Corrosive Ammo-What to clean

I don't have much experience with cleaning my firearms after shooting corrosive ammo. I have some Polish 7.62 Tok that I use in my M57, TTC and VZ-52. What parts need attention to deal in cleaning? Just the barrel and trigger group? Any recommendations with methods for cleaning other than my black power friend that say's "just dump the whole thing in a tub of hot water"? Thanks,

I use soapy water..

When I shoot corrosive ammo I spray down the barrel / bolt with windex. Pretty much anything that comes into contact with the primer salts needs to be sprayed or flushed with some sort of water solution. I only use windex because it's convenient. Then proceed with regular cleaning.

Chad made a great thread on this someone not on a phone can find it

When I shoot corrosive ammo in my mosin or mausers I boil some water and pour it down the barrel, then swab it with a dry patch and clean with windex. Then I just do a normal cleaning. Make sure to clean the bolt faces with hot water or windex too.

I like to pass a very tight fitting brush through 10-20 times dry to break up the fouling, clean with water patches until they come out mostly clean, and then clean with Hoppes patches until they come out green (only copper fouling left). The corrosive salts are dispersed among the carbon fouling, so it's important to clean out the carbon.

mpdc4511 said:

Chad made a great thread on this someone not on a phone can find it

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Here ya go:

http://www.mdshooters.com/showthread.php?t=105597

One or more patches of Windex at the range. Clean normally when you get home. Don't put off cleaning.

Boom Boom said:

One or more patches of Windex at the range. Clean normally when you get home. Don't put off cleaning.

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And even after you clean thoroughly, keep a watch on it for a few days. I remember when I started out I thought I did a good job cleaning only to find a bore full of rust a few days later.

Heck, in mother Russia troops were told to just pee down the barrel. Goat pee seems to work well too.

j8064 said:

Heck, in mother Russia troops were told to just pee down the barrel. Goat pee seems to work well too.

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That's because the Russians drank all their solvent.

yeah I read some extensive threads on the subject. Apparently warm water does the trick as is where some said they took the whole rifle in the shower with them. As long as you clean and oil afterwards the water wasnt gonna hurt anything.

by that i mean,

warm water maybe light soap for the corrosive

then clean like normal and oil.

Just remember WD-40 belongs anywhere but on a firearm.

I strip it, hose it with blue washer fluid inside and out, letting the excess run out, dry the parts, then clean fouling with solvent and wipe down all the metal with CLP and wood with furniture polish. Washer fluid is cheaper and evaporates faster than windex, it doesn't "neutralize" anything, merely flushes the corrosive reside away, it still contains mostly water, so it will rust it unless the gun is thoroughly dry, on pistol internals, or parts that I don't want to take completely apart, and those with lots of small places for fluid to hide, shaking out the fluid, then warming with a hairdryer works, although you don't want to do that near wood parts.

rwbow1969 said:

Just remember WD-40 belongs anywhere but on a firearm.

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+1 on that

90/10 Ballistol mix, then CLP.

Plenty of threads and subsequent threads cover this topic well.

j8064 said:

Heck, in mother Russia troops were told to just pee down the barrel. Goat pee seems to work well too.

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Smitch521 said:

When I shoot corrosive ammo I spray down the barrel / bolt with windex. Pretty much anything that comes into contact with the primer salts needs to be sprayed or flushed with some sort of water solution. I only use windex because it's convenient. Then proceed with regular cleaning.

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That's what I use.

At the range, before I leave, I have a small funnel I put at the muzzle and pour windex down the bore and let it run down into the chamber with the bolt out. (I angle the gun about 45 degrees and the chamber faces down so the stuff runs out onto the ground instead of down into the magazine) I do this while the gun is still hot, so the windex evaporates.

Then I run a bore snake through it a few times, chamber to muzzle. Then I'll spray some oil on the bore snake and run it through, and wipe down the inside of the receiver and bolt face.

When I get home I do a normal cleaning.

Ive never seen so much as a speck of rust with this method.

Sometimes I use vegetable based Gunzilla solvent, though it can destroy a wooden stock's finish.
My main corrosive cleaner is Simple Green solution, that I pick-up half gallon jugs at Home Depot.

I rod cotton flannel patch --- soaked with Simple Green --- the bore till the patches come out clean, chamber brush work, a dry patch, brass core/brass bristle rod work six to ten times back an forth in the pipe with ammonia based copper gun cleaner...TWICE --- wait six minutes --- do the same bristle brush work with no solvent, three dry patches, three patches soaked with Hoppes #9, three dry patches, one patch soaked with semi synthetic motor oil and one dry patch.

Arrrghh ... will this never end?

First, clean everything metal! How to do that, however, depends on what you are shooting, and which parts were exposed to the gasses from the cartridges. Mosin barrel bands, for example, can just be wiped down carefully with an oiled cloth, as can most of the other external metal parts of the rifle. It's a different matter with the internals.

There are lots of opinions about this, and most are grounded in facts that go back to military cleaning methods that are many years old. Most all of these will work just fine, but here's a summary of why, and why not.

Russians peeing down the barrel: Hot liquid, mostly water, with some ammonia

- This works fine, so long as you don't splash.

What you are trying to accomplish is to flush out chemical salts and residue, neutralize the salts, and leave the metal dry, other than a protective coat of oil.

The main ingredient is water. It flushes away most of the salts (left from the primer, not the powder).

Water with a bit of ammonia further helps to neutralize the salts. The cleaner made for U.S. military rifles back when all primers were corrosive contained ammonia ... you could sure smell it.

Windex was a good substitute, because it contained ammonia and was mostly water. Note the use of was, because Windex hasn't contained ammonia for a few years. Some generic brands of glass cleaner still do, though, and they are cheaper. You can also get a gallon of ammonia for a buck, or so, and mix it about one tsp to a quart of water. It will last you for years.

Water doesn't have to be hot to work, but hot water works better for two reasons:
-- Hot water dissolves soluble materials faster.
-- Hot water heats up the barrel, helping it to dry out faster, provided dry patches are run down the bore while it's still hot.

Any oil will work, but some is a little better than others. Ballistol will combine with moisture to some extent, helping it to evaporate while still coating the metal and protecting it. WD-40 is NOT a gun oil. Save it for the rusted stuff on your farm machinery.

As important as any of these other things is simply cleaning the firearm soon after shooting it. Even leaving it overnight can result in perceptible corrosion. I once let a young (but somewhat experienced) shooter use a Mosin while we were shooting several military firearms. He offered to clean it, and seemed to be very busily and carefully doing so while I worked on other stuff. I didn't check behind him, as I should have, and didn't realize that he didn't clean out the bore. The next weekend I looked down it before shooting it again, and it already had fuzzy corrosion showing. Fortunately, it still cleaned up pretty well, with no long-term damage, but several patches came out colored brown from the corrosion before it started looking decent again.