Shooting Corrosive Ammo

So Bob joined the ranks of Mosin Nagant collectors, go have a peek at his lovely Tula M91/30 Hex (also if there are any surplus guns you’re interested in, BUY ONE, its not like they’re making any more of them, and the price will ALWAYS go up) He mentions some apprehension of shooting corrosive ammo. My advice: DON’T! Just be mindful. Obviously if you’re the type of person who may shoot a gun and not have time to clean it afterwords, or may forget to clean it, corrosive surplus ammo isn’t for you. Other than that, take advantage of it!

I gots me a bunch of Mosins, and I love to shoot them, and when I do shoot them I shoot almost exclusively surplus corrosive ammo, its cheap and it shoots well, also the surplus market seems to be going like gangbusters, as there’s always some distributor that’s selling sealed spam cans of surplus ammo. I also recommend buying the sealed 440 round cans, as you ammo will be sealed from the ravages of time and will come out looking brand new even tho the mint date might be 50-60 years ago. Also I’ve shot Silver Bear commercial Russian ammo before and I had bad luck with it. Sticky extraction, and really goofy groups.

So needless to say I’ve shot a LOT of corrosive ammo, most of it 7.62x54R, but I’ve shot a bunch of 7.62×25, and I’ve even run a few hundred rounds of really crappy 7.62×51 ammo thought my FAL. So bolt-action, recoil action, gas-operated, I’ve shot them all, and my guns all still look great. Also I’m not very anal, here’s what I do.

Step #1. Shoot lots of cheap ammo and have lots of fun! Big important thing, how much fun are you having if its a dollar every time you pull the trigger? How much fun is it if you only bring a couple of rounds to the range and leave still hungry for more?

Blast the crap out of stuff, and get a big smile.

Step #2. Don’t panic. Corrosive ammo simply creates hygroscopic salts that are mixed in with your gunpowder residue. Its not corrosive in itself, its not acid or floor-stripper. It just will encourage water to collect in your gun over time which will promote rust. Trust me, even in the humid summers of New England your gun will NOT instantly rust. If you want to go out for some lunch after you hit the range, don’t worry about it. If you have some errands to run after you shoot, go ahead. Just don’t forget to clean your gun!

My rule of thumb is NEVER let the sun set on a gun with corrosive ammo shot through it. At the Northeast Blogger Shoots there is much corrosive ammo shot, and I often don’t get home until late at night. Those nights I make sure to clean all the guns that have shot, or may have shot corrosive ammo. So don’t disrupt your day because you used cheap ammo, but also don’t toss your gun in the safe thinking it’ll be OK whenever you feel like cleaning it.

Step #3 Remove the salts. This is the big step. The salts are water soluble, so you need to use a water-based cleaner. A lot of guys use windex, but you can even go totally ghetto and simply use soapy water….even water might work. Me personally I use M-Pro7 because its my every-day cleaner anyway and its water-based. Win-Win! Just make sure you do not think you’re cleaning the salts with an oil-based cleaner like Hoppe’s #9, or WD-40, or brake cleaner. These oil based cleaners simply won’t dissolve the salts. So make sure you use a cleaner that works, again I recommend M-Pro7 or Windex. And make sure you clean wherever the powder residue may have gone. So that means barrel, chamber, and action (inside and outside) the bolt, the raceway, the gas system, any optics on the gun, any bayonets or metal accessories, give them all a good wipe down!

Step #4 wipe your gun dry and clean as normal. If you say clean your gun with an oil-based cleaner like Brake Cleaner, or Hoppes #9, and you decided to windex your gun, simply wipe off all the Windex until the gun is dry, then do your regular cleaning and oiling. Again because I use M-Pro7 to clean my guns, when I’m done with the M-pro7 stage, I’m done cleaning, so I wipe dry and oil my guns. Easy.

I will note that M-pro7 is NOT a sponsor of Weer’d World, but I use enough of their products that I’ll take anything they want to give me! 🙂

So the take-away from this is shooting corrosive ammo is no big deal. Also this works for strange surplus ammo that often shows up at gun shops. There has been many an instance where I asked the Bubba behind the counter “Hey is this stuff corrosive?” and gotten little more than a shrug….or worse yet “Nah, I don’t think so….” yeah that’s confidence building. But don’t turn up your nose at cheap ammo! Buy the stuff and shoot it, just take the extra steps to preserve your gun for all time!