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Corrosive Ammo. Clean firearms immediately!

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Don't be like me. Jesus. Went shooting last Wednesday. I was on vacation, so the wife had all kinds of family activities planned out for us. I had 2 free hours Wednesday morning before she would get up, so my son and I head to the range. Came home, was rushed out the door to do whatever with the family and left a few rifles in their cases. If it were any of my surplus guns, they would have gotten cleaned immediately. Wednesday I was shooting an AR15 in 7,62x39. It didn't even cross my mind that the ammo was corrosive.
Fast forward to today. Cleaning day. 9 days later. 1st sign I was going to have a bad time was when I hit the bolt release and the bolt only went about half way. Shit. Took about 20 minutes to break the bolt down. Everything was jammed solid. Everything is in the sonic cleaner as I type. Fingers crossed for no pitting.
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If you need any additional magic, try Evapo-Rust. It's a chelating rust remover that leaves parent metal untouched. I use it a lot.



I'll second Evapo-Rust. I used it to clean up 100 enbloc clips I got for free because the were covered in a light surface rust.
Post-application you would not have known they were ever damaged.
~Matt
 
Just a thought. I think ex-military folk in particular have a tendency toward running their weapons too dry. I remember receiving - and doing - many inspections where greasy/oily surfaces were undesirable and that stays with you.

But I don't pay too much attention now to how you're "supposed" to lube a firearm, I go my own way. I coat every surface of the bolt on my AR with black moly grease. Moly grease is intended for applications with high pressure sliding contact and that's a good description of how the bolt moves in the carrier. Plus, a greasy bolt won't rust. :)
 
watch the foam-lined gun cases in the sunshine - makes a solar still & your gun is the condenser. the 870 was taking a tinkle when I opened the box after an hour in the sun...
 
I'm an animal about cleaning and lubing firearms. Due to a fairly large inventory, with many duplicates, some guns don't get fired nearly as much as they should.
To reduce the risk of rusting/pitting I pull them out in a type of "rotation". This ensures that they are working properly and will remain rust-free.
That's for stored guns. Carry pieces are treated differently. Usually just a wipe down after range time.
~Matt
 
was the bore chrome lined?
Nope.

I spent about half my day cleaning this thing. The bore got to the point where patches and a brush wasn't doing any more good. Headed to the range and put 100 rounds of tula thru it. And got a stuck case in the chamber. My luck today.

Took a solid hour to get it unstuck.
Complete disassembly of the rifle. Once the barrel was off, I could get in the chamber much better.
Barrel looks like new now.

I'm going to pick some of that evapo rust up for some other projects.
 
Nope.

I spent about half my day cleaning this thing. The bore got to the point where patches and a brush wasn't doing any more good. Headed to the range and put 100 rounds of tula thru it. And got a stuck case in the chamber. My luck today.

Took a solid hour to get it unstuck.
Complete disassembly of the rifle. Once the barrel was off, I could get in the chamber much better.
Barrel looks like new now.

I'm going to pick some of that evapo rust up for some other projects.
Had a squib of tula .233 first shot last weekend.
 
Yugo is corrosive for sure. I have shot a shit ton of it. Almost lost a norinco sks to it. Same thing you did but much much longer.
My quess seeing the rust you pulled out of the bore you have shot corrosive before and did not clean the bore. Well you might have thought you did.
Usually the bore is some what protected as the air of oxygen does not contact it as much as the outer surfaces.
Yugo is some good shooting ammo i still use it.
As for the guy with the rustington 870 they just do that.
 
Yikes! I really try hard to avoid corrosive ammo. The only exception I'll make is 7.62x54R because the milsurp stuff tends to be the cheapest and even then I like to spray Windex down the bore at the range if I'm not too lazy but in any event I always clean the same day as I shoot. On another note, this is why I like modern guns and quality ammo - I have several guns that I virtually never clean!
 
Just a thought. I think ex-military folk in particular have a tendency toward running their weapons too dry. I remember receiving - and doing - many inspections where greasy/oily surfaces were undesirable and that stays with you.

But I don't pay too much attention now to how you're "supposed" to lube a firearm, I go my own way. I coat every surface of the bolt on my AR with black moly grease. Moly grease is intended for applications with high pressure sliding contact and that's a good description of how the bolt moves in the carrier. Plus, a greasy bolt won't rust. :)

I'm thinking of using grease on the BCG for my AR, Slip 2000, while it works it seems to dry right off after a week. Time to see if my baby likes Mil-comm 25
 
Just remember to use Windex that has ammonia in it to neutralize the salts from the corrosive ammo...

Q. Do all Windex products contain ammonia?

A.
Windex Blue, Windex Surface & Glass Spray and Wipes contain ammonia.

Windex Outdoor, Windex Shower Windex Crystal Rain, Windex Kitchen & Glass Antibacterial do not contain ammonia.

Even better, use a mix of water to ammonia. This is a great write-up and talks about being careful with ammonia on blued guns: Author ~Dennis Kroh
*************************************************************************************************************
How to properly clean after using corrosive ammo

This is how I do it... it's easy, it's fast, and it's effective. Best of all you can do it while still on the firing-line and thus not offend your significant other with the usually pungent stench of commercial cleaners in your home.

Dilute regular household ammonia (sudsy is best but regular is OK too) to 2/1 or 3/1 with water (it can be as much as 10/1 if the smell really gets to you). Keep in a small bottle to take with you to the range but label it well so you don't mistake it for contact-lens solution or something (yeeeowww!)

After you are done firing and while still at the range moisten (not dripping-wet, but sorta-soaked) a patch and run it down the bore and back once. This instantly will neutralize and dissolve the corrosive salt-compounds from the primers and start in on the copper and powder fouling with a vengeance.

Let stand for thirty seconds or so (just enough time to take off and throw away the ammonia-patch you just used and put a new, dry patch on your rod). Run the dry patch (or several) down the bore and you are most literally done.

DON'T OVERDO IT! More ISN'T better in this case...

You really don't want to slop ammonia (especially if heavily concentrated) all over the blued parts of the gun (as it will likely start to remove bluing after 30 minutes or so) and you also shouldn't leave the ammonia in the bore for an extended period of time (like hours, although I do know folks who do that anyway) as that may (not WILL, but MAY) cause "crazing" (microscopic pitting) of the metal. I also have to caution against slopping ammonia on the wooden parts of your rifle, as it will usually strip the finish down to bare-wood, BUT if you follow my advise on HOW MUCH ammonia to use (only enough to dampen, but not soak, a single patch per gun) you will not EVER experience ANY problems at all...

If you are worried about primer residue getting on the bolt-face you may want to quickly wipe it with the wet patch before throwing the thing away and quickly dry it. Same thing with the gas-tube in a semi-automatic rifle... don't go overboard, just wet it and dry it and get done with it.

As a final precaution (since the ammonia will also kill all lubricants and leave the metal very dry) you can run a patch of gun-oil down the bore and leave it like that for protection from the elements (just be sure to run a dry patch down the bore before shooting it again).

I've been cleaning guns this way (including *every* gun we sell) for nearly thirty years, and have never had rust form in any bore (even here in humid Florida).

However, if you are (like some folks I have met) completely obsessed about leaving traces of ANY powder or copper residue in the bore of your weapon, you can certainly follow up your "field-cleaning" with a detailed, strenuous, traditional cleaning once you are home (or in a week or month from then). But I warn you... your bore is much more be likely to be damaged from your over-enthusiastic scrubbing to get out that "last speck of copper" (which has no affect on the actual accuracy of your firearm) than it will with all the rounds you could possibly send down it during your lifetime.

Dennis Kroh
 
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Props for being a stand up guy and posting this to help educated others.

This.

I thank my lucky stars every shooting day that it was the Army that taught me shooting and maintenance. If I’m shooting, I don’t go to bed that same night before every weapon is cleaned and serviceable. YMMV.
 
If you need any additional magic, try Evapo-Rust. It's a chelating rust remover that leaves parent metal untouched. I use it a lot.


+1 I used it in the past, 2-3 years ago. Put an entire barrel from a Springfield Trapdoor. Left it overnight.
 
Sorry to see this. I did the same thing to an ak back in the 90's. The bolt was locked closed with rust and corrosion. I hope your bore is ok.

Same here, back in the 90's. Had to use a 2x4 to open the bolt. Bolt was pretty bad after that. Wish they had Evapo-Rust back then.

Just a thought. I think ex-military folk in particular have a tendency toward running their weapons too dry. I remember receiving - and doing - many inspections where greasy/oily surfaces were undesirable and that stays with you.

It sure does. I was only Guardsies, but had one make-up drill that was just cleaning M16's for the weekend. Had to get them spotless for the IG. Same with grease guns (the kind for lubing vehicles, not shooting). All I could think was how stupid it was to have to get all of the grease out of them, for the IG, so that we could refill them later.


That's why, as careful as I am about cleaning, I still insist on Chrome-lined bores and chambers. Never been a fan of the nitrided ones.
 
Windex will neutralize the salts from the primers. I always run a bore snake through after a shoot. I also maintain the humidity of my gun room below 30%.

Just remember to use Windex that has ammonia in it to neutralize the salts from the corrosive ammo...

Bore snake = a good start, and maintenance of humidity is huge. Cleaning instructions are decent.

But ammonia doesn't neutralize anything.

I just spent about 10 min searching and couldn't find it, but there's someone who did a pretty thorough test using small squares of steel exposed to corrosive salts, applying various things to each one to see which work. Between the lack of explanation from anyone as to the chemical mechanism of "neutralization" and and the results (neither 100% ammonia nor Windex resulted in a clean test square, this is pretty much proven false. (Of course...I still can't find the article. :rolleyes:)

Conclusion was that hot water was the best cleaner (dissolve it, flush it away, leave the metal as hot as practical to aid drying), followed by warm air to dry, and oil.

OP - Hope it cleans up for you. :oops:
 
i remember shooting that stuff, back in the day. Was a real PITA. Makes you wonder how the heck we won WWII with that sort of ammo?
 
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