Definitely Corrosive Ammo

There's been discussion that the LC 52 ammo is a Chinese knock off that is Berdan primed and therefore corrosive. A short time ago I bought some magazines on Gun Broker and there was a small group of ammo. Some was WRA 43, WRA 44, WRA 54 & RA 52. About 20 rounds were marked differently with 7.62 at the bottom. I queried the forum and some thought it may be Israeli Berdan primed. Today I pulled the bullets to re-use the bullets for plinking rounds and sure enough, there are two flash holes meaning that they are corrosive. Just a heads up and more info for you "carabiners".

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Originally Posted by stonewall56

Today I pulled the bullets to re-use the bullets for plinking rounds and sure enough, there are two flash holes meaning that they are corrosive. Just a heads up and more info for you "carabiners".

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Not necessarily....just because it's Berdan primed doesn't mean it's corrosive!

The headstamp in the pic is French carbine ammo, in this case Berdan primed is corrosive.

Scott

Scott is right they are French and because quite a bit of the French made carbine ammo was corrosive primed you should consider them to be also. Powder and bullet are fine to use for reloading.

Corrosive is not the end of the world, I wouldn't run it through anything better than a service grade but with proper cleaning your gun will live to shoot another day.

I'd never use anything I know is corrosive in any carbine.
Never ever.

It's not like you'd only have to clean the bore to remove corrosive residue.
The M1 carbine was designed from the start to NEVER use corrosive ammo.

The gas system with little practical or sustainable serviceability cannot be cleaned of this residue.

Interesting topic. A while back I put forth the query should I use the Chinese ammo and if so will it harm the gas system on the M1 carbine. Apparently from what I have read the gas piston cannot be cleaned of the residue from the inside so it stands to reason I will have to not use the 200 rounds on hand, or sell it with a disclaimer. Thanks everyone for letting me know.

PJF, good choice.
The gas system *can* be taken apart for cleaning but very few folks here would advise it. The bad things that can happen far outnumber the good things.
Leave the gas system alone and find another use for your cartridges.

Cleaning the carbine cylinder is not that difficult, but it was intended to be a job for second echelon (unit armorer), not the user. With the proper tool, it is easy but the nut should be staked and repeated staking is not good.

There is a story that when the carbine was being considered for adoption, the Army was reluctant to go to non-corrosive primers because at that time they did not have enough "track record" to be sure they would be viable for extended storage periods. Williams and Winchester management told the Army, in effect, that if they did not go to non-corrosive primers, troops issued carbines would very quickly have expensive clubs in their hands. The Army decided that since the carbine was a limited issue, war emergency weapon, they would take the risk of having ammo problems.

Jim

Many years ago I shot hundreds or thousands of rounds of the corrosive French carbine ammo. Always cleaned everything (and mean everything) thoroughly with WWII GI bore cleaner, but never disassembled the gas cylinder. Bore is still bright and the carbine still shoots great. Based on this experience I would say that with prompt and thorough cleaning corrosive ammunition can be used without bad effects.

All that said, I think it would be a really bad idea to shoot corrosive ammo in any carbine other than a "shooter", followed by very thorough cleaning. But why bother? Just use non-corrosive ammo in the first place.

I still have lots of the French corrosive stuff around -- use it in the Blackhawk revolver, which I shoot about once a year. No gas cylinder problems there.

"...two flash holes meaning that they are corrosive..." That means berdan primers, not corrosive. Most likely is though.
"...cannot be cleaned of this residue..." The gas system is not water tight. Flushing it with very hot water will do nicely.