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Curio & Relic/Black Powder Curio & Relics and Black Powder Firearms, Old School shooting fun! |
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Cleaning My M44 After Some Corrosive Rounds?
New to Calguns, and am really delighted with all the great threads here on firearms.
Anyway, I mentioned in another thread that I got a spankin clean, unused, Polish M44 from my wife for Christmas. My son helped her locate a local curio seller with this great carbine. Anyway, received some pretty old corrosive military ammo with it as well as some non-corrosive cartridges from my son as well. I went out to the range and fired about 50 rounds with the bulk of the rounds being the corrosive type. Why: The military rounds were making a nice impressive flame out of the barrel with each firing. It was fun to watch and a few folks at the range were getting a kick watching my gun put on a fireworks show, and also the impressive "boom" from it too. Anyway, I went home immediately, and got out my Hoppe's and worked my barrel brush up and down quite a bit and patched the barrel real good with Hoppe's too. It finally came out with clean patches and then I swabbed in a little gun oil and swabbed that out too. As for the cartridge chamber, I don't know if I swabbed it out adequately, but my question is: I've been hearing that folks are using warm water and soap to swab out their barrels after using corrosive ammo. I didn't do that, but really Hoppe'd the heck out of it, and oiled it real good. The rifleing in my gun is like new, and there is no pitting. Do I need to go back and do the soap thing since I cleaned it just a week ago? My barrel looks like a mirror when viewed with some light through it. The rifleing looks beautiful. Is that corrosive chemical/material still there even though my barrel looks clean as a whistle?
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Regards, Ateballsidepocket - If You Don't Have The Cajones To Say It Face To Face, Then Don't Say It While Hiding Behind An Anonymous P.C.! |
#2
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The acid in the primers is corrosive to your bore. Just put a squirt of amonia based cleaner (like windex) and it'll negate the acidity. Washing with soap and water..or running any soaked patches through the bore will probably wash out or push out the acidic content. I use sweet's 69 which is amonia based. One patch of that at the range and I can take my time getting it cleaned hours or days later. I think bringing hot soapy water to the range is a bit much, but whatever floats your boat.
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#3
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Just flush the bore with boiling water and the steam/heat from the barrel will dry it up.
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"1911 mag, twinkie, twinkie, cupcake, primary weapon mag" |
#4
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Quote:
After that squirt of ammonia, I assume that you patch it till it's dry? Do you oil your bore a little after that and patch it?
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Regards, Ateballsidepocket - If You Don't Have The Cajones To Say It Face To Face, Then Don't Say It While Hiding Behind An Anonymous P.C.! |
#5
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"Is that corrosive chemical/material still there even though my barrel looks clean as a whistle?"
I don't know. It depends on if hoppes is formulated to deal with corrosive primers or not. I don't know off hands, although I know there are cleaners that are supposed to take care of the corrosive salts. The salts could still be there even if your rifle has been cleaned. People seem to like windex for removing the salts. It's the water in the ammonia based cleaners (windex) that dissolves the salts created by the corrosive primers. People swear by windex, but soapy water is free. Soapy water seems to work pretty well, and it has the added bonus of cleaning out your barrel a bit. Here's a write up at surplusrifle.com" http://www.surplusrifle.com/shooting...sive/index.asp Just spray a bunch down and run a wet patch and some dry patches through to push all the water out. Then run some oiled patches through to make sure you've displaced all the water. It's worked for me pretty well, until I get home to give the rifle a proper cleaning. (although to be honest, after the soapy water and oiling, there's not much cleaning to be done afterwards). Last edited by Iknownot; 01-06-2009 at 3:53 PM.. |
#6
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It's not acid, and ammonia isn't the key.
The corrosive stuff is from the primers, and it's a salt (potassium chloride IIRC). You can clean it out with plain water, but soap and water work a bit better. You can technically clean it out with any cleaner, but hot, soapy water works best. I prefer to clean thoroughly with soapy water and patches, dry the bore and then run some Hoppes or similar on patches through the bore, dry again, then oil the bore and store the rifle. Don't forget to clean the bolt face, breech, chamber and muzzle! You don't have to clean it out immediately; the salt will only become corrosive when it's wet, but it'll pull water out of the air. Waiting until you're home (or sometimes until the next day) is fine. Ammonia works fine for copper fouling, though. |
#7
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The biggest thing to remember is to store it in a dry place. If you clean it reasonably well with windex/soapy water, oil it, and make sure that it is not exposed to moisture, it will be fine.
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#8
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So there is a little controversy over windex/ammonia actually helping?
The soapy/hot water I've heard from a few folks before placing this thread. Seems so strange to put water or soap down the barrel of a gun. I guess as long as it gets dried out good and then oil'd, it seems to be a popular method. I guess the best fix-all is to stick with non-corrosive primer'd cartridges.
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Regards, Ateballsidepocket - If You Don't Have The Cajones To Say It Face To Face, Then Don't Say It While Hiding Behind An Anonymous P.C.! Last edited by ateballsidepocket; 01-06-2009 at 3:57 PM.. |
#9
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I cleaned mine with windex. I cleaned it like I normally do with patches then after the windex run I put in the Hopps 9 for the final cleaning of it. Hopefully I did it right because I cleaned it till there was no more black coming out.
__________________
An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life. -- Robert A. Heinlein, "Beyond This Horizon", 1942 |
#10
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Hoppes will not touch the corrosive primer residue - which is a salt either from mecuric or chlorite priming compounds. I hear windex works, however I have not tried and not sure about it. Ammonia will clean/remove copper fouling, but again not sure about its use for corrive priming. The OLD method is to use Hot Soapy Water - which is the same for cleaning a blackpowder weapon. Stick the muzzel of the rifle in a bucket of water and using the cleaning rod and swab pump the water through the bore.
I used this method when I fired corrosive 303 Brit ammo and did not seem to have a problem. However, I would not shoot the corrosive stuff in a nice clean bore either as it takes too much effort to clean and too easy to goof up a nice bore. Old rifles with rusty pitted bores are that way for a reason, and its not always that they were not taken care of. Once you do clean it, you will need to check it and run patches through the bore for several days after to make sure you got it all - reddish patches means rust and means you did not get all the residue. Also, don't forget to swab out the chamber, receiver, and the bolt face as the old primers leak. Oil well after using hot water as the steel will start rusting befor your eyes. Last edited by M1A Rifleman; 01-06-2009 at 4:43 PM.. |
#11
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As I understand it, it is salt, not acidity, that the corrosive primers leave behind. I use boiling water, then follow with Hoppes. Hoppes by itself does not do the job:
http://www.surplusrifle.com/reviews2...salt/index.asp |
#13
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The non-corrosive ammo is a bit more expensive.....so mildly corrosive ammo and soapy water seems to be good to go
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"I am the bastard son...The expendable one... ...War is in my blood ...Rage is in my heart." Quote:
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#14
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Windex is actually not bad to use; it's soapy water in a spray bottle, the right stuff in a handy dispenser. I wound up with my own spray bottle that I refilled with tap water and a little dish soap. Quote:
You don't need to clean three or four times. You're not going to have that much gunk in the barrel. If you take care of it properly, there won't be an issue. |
#15
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Just do what M Sage and others have said to do, they know what theyr talkin about. Just dont urinate in your barrel and expect ur rifle to be ok. My buddy and I recently went shooting and he shot corrosive yugo ammo through his Mosin and figured he could just piss in the barrel and call it a day. Several days later the bolt was rusted shut but I guess the fouling wasnt TOO bad.
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#16
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haha
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#17
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step one: ensure rifle is not loaded
step two: disassemble step three: boil water/ pour down barrel (be careful dont burn yourself and the hotter the better) step four: let cool step five: clean as normal
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#18
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I just run some hot water down the tube, patch it dry and oil it heavily. Just run a patch through it before you shoot next time. 3 years and maybe 30 outings + god knows how many rounds of surplus ammo and no signs of rust.
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If you seek peace, prepare for war |
#19
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Looks like the hot water + soap is the most popular method.
I like that suggestion of poking the end of the barrel in a bucket of hot soapy water and running the cleaning rod up and down it; into the soapy water. Do you folks use a cleaning brush when doing the water treatment. Almost sounded like you folks were just patching the barrel with the hot/soapy water then dry patching it, and then oiling it? Even with the hot/soapy water wouldn't you need a bristley brush like is normaly done when using solvent to scrape-up any residue that the hot/soapy water doesn't dislodge?
__________________
Regards, Ateballsidepocket - If You Don't Have The Cajones To Say It Face To Face, Then Don't Say It While Hiding Behind An Anonymous P.C.! |
#20
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2-3 Sessions of running a metal brush down the bore can do more damage than you shooting corrosive STEEL CASED ammo out of it for 3 years.
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If you seek peace, prepare for war |
#21
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What you want to do is use the soapy wet patch to dilute the salts. Then use Hoppes or other bore cleaner to disolve the metal jacket/lead build-up. Copper Fouling will disolve out as green on a patch. When your done removing the metal fouling, repeat the water treatment.
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#22
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Last edited by M1A Rifleman; 01-07-2009 at 8:43 AM.. |
#23
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Huh? I guess he didnt know that our pee is full of salts. Next time have him clean it with ocean water that's about the only thing worse I can think of. |
#24
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I thought that a copper brush had less of a hardness than the steel. Steel generally has a hardness of 5.5-6.x, and copper is much softer. Example: Just rub the end of a cut piece of #12 sized solid copper wire against any piece of steel and you will see a copper colored line on the steel, and no abrasion of the steel. The entire scratch line on the steel is added surface material(copper) to the steel surface. You can take a house key or any key made of brass, and scratch it against regular steel or stainless or Chrome vanadiam steel and you will leave a yellowish, residue from the key. I.E. The key leaves part of itself on the steel, not vice versa. I have copper brushes, that I've run through the barrel of my old 1960's J.C. Higgins bolt action rifle barrel, and have been doing it for years, and the the rifleing is as distinct and the mirror finish of the barrel are just as distinct as the day I got that rifle for Christmas from my Dad. It's like paper, sizzors, stones........in a way; one trumps the other. Steel's hardness trumps copper's hardness, Glass or silica or quartz generally trumps standard steel, as quarts or silica/glass has a hardness of 6.0 +.. Just find a nice piece of quartz rock and run a piece of steel across it. You will see a grey/steel line, where the steel object just shed some of it's material, and the silica quarts(SiO4) didn't lose anything. I was a Geology major in College, and we had to know how to do some basic mineral/rock identification, and the old steel scratch test was one of the basics. If the steel scratched the rock, then it was not silica based, if the steel left a trail of itself on the rock, we were looking at something with a hardness level greater than steel(5.5-6.0); most likely siica based rock. So, with that, how can a copper brushing of your very nice hard steel bore and rifleing be in danger of damage? No one should dry-scrape a bore with a copper brush, but should have a wet brush with solvent or I guess Hot/soapy water in the case of corrosives, but I can't see how a copper brush can hurt steel. If anything, if you dry scrape a bore with copper, you'll probably leave copper etched onto the bore and rifleing, but scratch it, that goes against established laws of the hardness scales of any and all materials known to man. By the way, diamond has a hardness of around 10. Corundum is around 8. Anyway, that's why even those simple little glass cutters have sharp little steel cutting wheels with impregnated diamond dust in them. # 10 diamond trumps #6+ Glass/silica.
__________________
Regards, Ateballsidepocket - If You Don't Have The Cajones To Say It Face To Face, Then Don't Say It While Hiding Behind An Anonymous P.C.! Last edited by ateballsidepocket; 01-07-2009 at 9:05 AM.. |
#25
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Quote:
You only pee on your rifle if it is frozen closed as they did during the Battle of the Bulge. Its not a solution to clean for corrosive ammo. Pay attention in History Class |
#26
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Trouble is, I grow kidney stones with my pee, and they would definetly cause some obstructions to my gun barrel.
__________________
Regards, Ateballsidepocket - If You Don't Have The Cajones To Say It Face To Face, Then Don't Say It While Hiding Behind An Anonymous P.C.! |
#27
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Haha man this is good. I guess his (fellow calgunner by the way) pee didnt have enough ammonia in it to dissolve all of the corrosive salts. So if you do pee in your barrel, please make sure its loaded with ammonia . Make sure to clean any kidney stones out of the barrel/action after urination depletion session.
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#28
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I am so close to putting all of this in my signature......ROTFLMAO Watch out everyone!!! I think I squibbed a kidney stone down my barrel!!
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"I am the bastard son...The expendable one... ...War is in my blood ...Rage is in my heart." Quote:
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#30
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Seriously though....kidney stones are no joke.....and neither is pissing down a barrel.
__________________
"I am the bastard son...The expendable one... ...War is in my blood ...Rage is in my heart." Quote:
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#31
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A brass brush in a steel bore shouldn't do damage since steel is harder than brass. Don't know if brass is softer than chrome though but I suspect it is.
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Oppressors can tyrannize only when they achieve a standing army, an enslaved press, and a disarmed populace. -- James Madison The Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms. -- Samuel Adams, Debates and Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 86-87 (Pearce and Hale, eds., Boston, 1850) |
#32
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I talking about OCD people who NEED to have there barrels cleaned and go ape monkey on there bores.
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If you seek peace, prepare for war |
#33
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That's what I do after shooting my Russian irons.
http://theboxotruth.com/docs/edu13.htm Exept I use a soapy water instead of windex.
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#34
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Quote:
(Most) Chrome is harder than (most) steel. Think Rockwell C scale of 70-ish. IIRC, good heat-treated tool steels tend to run around 60, which is quite hard. Depending on the grade of steel, a lot of the stuff I worked with was around 50 before being sent to heat treat. We could do precision grinding after heat treat, but milling and drilling were usually off the list of things to do, since it would chew cutting tools up terribly. |
#35
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#36
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Been a lot of debate over what cleaning solution best neutralizes the corrosive salts from using this ammo. It's apparently the primer that's the culprit.
Anyway, I've been using good old dish washing detergent + warm water in a bucket, and swabbing/patching, and brushing the barrel's internals with that solution. After drying the barrel, I swab through some solvent, and then dry it, then a little coating of gun oil. I've found that just the warm soapy water alone seems to do a great job. The rifling comes out nice a shining and defined. Seems that the solvent plus patching isn't bringing up a residue anyway. I think the old Windex, or ammonia technique has been basically shot-down as the way to neutralize the corrosive salts deposits from this corrosive salts ammo. It urea/ammonia isn't chemically the answer to neutralizing this corrosive salt. Warm, soapy water seems to be the trick, that clears it out and will preserve your Mosin rifling.
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Regards, Ateballsidepocket - If You Don't Have The Cajones To Say It Face To Face, Then Don't Say It While Hiding Behind An Anonymous P.C.! |
#37
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I shoot quite a bit of corrosive ammo, all I use is Pro7 squirted down the barrel from breach end and let sit for a few minutes, run patches till clean. then oil bore with patches. don`t forget too spray bolt, mag and surrounding area around breach. wipe area dry and then oil. reinspect 2 too 3 day later to make sure your`e baby is ok. I repeat this process at this point. but it doesn`t look like it`s really necessary. I haven`t detected any rust. I am just very protective of my collection. another bonus pro7 is it is nontoxic and doesn`t stink the place up like hoppes which I haven`t used in a couple of decades.
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#38
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I use a mixture of one part Ballistol to nine parts water. After shooting surplus ammo, and before leaving the range, I run three or four patches soaked in this mixture through the bore to dissolve and rinse out the corrosive salts. In a warm barrel the water quickly evaporates leaving the Ballisol (oil) behind. Once home I clean as normal using Hoppes #9 on a bronze brush and patches.
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#39
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win and reps for u, sir
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#40
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