Corrosive ammo cleaning

[ma96782]

Hot soapy water will do.

Besides.........It's Cheap.

Aloha, Mark

[mongo]

I shoot a lot of corrosive 8mm ammo in my mausers. The best way I have found to clean them is to clean the rifle with hoppes then stick the muzzle in an old pot with the bolt and using a funnel from the chamber slowly pour a kettle of boiling water down the bore. The metal gets very hot causing it to dry and all the salts wash away. Then oil it up good. Just be very careful with the water and the metal will be to hot to touch right away.

[RocketmanVT]

At Century Arms, we used hot, soapy water after running a few wet patches through the bore (chamber end first) then wet patches to rinse, then dry patches.
This has served my Czech 52 well - ALL 7.62x45 ammo is corrosive, at least in my experience.

[Gun Surfer]

Hoppes web site under FAQ says that Hoppes #9 will remove corrosive primer residue.

[John Kepler]

Yep! And the "chemical" doing the removal is water (check the MSDS on the stuff!)! Last time I checked, Hoppes costs one hell of a lot more than hot tap-water....or even Windex!

[Gun Surfer]

Which is fine with me. I would rather clean once than have to clean with water and then another bore cleaner. I have used water to clean corrosive primer residue many times. After flushing and patching the bore with water, there is still a lot of carbon that has to be cleaned out with a good bore cleaner. Thus given a choice, I'll take Hoppes #9. Someone on this site some time ago reported that Hoppes #9 would not remove corrosive primer residue. I think they were wrong.

[Calif-Steve]

Hoppes No.9 will remove anything if you have 3-4 hours to devote to the project. Their instructions are very interesting, I recall they talk about "mechanical cleaning". Meaning what? Meaning if you spend enough time on anything you will be OK. Hoppes changed their formula in the 1970's and it doesn't work like it used to. Simple hot soapy water is the way to go. Also, in a Garand turn the rifle upside down so that water doesn't enter the gas cylinder. Finish with 1-2 cycles of Hoppes No. 9. By the way, I use hot, soapy water and finish with Ed's Red.

[MIKE33]

Sunray Has my vote

[John Kepler]

On this subject....I saw a really effective alternative for clearing corrosive salts at Camp Perry today care of Sgt. Toby Tomlinson and the Army MTU! Hydrogen peroxide! The cheap OTC stuff you can buy at Wally World or Family Dollar for pocket change! The water will solubilize the salts while the decomp of the peroxide provides a foaming/scrubbing action to dig the salts out of the "nooks and crannies". Just a wet patch of it is enough, then a dry patch.

Another application for the peroxide....cancelling the potential corrosive effects of high-ammonia cleaners like Sweets. The effect is the same as with chlorate residue, except in this case, the peroxide is neutralizing any residual ammonia that can be TOUGH on stainless steel barrels.

This is a very good idea for effective bore-cleaning, with solid chemistry backing it up...and I never thought of it or heard of it in over 45 years of shooting!

[steve61]

Wasn't Hoppes no. 9 specifically designed for corrosive ammo cleaning.
Steve