Corrosive Ammo. Clean firearms immediately!

[whacko]

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%.

I bring Windex to the range with me when I'm shooting corrosive and milsurps. When we are done I shoot Windex down the bore till it's puuring out the muzzle. Break down the bolts and set them on a towel and soak them In Windex as well.....

Have waited as much as 4 days later for the full cleaning and never seen rust.

 

[smokey-seven]

Was a real PITA. Makes you wonder how the heck we won WWII with that sort of ammo?

Even the 45 ammo was corrosive in 1943. 43-44 was the year that put everything down the pipe because it was either throw it all at them or lose the war.

 

[DW357]

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%.

Damn what’s the temp of your gun room? If I ran my dehumidifier to 30% it would probably be 90+ degrees in my basement. Then again it’s an old house and I don’t have central air.

 

[DW357]

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. )

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.

Yup. It’s been discussed a few times here on NES that warm soapy water or just plain old water will neutralize the corrosive salts. Windex is mostly water with some ammonia....
@jpm

 

[Wildweasel]

That's why us older .Mil guys were taught to clean 3 times, One after the range then I think the next day then a week later. (that was with m16a1's that were chrome lined and non- corrosive ammo.) but the institutional memory was for the corrosive ammo of the early days. we were just getting issued CLP. (1981)

 

[headednorth]

Had a squib of tula .233 first shot last weekend.

Only stuck case I've ever had was Tula 223.

 

[Chevy 2 65]

A happy gun is a clean gun.

and shooter

 

[76Too]

Just piss in your barrel when you're done shooting.

Don't forget to take the bolt out first, though...ask me how I learned.

 

[enbloc]

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. )

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.

Agreed on hot water to flush with.
But now I need to petition my club for a hot water heater on the range.
I've used windex for years on my M1903 with great success.
~Matt

 

[Rehoboth Dave]

Army immersion heaters worked great for cleaning our M16's. String a coat hanger through the flash suppressor and lower the whole thing into the boiling water for a minute or two, when it came out it was clean as a whistle. All we had to do is wait a couple of seconds for the remaining water to evaporate off from the heated metal and then oil it up. It would piss off the mess cooks though.

 

[headednorth]

Army immersion heaters worked great for cleaning our M16's. String a coat hanger through the flash suppressor and lower the whole thing into the boiling water for a minute or two, when it came out it was clean as a whistle. All we had to do is wait a couple of seconds for the remaining water to evaporate off from the heated metal and then oil it up. It would piss off the mess cooks though.

Thats basically how I deal with cosmoline removal. Break down, boil some water, let it sit for a few and when it comes out it dries on its own in a minute or so.

 

[Rehoboth Dave]

Thats basically how I deal with cosmoline removal. Break down, boil some water, let it sit for a few and when it comes out it dries on its own in a minute or so.

I've used that method for that as well. I did however find out that using the wife's pots and pans to boil the small parts on the kitchen stove top is NOT a good thing! The cosmoline vaporized into the steam and coated EVERYTHING within a 3ft radius. What a mess to clean up (let alone hear the wifes bitching about it). Now I know what pissed off the cooks so much when we used their immersion heaters.

 

[headednorth]

I've used that method for that as well. I did however find out that using the wife's pots and pans to boil the small parts on the kitchen stove top is NOT a good thing! The cosmoline vaporized into the steam and coated EVERYTHING within a 3ft radius. What a mess to clean up (let alone hear the wifes bitching about it). Now I know what pissed off the cooks so much when we used their immersion heaters.

LOL, sounds awful. I used to boil water and dump it into containers with the broken down parts in the driveway. For the barrel I would typically use the box it came in, cut one of the long sides off and line it with plastic. Lay the barrel in and dump in the water.

 

[MetalgodZ]

Yup. It’s been discussed a few times here on NES that warm soapy water or just plain old water will neutralize the corrosive salts. Windex is mostly water with some ammonia....
@jpm

Found the article I was thinking of. Surplusrifle.com is gone, but the Internet Archive is forever (ish). See attached PDFs.

The chemical aspect isn't discussed as much as I'd remembered, but it is truly just water to remove the salts, and ammonia to remove the copper.

 

[cjrubes]

Can't get the pdfs to load for some reason...

 

[MetalgodZ]

Can't get the pdfs to load for some reason...

Fixed - FireFox has recently gotten annoying about saving things instead of opening, and it had somehow saved the links to the PDFs as PDFs.

 

[mibro]

Just piss in your barrel when you're done shooting.

Don't forget to take the bolt out first, though...ask me how I learned.

Urine contains ammonia, it's basically yellow Windex.

Human urine was big business in ancient Rome, used for tanning, to wash laundry, as a fertilizer and as a treatment for various human and animal medical problems.

The Emperor Vespasian introduced a urine tax, paid by the buyers of urine collected from public urinals.

Don't knock it.

 

[76Too]

Urine contains ammonia, it's basically yellow Windex.

Human urine was big business in ancient Rome, used for tanning, to wash laundry, as a fertilizer and as a treatment for various human and animal medical problems.

The Emperor Vespasian introduced a urine tax, paid by the buyers of urine collected from public urinals.

Don't knock it.

I'm sorry...but did you think I was joking?

 

[mibro]

I'm sorry...but did you think I was joking?

No, not at all. You can find references to both the Germans and Russians doing the same thing in WW2. Beats Windex too because it's warm. Nothing beats a warm bore flush.

 

[Qwikdraw45]

No, not at all. You can find references to both the Germans and Russians doing the same thing in WW2. Beats Windex too because it's warm. Nothing beats a warm bore flush.

And, if you're descended from royalty, then you have a warm bore royal flush.

 

[76Too]

i sit on a throne for about 5 minutes every morning...does that count?

if anyone ever sees any of my new posts on NES before 7am any given day...that's where it came from. quite fitting, actually.

 

[rocket500]

If I am not going to clean my weapons immediately I always dump a bunch of oil down the barrel and stand it up so it runs down and coats the bolt.

Be careful if you shoot corrosive ammo ever as oil will not prevent it from rusting. The corrosive salts are not dissolved by oil.

 

[endus]

That is unbelievably sketchy. Good tip, thanks for posting;

 

[DarthRevan]

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

The EWG is what I use for all the internals of my firearms. Any time I've only used the liquid EWL it seems to dry out on me or leaks into the case. At least with the grease it doesn't seem to move much.

 

[sigfanboy13]

The EWG is what I use for all the internals of my firearms. Any time I've only used the liquid EWL it seems to dry out on me or leaks into the case. At least with the grease it doesn't seem to move much.

I've had the same experience with the liquid. I bring the bottle with me when I shoot. I gotta lube before and after I shoot. Only the AR though. My Ruger MK4 seems to avoid this problem.

 

[Matt-CZ]

I took my new Yugo SKS out with a few boxes of corrosive M67 ammo. I also read the horror stories and was diligent to clean up everything with water after shooting, but I did not fully disassemble the bolt because I didn't think it was necessary. I was very wrong. Next time I took the rifle out, everything was perfectly fine and rust-free except the firing pin channel where I hadn't cleaned it. The firing pin was firmly rusted in the forward position and I have no doubt it would have slam-fired the mag empty had I closed the bolt on a live round. I bought the M67 surplus because it was pretty cheap and came with a bunch of good quality stripper clips, but I make sure to fully strip the rifle and clean after each time shooting.

 

[Machines]

I've learned not to trust any cheap ammo, even new stuff. Had a day out shooting a while back with 4-5 guns. Didn't get around to cleaning any until a few weeks later. I know that's not ideal, but usually you wouldn't think it's a problem with modern ammo. Welp, one gun out of the lot ended up with a bore and chamber full of powdery orange rust. The one I was shooting Brown Bear from the 2010s. Never had that problem with other brands before or since.

 

[jpm]

Salts are the byproduct of the corrosive primers and attract moisture to the metal they're deposited on. You can't neutralize salts, you can only dissolve them and flush them out. Water dissolves them, soap is a surfactant which gets under them and helps flush them out. The tiny bit of ammonia in windex is just along for the ride doing nothing really.

 

[DW357]

I've learned not to trust any cheap ammo, even new stuff. Had a day out shooting a while back with 4-5 guns. Didn't get around to cleaning any until a few weeks later. I know that's not ideal, but usually you wouldn't think it's a problem with modern ammo. Welp, one gun out of the lot ended up with a bore and chamber full of powdery orange rust. The one I was shooting Brown Bear from the 2010s. Never had that problem with other brands before or since.

I’ve had issues with brown bear as well. Even golden tiger caused some rust in my AK’s gas tube. Nothing in the bore though.

 

[Lip]

Damn what’s the temp of your gun room? If I ran my dehumidifier to 30% it would probably be 90+ degrees in my basement. Then again it’s an old house and I don’t have central air.

I am in the air movement business. Any thing higher gets me paranoid
.