munitions containers. When I say munitions, something bigger than small arms stuff. The containers still had mud and tufts of grass on them.

This ammo was all headstamped 1938. All corrosive. It had a positive ignition rate of about 95%. But the Austrian M1895 Steyr Mannlicher rifles had a convenient tab on the back of the bolt to address this. When you had a misfire, you just thumbed back that tab and started over again. Most of them would fire second time around.

Most of my Austrian rifles had pretty scuzzy bores. I dutifully washed them out with water, then cleaned with solvent, then oiled them. I had about three that had been rebarreled in the 1930's with fairly decent bores. The couple of long rifles I'd had, those had horrible bores but actually shot reasonably well. By WW1 standards and distances of 2,000 Schritt, anyway.

 

[SonicBlue03]

Water. Thats all it takes, I don't get why many have to overcomplicate cleaning after corrosive ammo.

Jim Fuller told me to "just throw it in the river after putting a case of corrosive through it" after I got my first AKM from him. I've kept that in mind ever since.

 

[SonicBlue03]

Back in the '90s a neighbor brought me an SKS that was "jammed up". It has an empty case stuck tight in the chamber. I pounded the case out, then brushed and polished the rust out of the chamber and gas system. Chinese SKSs have chrome lined barrels, but the chamber and gas cylinder can sure rust if left long enough. I told him all about corrosive ammo and how to properly clean after using it. He assured me he would.

Months later he brought it over again, "Jammed up" again. Once again I cleaned it up for him and told him about cleaning after corrosive- "Oh yeah, forgot about that..." The third time he brought it to me, I told him I'd charge him to clean it up. It wasn't too long after that, he went through a really nasty divorce and sold me all five SKSs that he had (one for each of his kids, he told me), and a very large quantity of Chinese ammo in sealed tins, for CHEAP. I ended up passing on the rifles to friends, for cheap (I'm not a gun dealer), but wish I'd held onto some of that ammo. I went through a LOT of it back in the day.

His name wasn't Dean Mellberg, was it?

 

[Tony617]

 

[CLT65]

His name wasn't Dean Mellberg, was it?

No, never heard of him

 

[CLT65]

About ten years ago, I had a chance to buy nearly a thousand rounds of Austrian 8x56R ammo very inexpensively. Here's what prepping / hoarding will get you: It was dug up from the back yard of an old guy who'd buried it for "The Day." It was buried in some kind of USGI hard plastic munitions containers. When I say munitions, something bigger than small arms stuff. The containers still had mud and tufts of grass on them.

This ammo was all headstamped 1938. All corrosive. It had a positive ignition rate of about 95%. But the Austrian M1895 Steyr Mannlicher rifles had a convenient tab on the back of the bolt to address this. When you had a misfire, you just thumbed back that tab and started over again. Most of them would fire second time around.

Most of my Austrian rifles had pretty scuzzy bores. I dutifully washed them out with water, then cleaned with solvent, then oiled them. I had about three that had been rebarreled in the 1930's with fairly decent bores. The couple of long rifles I'd had, those had horrible bores but actually shot reasonably well. By WW1 standards and distances of 2,000 Schritt, anyway.

I was just shooting My Steyr M95 carbine today. Actually my 16yo son shot it more than I did, went through about 30 rounds busting clay targets off the 50yd berm. The bore in mine is shiny perfect. I don't shoot the surplus in it anymore though; that stuff kicks the daylilghts out of you in the short rifle. I reload using powder coated cast bullets, loaded much lighter, makes it very nice to shoot. I converted a bunch of surplus brass to boxer and it works well.

I have to be honest, I don't particularly enjoy cleaning guns, and often they go into the safe without a good cleaning, if I didn't use corrosive. I have learned the hard way to at least run an oil patch through the bore though.

 

[gmerkt]

I was just shooting My Steyr M95 carbine today. Actually my 16yo son shot it more than I did, went through about 30 rounds busting clay targets off the 50yd berm. The bore in mine is shiny perfect. I don't shoot the surplus in it anymore though; that stuff kicks the daylilghts out of you in the short rifle. I reload using powder coated cast bullets, loaded much lighter, makes it very nice to shoot. I converted a bunch of surplus brass to boxer and it works well.

I've been down all those roads when I had the Austrian rifles. First one I had 1965-69. Then I bought more in the late 1990's when the big bunch came from Bulgaria by way of Canada. Yes, shooting service ammo through them is brutal. Bearing in mind the typically poor draftees of the era were smaller and lighter yet than most of us are now. The recoil of the long rifle with service ammo is tolerable. But making soft loads for recreational use is the only way to go. At one time, I cast bullets for mine but mostly I loaded jacketed bullets. Done the brass conversion, it's time consuming. The last few of these that I used for recreational shooting I converted the front sight to a taller one so as to bring the sight regulation down to something I could realistically use.

When I was a teenager in the 1960's, the long rifles were not unplentiful, mostly in 8x50R. The stuff that was imported in the 1990's from Bulgaria was mostly the various versions of the short rifles / carbines. However, there were some long rifles imported (I believe also from Buigaria) in the 1980's that were in 8x56R. Those are very hard to find now, bring eye-watering prices for what it is. I have no idea where all the 8x50R's went that were around in the 1960's.

 

[gmerkt]

I have to be honest, I don't particularly enjoy cleaning guns, and often they go into the safe without a good cleaning, if I didn't use corrosive. I have learned the hard way to at least run an oil patch through the bore though.

Gun cleaning is my least favorite chore when I return from a shooting trip. But I usually force myself to do it same night, but never later than the next day. About 21 years ago, my cousin asked for my help in disposing of most of his guns. He was not a gun cleaner. This is no exaggeration, he turned some guns over to me that hadn't been cleaned in ten, fifteen years or more. There were a couple of nice Ruger 77's in the bunch that had slightly corroded barrels from sitting uncleaned for so long. I'd never seen a .243 Win. with pitting in the bore until then. With the right amount of ambient humidity, the combustion remnants in an uncleaned bore will initiate corrosion. The Marlin Model 56 that I bought out of this batch had been made in 1955. I believe it had never been cleaned, and .22 LR is one of the dirtiest shooting cartridges there is. The gun wouldn't fire, the oil in the bolt had solidified into a tar-like consistency, disallowing movement of the firing pin. So to avoid any chance of this, I keep mine clean.

Some people think a .22 doesn't need cleaning, I don't know why, maybe because the cartridge is small? But this is false, .22 is about as dirty shooting as it gets. They call for a fast burning powder and those usually burn dirty. The bullets are soft lead. The bullets are usually coated with a lube that leaves deposits in the action and barrel. Back to my cousin's guns. One was a Ruger Standard Model (now called Mark I) made about 1959. It was filthy, I took it apart, the guts were gray, dirty, and with lots of friction between moving parts. I didn't even try to shoot it before cleaning. The gray liquid that came out of it during cleaning was amazing. I don't think it had ever been cleaned in something like 40 years. You don't want to keep shooting a .22 until it quits; if that happens afield, you're down a gun simply due to skipped maintenance. Which could've been avoided.

 

[CLT65]

I've been down all those roads when I had the Austrian rifles. First one I had 1965-69. Then I bought more in the late 1990's when the big bunch came from Bulgaria by way of Canada. Yes, shooting service ammo through them is brutal. Bearing in mind the typically poor draftees of the era were smaller and lighter yet than most of us are now. The recoil of the long rifle with service ammo is tolerable. But making soft loads for recreational use is the only way to go. At one time, I cast bullets for mine but mostly I loaded jacketed bullets. Done the brass conversion, it's time consuming. The last few of these that I used for recreational shooting I converted the front sight to a taller one so as to bring the sight regulation down to something I could realistically use.

When I was a teenager in the 1960's, the long rifles were not unplentiful, mostly in 8x50R. The stuff that was imported in the 1990's from Bulgaria was mostly the various versions of the short rifles / carbines. However, there were some long rifles imported (I believe also from Buigaria) in the 1980's that were in 8x56R. Those are very hard to find now, bring eye-watering prices for what it is. I have no idea where all the 8x50R's went that were around in the 1960's.

Cool, thanks for the info. I thought I knew a fair bit about these, but I'm a beginner in comparison; you've been shooting them since before I was born.

 

[ma96782]

who shoots corrosive ammo?

Me too.

Mosin Nagant - 7.62x54r
Mauser - 8mm

Since they are bolt action rifles, I don't feel that cleaning them is too difficult a job to accomplish after a range session.

For me, I've found that.....
A hot soapy water brushing and patches (sometimes also Hoppes for the copper fouling). Followed with clean water patches, drying patches and oiled patches works.

My homemade patches are made from old white t-shirts.

Of course, don't forget to check on the rifles in a couple of days after the cleaning.

Aloha, Mark

PS.....
The Ak47 -7.62x39mm
The Ak74 - 5.45x39mm
Yes, I shoot ammo that is corrosive. And, cleaning is a bit more effort.

I'm cheap and buy cheap Russian ammo. So, IMHO it's all good. And, even though I have some non-corrosive Russian stuff......well, I don't trust it (them). That means that I continue to clean the rifles as if I had shot the corrosive stuff through them.

YES....I trust what the American ammo manufacturers say/claim about their ammo being non-corrosive. That being said......I no longer have corrosive American ammo in my inventory.

 

[rjmt]

the British actually made a funnel for the SMLE to pour hot water down their barrels

I've only see photos of one

HOME GUARD LEE ENFIELD RIFLE CLEANING FUNNEL | #220206081

RARE LEE ENFIELD RIFLE CLEANING FUNNEL of the type made & used by the HOME GUARD ... improvised item consisting of a small filter funnel connected bt a copper tube to a 303 cartridge case which fits s

www.worthpoint.com

 

[ditchtiger]

we had a discussion on how the newer generations of shooters won't shoot this stuff

Great! That leaves more for us.