Is this .308 safe to shoot?

[kman]

So I bought 400 rounds of this Portuguese NATO .308 battlepacks from Sportsman Guide for $141. Some of it is corroded like you see in the picture. Is it worth taking the chance shooting it or is it garbage? I figure like 1/3 of it has some level of corrosion

 

[jdesro]

I don't know - I personally wouldn't shoot something like that one in the bottom of your picture. Would be hard to say how compromised the integrity of the case is with corrosion like that.

I'd err on the side of caution and scrap it.

 

[highlander]

Pull the bullets and reuse the powder in any boxer primed cases you may have or keep the bullets and dump the powder on your lawn.

 

[inerlogic]

psha, it's portuguese ammo, ees good ammo.... rub some chourico on it, maybe some maderia wine, good to go!

 

[SKS Ray]

There are lots of reports of people buying battle pack 308 ammo and finding some of it horribly corroded. Its from the cardboard containers and any rounds that seem suspect should be either pulled for parts or discarded. I set aside a few 30-06 HXP rounds I got from the CMP recently because they had corrosion on the sides of the cases.

Its not worth ****ing up your gun or yourself.

 

[Bendad97]

Some of that stuff looks like an accident waiting to happen. Tear it down to components and junk the bad stuff.

 

[BravoWhiskey]

psha, it's portuguese ammo, ees good ammo.... rub some chourico on it, maybe some maderia wine, good to go!

thats a good one. As for the rounds, doesnt look worth the risk.

 

[not new guy]

Light corrosion on the case from the cardboard or glues or whatever used is sort of normal for some of these .308 battle packs. I wouldn't use ammo that has that much corrosion on the bullet itself, but if it's just surface discoloration on the brass I've heard that you can take it right off with some very fine sandpaper.

 

[454scotty454]

Kman like you I bought one battlepack of Portuguese .308. I bought it at a local gun show. I found that 60 rounds out of 200 were corroded like yours are pictured. It looks black like it was spilled sealant. I found the same black stuff around the bullet after it was pulled. I tried to remove the corrosion with copper "steel" wool. It didn't remove it. I haven't tried solvent yet. So I pulled down the corroded ammo, I feel its not worth my life to save a few bucks. Powder looked clean and flowed nicely. I also looked inside the brass and did not see the corrosion on the inside. But I wouldn't take the chance.
I have bought really nice shiny clean South African 1979 .308 ammo in 140rd battlepacks. Haven't shot the South African or Portuguese yet out of my M1A.
I do really like the British Radway Green 1993. It was clean brass, shot nice out of my M1A, and comes on stripper clips in bandoleers.
Good luck!

 

[Finalygotabeltfed]

Yes its safe to shoot.

Portugese .308? I'd shoot the stuff in a heartbeat.

Surface corrosion like that is superficial from the acidic paper/cardboard in the packaging. Clean the the ammo up with a scotch-bright pad and shoot the stuff.

BTW, the Port ammo was some of the best .308 ever imported along with South African in the past fifteen years. The Port ammo is loaded with match grade bullets and is accurate as hell.

 

[not new guy]

So I picked up some of this same port ammo recently and it naturally had the same/similar corrosion on it. I knew that going in, so no big deal there.

Maybe 2/3 of the lot was either spotless or close to it. Of the remaining 1/3, some was able to be cleaned up a little with some steel wool, leaving only a little discoloration on the case. I set it aside and plan on firing it soonest. Some was worse. The stuff that I'm calling "worse" either had the white corrosion pictured above that seemed like a more substantive problem, and/or lots of black corrosion that seemed like it could be deeper. It's tough to tell if the brass was pitted enough to the point of being unsafe, and I'm setting all that aside and am thinking of pulling them apart.

A couple of questions:

- If a round had a small dark spot or spots on it that didn't come right off with wool I'm assuming it's fine. There are a few rounds in the lot, however, that have those spots on the case head and/or primer. Should I hesitate to fire a round that has discoloration on the primer? In other words, is the metal that much softer at the dark spots?

- Is there any sort of way to tell where the safe line is for some of this corrosion? Is the white corrosion indicative of deeper damage? Since this is all Nato stuff with sealed primers I'm thinking that there's little chance of these corroding from the inside out, but correct me if I'm wrong.

- If I've taken the steel wool and polsihed up the darker spots so that they're smooth but still discolored, will storing them in a sealed can with dessicant be enough so stabilize them, or will they continue to corrode?

Thanks in advance for any anwers you might have.

 

[mark2]

Hey new guy, was that worse than we thought? It's hard to tell from random samples. If I find something good I'll cut you in...

Overall I agree with finallygotabeltfed, I've shot some pretty nasty looking Port thru my FALs and SCAR with never a misfire and it's 2MOA stuff (great for a FAL). I pick up all my cases and have had no cracks or blown primers after a few thousand rounds, not one. I'm gonna buy as much as I can get my hands on while it's still relatively cheap and everyone's turned off by the looks. Theres not a lot of milsurp around these days....
I sort mine loose and by "grade" and keep in ammo boxes with desiccant, so far so good, I check back every 6-12 months.

 

[not new guy]

Nah, no worse than we thought at all. Like I said, I knew what I was getting. Just now trying to figure out where I need to draw the fire/don't fire line on the corrosion, if one even needs to be drawn at all.

 

[45collector]

This thread is a few months old but I figured I'd throw my two cents in.

I have fired hundreds of surplus Portuguese 7.62 NATO through my FAL with no problems. Accuracy is excellent. In fact I just picked up another 600 rounds of it yesterday.

As others have stated, it seems about 1/3 of the rounds will have some corrosion on them. Here's what I do. Take each round out, swipe it quickly with a NEVR-DULL patch and then wipe them up and down with an old t-shirt. On the more tainted rounds you'll still see some black spots but it doesn't affect the round at all. Polishing them up with NEVR-DULL also makes them super slick so they load up in the magazines easily and slide into the chamber like butter. Yeah it's a little labor intensive to do this to each round but it's something to do while watching The Walking Dead.