Cleaning up Somme ground-dug 303 Great War SAA.

[Roger Payne]

As a child my first collecting of anything Enfield related was limited to the occasional bayonet & picking up cartridges on the beach/in the sand dunes on old wartime ranges & training areas. As time went on I started buying, selling, collecting & working on the rifles themselves, & visiting battlefield sites on the European mainland as well as visiting training areas. I still retain a deep interest in battlefield artifacts & in wandering about the Somme in particular, finding the sites of old trenches & dugouts. I've been lucky enough in more recent years to help several of the battlefield archaeological groups that explore the old Western Front. As a consequence I seem to have amassed a bit of a collection of 303 rounds & find it interesting & satisfying cleaning them up to something like they used to look one hundred years ago. I know it is a little off the beaten track, but is Enfield related & I thought one or two people might be interested to see what you can do with some relic cartridges & a car battery charger!

Twenty-five or more years ago, another forummer here told me about the electrolytic method of cleaning metal finds without damaging them. It has been mentioned here on the forum before, & is most useful. It removes corrosion without removing any of the native metal, & involves no abrasives nor acids. I use an everyday car battery charger set to trickle charge, & have fashioned some bent wire to attach to crocodile clips so that I can hold several cartridges at a time in the bucket of cleaning electrolyte. The items to be cleaned act as the negative electrode & suffer no damage, but all rust (from corroded chargers) is reduced to powder which either falls off or can be scraped off with a finger nail! However, the positive electrode is sacrificial, getting gradually & progressively more corroded as the system is running. You can see what remains of a saw after two or three days' immersion in the system. Periodically, the anode should be scraped clean of corrosion to ensure efficient conduction of electricity. The bucket contains just tap water with a sprinkle of washing soda to ensure conductivity. Caustic soda (NaOH) can also be used, but if you try it wear gloves if putting your hand into the mix!

Before the rounds are immersed for cleaning they are all inerted in a kinetic bullet puller. Unfortunately, due to the prolonged time they have spent in the ground the brass has become brittle, & there is at least a 50% loss rate, usually due to neck splits, when inerting. Sometimes, due to oxidation of the lead at the base of the bullet jacket, the lead oxide expands & splits the cupro-nickel jacket, further increasing the likelihood of case neck splits as the bullet comes out. Even so, I have quite a few that have cleaned up nicely. After the cleaning procedure they are left looking clean but dull, though could be polished up if desired. I've shown a few views of rounds before cleaning, of split cases & jackets, & the finished result when all goes right!

They don't have any great monetary value, but it's enjoyable doing it.

Hope forummers might find it of some interest, & a bit different.....

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[browningautorifle]

Something I have an insatiable appetite for myself. If only I was within range of such old battlefields... I have a German Pioneer axe head that was kicked out of the dirt on the Some, probably dropped in the later stages of the war. I should sort out this electrolysis myself...

[husk]

Very cool historical stuff!

[Flying10uk]

I should sort out this electrolysis myself...

Once you have tried it a few times you realise that the electrolysis process is much more simple and straightforward than it seemed before you tried it.

I always leave the bucket containing the object being de-rusted outside because of the gases given off during the process. If one removes the steel electrode periodically from the liquid and scrapes it clean, the process will continue at a reasonable pace.

[Surpmil]

I thought it was because some ammo wasn't so close to spec? Tolerance...

Probably both: if the alloy and tempering/annealing was right, but the dimensions were sufficiently oversize, jams would be inevitable. If the dimensions were right, but the brass was soft and would not "spring back" ("elastic deformation") to close to original dimensions jams would also occur. In the worst cases apparently the micro-bonding, aka "adhesion" of the case to the chamber wall would not be separated or "broken" and that would be one for the armourer to pound out with a rod.

The Ross of course was more vulnerable to this due to the reduced leverage in its primary extraction compared to the Lee Enfield, though the Enfield reportedly had many of the same problems at times, probably with even worse ammo than jammed the Ross.

At least with the Ross you could resolve the problem by oiling your chamber or ammo, and get away with it. With the SMLE that would be a risky venture I suspect.

Once you have tried it a few times you realise that the electrolysis process is much more simple and straightforward than it seemed before you tried it.

I always leave the bucket containing the object being de-rusted outside because of the gases given off during the process. If one removes the steel electrode periodically from the liquid and scrapes it clean, the process will continue at a reasonable pace.

If one uses a carbon rod or blank as the anode, the "rubbish" falls off and the process can continue until the anode is completely eroded. I had some old lighthouse carbon arc lamp rods and that was what happened with them, though this was de-rusting iron.

IIRC the gas given off is hydrogen so ventilation is advisable.

[Flying10uk]

gas given off is hydrogen

It is because electricity is being passed through water which contains hydrogen and oxygen, i.e. H2 O, 2 parts hydrogen to 1 part oxygen.

Doing the electrolysis process outside is just being cautious in order to avoid the possibility of the build up of dangerous gases in a confined area.

[Cottage Hill Bill]

Roger, glad to see the post on electrolysis. Along with firearms and militaria one of my other collecting interests is Gas Pressure Appliances (GPAs). Think camping lanterns and stoves. I've used electrolysis for 30+ years for cleaning all sorts of bits, mostly ferrous items. It is a simple, safe way of cleaning badly rusted items. I've often thought it would work well for relic condition finds of bayonets or firearms. First let me address the hydrogen myth. Yes electrolysis generates hydrogen, however, hydrogen is very, very hard to accumulate in dangerous quantities. There is absolutely no way you're going to get enough to cause any kind of explosion, even if you put a plastic bag over your set up and try to catch hydrogen. Try it yourself, strike a match directly over your electrolysis bucket. At most you get a faint pop, more commonly you get absolutely nothing.

Here is my current setup
Attachment 112477
The power supplies are old laptop power bricks. Older car chargers work well. New car chargers have sensors that will cause them to switch off unless you connect them to a battery and the battery to the electrolysis set up. The great thing about the process is you can crank it up and forget it. Come back in a day or two, take the part out, rinse with some clear water then clean with a bit of steel wool or wire brush or wheel.
Here are some bits I dug up in my backyard. You can see from the pitting how very rusty they were. Something else I like about the process is you can control the amount of cleaning. I rather like the dark grey color of these. A bit longer in the tank and a little more aggressive polishing and they could be shiny bright.
Attachment 112479
A little coat of Renaissance Wax and a buff and you're done. I've found used lawn mower blades to be excellent sacrificial anodes. You can get more life and better results by periodically cleaning the anode. As they build up waste material it increases resistance which degrades the process. It's all about current flow. I either take the anodes out, scrape off as much gunk as I can, then once dry run them past a wire wheel to get back to bare metal. You can also suspend another anode in place of the work piece (I use a tin can) and reverse the polarity on your setup. Now your sacrificial anodes are the work piece. Just don't forget to switch the + and - back the right way before starting a new workpiece.

This is a great process for cleaning up any old stuff. If a workpiece has too much resistance for your power supply, just add another power supply. That's why I like the laptop bricks, I can just keep hooking them to the setup.

I hope this has been helpful.

[30Three]

I have a few collectible rounds of .303; a couple of 1916 rounds from WW1 in good condition for the age; these are not battlefield pick ups.
From WWII I have several clips and a bandolier from a parachutage to the local French Resistance; these came with my resistance No4 rifle. The cotton bandolier still has some wheat or oat grains in it from when they were stashed.
Obviously they'll never be fired; but a few of these rounds show signs of corrosion so I may have to de-activate them.
Attachment 112348

[blurrededge]

That's an interesting cleaning tip Roger. I have a few fired .303 cases I pulled from rabbit excavations years ago, atop the cliffs of Ventnor Isle of Wight, close by the radar site that took a pummeling from Stukas in 1940. They're pretty fragile but I'll give your method a go, I know one of them was from a bren due to the distinctive oblong firing pin mark in the primer, might get some dates etc.

[Roger Payne]

I'd encourage anyone with fragile stuff that needs a clean to give it a go. It is simplicity itself to set up. You do need to be patient though, as it takes some hours to work. I tend to leave the charger on trickle all day or over night. It's also necessary to clean all the corroded clag off the anode periodically or the muck tends to impair the conduction of electricity & so the electrolytic reaction. A ready supply of clean scrap steel is also a must if you're going to do this to any extent. Luckily my pal is a builder & gives me his old saws once they've lost their edge......