corrosive?

[TDH]

As much as I hate to say it Sigman if that rifle survived WW2 and Korea and wasn't lend lease it was probably destroyed by either Carter or Clinton in their purge of evil unneeded raffles. I hope I'm wrong and you find it before your dad follows his buddies to the last battle.

[ropewalker1]

In a semi-auto, You'd have to get at the gas tube also, right ?

[jmoore]

In a semi-auto, You'd have to get at the gas tube also, right ?

Only four rifles w/"proper" gas tubes come to mind immediately- Ar15/M16, AG42b, the Hakim, and the Rashid. Of the lot only the Hakim and Rashid would be commonly fired w/ "corrosive" primed ammo, and I've never seen any problems with those. However, they were intended to be used in very arid climates, so the potassium cloride residue wouldn't be able to "attract" much moisture to start the rust process.

The gas tubes themselves in the above examples are non-heat treatable stainless steel, and are themselves likely to be resistant to rust through in the normal lifespan of the weapon.

Not a bad idea to flush out the rest of works, though, just to keep the gas port and block from pitting.

Most all other semi-auto rilfes of older design were generally set up to be "easy" to disassemble for cleaning purposes, but some are better than others- it seems G/K43s often have "rooted" gas ports- and they tend to be "overgassed" in the first place.

Note that the M1 carbine was designed from the outset to use non-corrosive primers, as the tappet system used is not field servicable. The M1 Garand was "ruggedized" by making the gas cylinder etc. from stainless steel- expensive at the time, but worth it!

[no one]

If it will be a while between using corrosive ammo and getting home where I can clean the rifle, a bottle of Windex comes in really handy. It neutralizes all the corrosive salts and makes the gunk stay soft until I can clean it at home.

Hoppes was specifically designed to neutralize all the corrosive stuff, and it is really cheap. Windex is even cheaper. The cheapest cleaner is a bucket of scalding hot soapy water.

As noted above, the hotter the water, the better it is. When the water is really hot, it heats up the metal so that the heat helps evaporate off any remaining water. Then just use oil on both inside and outside parts that were exposed to water. Lots of people neglect to protect metal that is underneath wood, and that almost always results in rust that you don't see until it is far too late.