Corrosive or non-corrosive?

[sixoclockhold]

most of the Mosins we own today went weeks after shooting before cleaning. no time out in WAR. i buy the spam can bullets and i spray a mix of amonia and water down the barrel after shooting. then a clean it at home. it never got treated this nice by IVAN

I doubt weeks, you got your oil can which would have had solvent and grease in it. Soldier could pisss on the bolt or down the barrel to neutralize the salts. They did have canteens too. My life depends on my rifle, it gets cleaned. Even cold water then a rag rammed down the barrel with grease on it and your pretty good to go till you get a break in the action.

I might add from what I have read the Russian manual instructed a soldier to clean his weapon every 7 days even without firing it. Daily if it is being fired. You let a rifle like these go two weeks without cleaning, shooting daily and that bad boy will not be so bad anymore, it will lose it's accuracy. The Russian's knew what corrosive ammo would do to a steel barrel especially in those cold wet winter months. RUST

Have you hugged your mosin lately? And now you know what all that cosmoline was for, to stop the transmission of STD's heh heh

[meaty-btz]

Water is all you need to dissolve corrosive salts. Ammonia is not needed, in fact.. that is what it is... Ammonium Salts. Corrosive primers create ammonium salts, you don't need ammonia to clean it, just water will dissolve the salts and dry and oil. Done.

[v/dBrink]

You can also tell by the type of Primer. Boxer is usually non-corrosive, Berdan usually corrosive.

Not true. WW2 USGI .30-06 = corrosive.

I think there is a way to tell the difference in the types of primers from the outside, but I'm not sure enough to comment on that.

Not true. No way to tell from the outside.

[Spirit 1]

I'm not sure if all Berdan primers are corrosive or all mil-surp is corrosive. I don't know if there is a correct/precise answer to that question.

But in any case, it's always a good idea to clean your gun after shooting so corrosive or not, as long as you treat her right she'll be fine for years to come.

Like I said, I just give mine a shot of WD40 down the barrel if I've been out on BLM land or hours from home. Then once I'm home I'll give them all a good cleaning usually the next day. I don't know if WD40 neutralizes the nitrates or not, but I figure what the heck - can't hurt. (cue the guy who knows how it will hurt now)

Hey, Blitzburgh, I think WD40 really does tend to neutralize the corrosive action. Reason I say that, on corroded battery cables even where really bad corrosion has traveled deep under plastic coating, and on clamps & lugs etc, WD stops it cold for a while, like several weeks. For some reason it's only temporary, don't quite understand why. Maybe somehow a new deposit forms that hasn't been treated? Speaking of battery cables there.

Anyways, it sure has a strong effect on battery acid corrosion so I assume the same on a gun barrel with corrosive ammo.

[Spirit 1]

I wrote this up a while back to inform people on facts about corrosive primers. The extra spaces are so it prints correctly per page as written in Arial 14pt. Feel free to copy or share but please include author

I've been trying to get the straight scoop on proper cleaning after corrosive primers for quite some time. The best original work on the subject was written by Dr. Wilbert J. Huff of the U.S. Bureau of Mines in 1922, as Technical Paper #188, 'Corrosion under Oil Films', which was a direct reference work on corrosion caused by firearms primers of the day. After WWI the U.S Govt. directed the U.S. Bureau of Mines to research the cause of corrosion in firearms resulting from corrosive primers. It's available here for online viewing reference and download:

PDF: http://archive.org/details/corrosionunderoi00huff

View online: http://archive.org/stream/corrosionu...ge/n1/mode/2up

Dr. Huff later developed and marketed his own product for firearms cleaning and protection, 'Huff's Chloroil'. It was water based but also contained oils for protection of metal. The Hoppe's #9 formula was developed in 1903, many years before Dr. Huff's research and did not benefit from his knowledge on the subject nor from any experiences of World War I. Hoppe's #9 original ingredients have seemingly become 5-6 ingredients today but still nothing specific in accordance with Dr. Huff's research. Hoppe's #9 doesn't seem to have any ingredient to neutralize or remove Potassium Chlorate according to their own MSDS: http://www.hoppes.com/au_msds.html

The working action of Ammonia is only to dissolve Copper Fouling. The Copper Fouling is in direct contact with barrel steel and holds a Corrosive Primer's salt residue in contact also. It's the Potassium Chlorate KClO3 crystalline salt oxidizer component in Corrosive Primers that's the actual cause of corrosion problems. Ammonia can help break down the adhesion of Copper Fouling, which can then expose the residues of Potassium Chlorate or Potassium Chloride to be washed away or neutralized. In the treatise by Dr. Wilbert Huff the references to 'deliquesces' apparently means to become liquid by drawing moisture from the air.



Ammonia has no direct effect on the Potassium Chlorate KClO3 of itself. A somewhat similar form of these salts is Potassium Chloride KCl, ordinary 'Table Salt', lacking the oxidizer effect of Potassium Chlorate because of missing Ozygen [O3] radicals. Potassium Chloride is the end result after Oxygen molecules in Potassium Chlorate have evaporated off in a gun barrel. Potassium Chlorate is also the stuff that's on old-fashioned 'Strike Anywhere' wooden stick matches to ignite the other chemicals.

The more rounds fired the more the copper fouling occurs. Behind each layer of copper fouling the corrosive primer gases containing Potassium Chlorate/Chloride salt residues coat the bore, then progressive layers of both build up. We need to break through the copper fouling that's plated to the bore to get at the Potassium Chlorate/Chloride and dissolve it or flush it away. That's Ammonia's job, to dissolve and remove copper fouling, to expose the Potassium Chlorate/Chloride for removal.

If there is no Copper Fouling, which is highly unlikely, plain water is sufficient to remove the Potassium Chlorate/Chloride completly from a gun barrel, though some swabbing is suggested. After causing or allowing drying of the cleaned barrel a suitable oil is used to protect against any further corrosion or rust that might occur as a result of normal variations in humidity above 55%.
Spirit 1

[Mssr. Eleganté]

...I have no facts to back that up, but I have seen people look at the headstamp and "seem" to be able to tell the difference. Maybe they just recognized the headstamp as mil-surp, maybe not. But being that I can't be sure, I'll have to respectfully disagree.

The only way to tell if a loaded cartridge is boxer or berdan primed just by looking at it is if you recognize the headstamp. This can be tricky though. Yugo M2 Ball from 1956 is berdan while 1957 is boxer. Austrian 7.62x51 from 1978 is berdan while 1979 is boxer.

[Squid]

i heard it was potassium cloride salt that makes it corrosive.

KCl is that bitter "lite" table salt BTW, for reduced Sodium intake.


But like you I'm waiting for even a 1/2 assed chemist to weigh in.

This is like Behind the Barn "Sex Ed" around the 1920s. Worse, actually.

[0321jarhead]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centerfire_ammunition of the things we can find by having a home computer concerning Berdan and Boxer. Click.

[Cowboy T]

My way of determining "corrosive vs. non-corrosive":

• If it's former Soviet-bloc, assume it is corrosive. That includes brass-cased Yugo.
• If it's recent manufacture from former Soviet-bloc countries, assume it's corrosive unless the box says it isn't. The Tula and Ulyanovsk Cartridge Works still make corrosive primers for the Russian military forces to this day. However, they also make non-corrosive ammo for the American market (that'd be us). That's what you typically see with the Wolf and Tulammo brands over here.
• If it's from China, assume it's corrosive, just to be safe.
• If it's modern Prvi Partizan that's Boxer/brass, it's non-corrosive. That stuff's just like the American ammo and actually very good.
• If it's any relatively recent (1960's and later manufacture, just to be safe) American-manufactured ammo of any sort, it's non-corrosive.

[eightmd]

The last time that happened, and it got me wondering later - I should have asked the guy right there, but I was shooting my AR at the Angeles. I had just put a new upper on it and a set of Yankee Hill flip up sights and was trying to sight it in - without much luck. (The rail on the gas block is a little lower than the rail on top of the upper and I couldn't get the sight post high enough) but I was collecting all the brass as usual, I save it all - reloadable or not, and the guy next to me who was helping me with the sights picked one up, looked at the head, and said "You going to reload these? You'll have a heck of a time - you have to pretty much drill that primer out because that's military brass and primer sealant and it's really tough to get the primers out of there...".

I didn't think much of it at the time and being that I don't reload yet and have very little knowledge about anything to do with reloading I just tossed it in my bag, told him I save it all reloadable or not, and went about my business. Later down the road when I started shooting GP11 for my K31's I've heard and read guys asking where they could buy Berdan primers to reload the GP11. At least that's what I assume they were doing. That just added to my confusion about Berdan/Boxer primed ammo and if it could be reloaded or if you could tell from the outside which was which.

If I remember right, and I could be wrong, but I think I was shooting some .223 from Prvi. Not in the nice blue boxes, but in the white boxes that are kind of cheap looking. I think I bought it from ammoman. Of course not absolutely sure about that.

But that's what got me thinking about it later. One, that it was commerical ammo - but of course I don't know if Prvi makes ammo for the military also like Wolf does, and two, it he knew it was not reloadable because of the headstamp, the shape or something to do with the primer, or with the color of the primer sealant. It was orange. I just didn't know and I've alway kind of wondered about that.

But it seems that question has been answered. Thanks

Oh... the statement I made about Boxer having one hole in the primer and Berdan having two - is that always true? I've heard that, but again, not sure if that's true or not.

That's why I tossed that old "usually" word in the mix before. Those old non-committal words, they will get you in trouble with the trolls everytime

I don't think the guy at the range was saying the shell had a Berden primer in it. He was just saying it was military brass so the primer was crimped in and sealed. Makes it water tight, and harder to get out. Milspec is like that, and the primers are harder so it doesn't go off from free floating firing pins.

[corrosively_armed]

I don't clean my guns any differently with one or the other so I really don't care. That being said, I do clean after I shoot with corrosive but not necessarily with non corrosive. I've shot hundreds of rounds of corrosive through my enfields and never had a problem. I just clean with some hoppes no 9 and that's it. I do oil the hell out of them though. Now I do live in a dry climate so maybe that helps but frankly I think the only problem with corrosive ammo were soldiers who rarely cleaned their guns, not the ammo. Something else I've found is that much of the corrosive I've had was all loaded with cordite which btw has a nice smell when it goes off. Sort of like freshly baked bread. I have several thousand rounds of 303 enfield that is corrosive which I will probably never live long enough to shoot.

[corrosively_armed]

Oh one more thing... if you have one of those fancy fire safes and you store bp guns or guns that have had corrosive ammo in them you might want to check what the humidity level is. Some fire safes have a very high humidity level and from personal experience with what was a new black powder revolver from cabelas(that was test fired at the factory but not properly cleaned) being stored in a safe for 2 yrs until I got around to shooting it did not bode well for it. I had to hammer it with a mallet all over to break it apart but I finally got it all cleaned up and like new again. Learned that lesson though.

[SVT-40]

Well ALL ammo is corrosive........Some is just far more corrosive than others. So the simple solution is just clean your firearms after each shooting session and it doesn't matter!!!

[mls343]

Well ALL ammo is corrosive........Some is just far more corrosive than others. So the simple solution is just clean your firearms after each shooting session and it doesn't matter!!!

We have a winner! Thanks, SVT-40, as this is the best advice of this thread.