I recently purchased some cheap milsup .308, 1980's Korean manf. listed as being corrosive. I've never really seem any special precautions to take when cleaning a rifle except to do it ASAP after firing. Is there anything special to do? Solvents?

I have some WWII era .45 ACP that I have fired and never had any problems with.

Thanks,
Eddy

Water-based solvents, or anything that is specifically marked for cleaning up corrosive primer residue. WWII .45 ACP ammo (military, anyway) would have been corrosive primed.

The corrosive primers leave potassium choride (ie salt) in the barrel, and water dissolves it best.

Last time I shot any corrosive ammo in one of my old mausers, I put the muzzle in the sink and used the sprayer to run some hot water down the barrel before normal cleaning.

Back in my old "Brown Boot" Army days, we stripped the M-1's, got a bucket of hot soapy water and ran a tight patch on the cleaning rod up and down the bore to piston the solution through. Worked wonders, along with the water soluble oil they provided as a bore cleaner. Don't forget the bolt face when cleaning, also.

As an aside, would think 80's issue South Korean ammo would be Boxer primed with non-corrosive primers. The US stuff quit using them around 1954.

Hot soapy water...pump it up and down as described in the last post...brass brush to loosen anything stubborn...hot soapy water again...then just hot water. LEt it dry (and if the water is hot enough, will dry very quickly) and oil it. Have been known to pour BOILING water thjrough the barrel for that last. Check on it the next few days.

Some ammo is just malignantly corrosive, and it will "creep out" of the pores in the metal. HOT water tends to open these pores by expansion and do a LOT better job (besides, hot solutions disolve and carry away more crud than cold ones).

A lot of 100 year old guns have fine bores so evidently the "trick" of cleaning them wasn't beyond human undertaking.

Both methods are effective in cleaning bores after firing corrosive ammo. I use hot water and G.I bore cleaner and have never had a problem. In addition to cleaning the bolt, the gas system also gets some corrosive residue and needs attention. All the best...
Gil

I have my own mix of water soluable solvent and a post water wash petro base solvent I warm slightly to around 120F. The water soluable gets 99% of the crud out on the initial scrub and I follow with a scalding hot water rinse (wear insulated rubber gloves!) This should be done asap following shooting. Letting the weapon sit more than an hour or so is bad, the longer it sits, the harder crud gets to remove. Be sure to scrube the bolt, gas ports, ect. as applicable too, anywhere the burned gas hits or may contact directly or indirectly. Following scrub and rinse I blow down with shop air and dry with a 100% cotton towel because anything other than that sucks.

Once dry and while still warm, I saturate all the metal parts with my own blend of petro-base solvent and leave it sit overnight. This will remove the other 1% of petro/metalic base crud that the water wash will not remove. After sitting a day or two, I scrub the bore and chamber with a bronze brush and swab both using appropriate size jags as they put the rag in contact with the surface, the eyelets aren't worth a hoot. Once clean, apply protective oil and check in a couple days to make sure nothing has leached out of somewhere you didn't get clean.

Simplest way is recommended by Dennis Kroh of Empire Arms. Make a 50/50 mix of water and sudsy ammonia. After shooting, use a wet patch, dry patch, wet patch, dry patch. Then clean with your normal solvents. I've never had a problem following this method.

For use at the range a cheap generic glass cleaner with ammonia. For at home cleaning hot soapy water.

I use comercial black powder cleaning solvent. Works great and not near as messy or time consuming as hot soapy water. The one I am currently using is a gel formula and works perfectly.

In my Mosin Nagants I start cleaning with Windex (with ammonia) followed by normal cleaning.
Never had a problem

Going to add a new additon to the cleaning process...."Simply Green" (may find it in your local grocery store under cleaning supplies). Usually mixed 1:10 with water, but you can give it a spray full stength down the barrel before pouring in the hot water flush. Does seem to cut BP and corrosive cleaning time.

Tried this stuff (mixed 1:10) as a cleaning solution for an ultrasonic cleaner on the recommendation of a poster here...he was right...the stuff does work.

Ah, the pleasures of the simple life! :D

Ah, the pleasures of the simple life! :D


Hot soapy water or good old fashioned Windex...as I understand it the ammonia cleans/dissolves/dilutes the corrosive remnants of that milsurp ammo.....Just don't let the missus catch ya showerin/or bathin with them rifles!!!! :D
enjoy....mack

Think I menetioned this...but in case I didn't.

Wife bought one of the household steam cleaners (and it does do a good job on grout, tile, and other tough to clean spaces). Looking at it one day, borrowed it and fitted a simple nozzle attachment.

Plug it into the end of a rifle barrel (bolt removed) and let her rip...besides balsting out black powder or corrosive residue, an AMAZING amount of crud will come out the other end even on a barrel that looked clean.

run a brush down the barrel with hoppes no 9 or other nitro.copper solvent to losen off the fouling that the salt may hide under, followed by shoving a funnel with a flexible spout down the chamber and pouring a thermos of hot water down the barrel. if you dilute some ammonia in the hot water the nitrogen in ammonia binds and forms potassium nitrate with the primer residue, the hysdrogen binds with the remainder to form HCl or hydrochloric acid.

so if i use ammonia I wash it out with water after. Acid isn't much better than salt in barrels.