So I allowed the guys from my local shop to shoot some of my full auto toys at their company picnic on Sunday. I said I would supply the guns, they supply the ammo and load mags.

Well I didn’t realize until the day of that the owner bought corrosive 7.62x39 to shoot through my transferable Valmet M78

I cleaned the shit out of it with hot soapy dishwater, then Hoppes and then Remoil. I cleaned EVERYTHING as best I could and joke it’s probably the cleanest it has been since it left the factory.

After the soapy water I put the small parts like gas tube, bolt, bolt carrier in the oven on low heat to make sure they were dry and then oiled them up. It’s all back together now but how long should I be keeping an eye on it looking for rust?

I didn’t take of the flash hider because it’s a bitch but was that a mistake?

I don’t normally shoot corrosive ammo and am paranoid as hell in an expensive gun with hard to source parts. Am I blowing this out of proportion?

I try to avoid corrosive ammo, but I've been told that it is fine as long as you clean the bolt head and bore promptly with a good cleaner, then oil.

Just flush it with water and clean as usual. Water neutralizes the salts.
Its not complicated or anything you need to be concerned about. Just flush and clean within a day or so after shooting.
I've shot surplus m67 for years in my ak's and have never seen a speck of rust.

*I should add that the most important parts to flush are the gas tube, barrel and bolt*.
I've never rinsed out my receivers and have seen no ill effect.
The concern for corrosive ammo is widely overblown and it mostly comes down to people who wait weeks between firing and cleaning. The more humidity, the faster rust can form.
I've taken multiple day courses with my Arsenal 107 shooting corrosive m67 and didn't clean it until I was done and there still was no surface rust.

I just use a Pyrex measuring cup with tap water that I microwaved to 150 or so degrees, or around there. A pint of water can easily clean 1 gun. Take outside, take a field stripped weapon and pour the water into the chamber as best as possible letting in run out the barrel. Pour into the gas block, pour on bolt face, and gas parts.

The hot water dries super quick, spray with oil or clean weapon all the way. Simple as that I haven't had any rust issues on anything I own.

Just do this process right after shooting. I have had a few older milsurps rust some because I don't flush with water that day thinking "I will get it tomorrow" and then tomorrow turns into next week, etc.

Thanks guys, makes me feel better and I’ll keep an eye on it for the next couple days before I put her up.

You absolutely must flush with water. This is the most important step followed by oiling everything down to prevent rust. The metal in the bore will will continue to corrode until the metal is flushed water. Solvent and oil alone will not neutralize salts.

As stated above by Mindfull as long as you flush with water after shooting your good to go. Should you shoot corrosive ammo and neglect your bore you’ll have a rough looking bore quicker than expected.

I've run corrosive ammo through two rifles.

1.  S&W M&P 15 in 5.45X39 with the Russian ammo.

   Shot it several times and cleaned it immediately using standard cleaning products.  Zero issues.  One time we had a range session just before getting into the truck for a 4 hour trip and we got back so late I couldn't clean it till the next evening.  No issues.  I started extending my time between shooting and cleaning and got up to a week with no issues.  Then I went to a field shoot down in NC on a rainy/misty day.  Finished up shooting at the end of the day and drove home to VA (about a 3 hour trip).  Got home late (Saturday evening) and didn't clean the rifle before going to bed that night.  Got up Sunday morning and after my wife left for church I pulled the rifle out of the case and couldn't get the bolt to pull back.  I took the lower and upper apart and put a cleaning rod down the barrel and smacked it with a hammer to pop the bolt loose.  Rust everywhere.  The chamber/bore are chrome plated.  No issues there.  The flash suppressor was rusty.  The bolt looked like it had orange mold on it.  The bolt tail had pits rusted into it already.  The lower receiver parts appeared to be fine.  With my wife at church I was free to grab the upper, bolt, etc. and head to the kitchen sink.  Ran hot water into the sink and dropped the bolt/carrier in to soak.  Then ran a cleaning rod/brush through the barrel several times with the flash suppressor down under the hot water.  Used the sprayer to run hot water through the upper and barrel.  Disassembled it after it dried, cleaned it with bore cleaner and lubed it up well and put it away.

Somewhere I read an old saying about how often to inspect and possibly re clean a weapon that was fired with corrosive ammo.  Something like inspect every day for 3 days, every 3 days for week after that and then every couple of weeks for a month (not saying that's exact).  I did that and never found any rust.

2.  M1A with the S&W corrosive .308 Winchester ammo.  Cleaned it every day for the week we were shooting (RBC at Ramseur, NC).  I used a black powder cleaning solvent first in cleaning the parts.  Then I used some carb cleaner to blow any loose stuff out.  Then I sprayed Remoil on it to get oil back on all the parts stripped by the carb cleaner, then I oiled/greased as needed for the M1A.  Zero issues all week and after I came home.

I believe that black powder solvent worked pretty well getting that stuff off the barrel, flash suppressor, gas system, bolt, receiver, etc.

Sounds like you are good from what you did.  I’ve shot corrosive in an M&P 15r, AK’s and even a CAI garand I have, as long as it’s flushed and cleaned I’ve had no issues, although one time I did forget it was corrosive and you could actually see rust starting to form at about a 7-10 days

Follow the old military cleaning requirement:  Clean day of firing and each succesive day for 3 days.  As described above, hot soapy water, oil after drying.   Note well, unless the formula has changed in recent years, the mil spec CLP will not neutralize corrosive salts.  Ask me how I know

it can be real bad,obviously. Had a barrel with a muzzle brake and washed down the bore like the other have mentioned,soap and water.  But the brake never completely got cleaned.  rifle sat for about 5 -6 months in a controlled environment. And it was coated in rust which did come off with phosphoric acid. Had to get off the rifle also to make sure the threads and crown were not F'd. then reblued it.  

Other than that, I would still use it if it was dirt cheap and in beater gun without a brake!

It's fine and I have been shooting it for 30 plus years with no issues.

My typical routine is to just carry a bottle of soapy water , contact lens solution bottle is perfect , and hose the bore while still warm. Then a healthy dose of WD40 to displace the water for the trip home. Once home a standard cleaning is fine and then a reclean maybe a few days later just in case.

Corrosive ammo is no big deal at all. There are plenty of clean functional guns still brin* used that were shot for decades with nothing but corrosive.

Reasonable cleaning ( hot soapy water or my favorite sweets 7.62) and oil after.

I shoot corrosive all the time through my milsurp bolt guns. They are a breeze to clean after shooting, hot water and then clean as normal. I never did like shooting corrosive through my auto loaders due to having to clear the gas system as well as the bore/chamer/bolt.

As others have said, if you live in a humid environment then rust can form fairly quickly. Here in GA in the summer it's hot/humid all the time and I have noticed rust form on my rifles within a week of not cleaning.

Bottle of Windex squirted down the bore at the range, flushed out with hot water when I get home.  

I usually just lay the metal parts out on the back patio in the sun, (they'll be too hot to touch in minutes).  and then oil them before assembly.

Go find a couple cans of the old Mil RBC that is milky, it's water based and works pretty well.

Just make sure to wear disposable latex gloves because it's not ''eco friendly'' to your body and wash your hands with soap when done.

5.45 is supposedly very corrosive as is a lot of surplus French 30-06 and 7.5.

Flush with lots of very hot water.

I have used a mixture of 50 percent water and 50 percent balllistol to initially clean the bore and bolt after shooting corrosive ammo.  I then clean the gun with ballistol alone.  Have never had any corrosion issues.

Just to clarify, you are not "neutralizing" the salts from the corrosive primers with water, you are washing/flushing the salts off of the rifle's parts and out of its bore.

Not really that bad, just a nuance as long as you clean it in a timely manner.
If you neglect it, with in a week you can start to have some shallow pitting.

From experience I would suggest running some non corrosive thru it, not a ton, but just a few rounds can do wonders to blast some of the salts out of the bore and gas system and save you effort later. Then just flush all the parts with water, lots and lots of water. Scrub it out like you would with a normal cleaning and flush it some more. Oil it down real good, and check on it in about a week, can almost guarantee you will find some spots that either retained water or you missed that will need some touch up. After that she should be good to store long term.

I like to run water with ammonia down the bore and all over the place.  I don't care how much I consume.  Other stuff get put in a hydrous ammonia bath.  Everything gets a brush run through it.  Then hot water.  Then I blow stuff dry, run a few patches of Hoppes down the bore and then swap with 30W synthetic oil.

Obviously, I don't shoot multiples of weapons at the same time.  But the cost of a weapon and the disappointment of carelessly damaging a weapon more than justifies my time and my obsessiveness.

I was shooting French 50's surplus 7.5 through a MAS Mle. 36 and a 49-56 on a very hot and humid Michigan summer day- like 95* and matching humidity. The bores developed an even coating of rust in the twenty five minutes between leaving the range and opening the cases at home so I could clean them. Flushing with hot water and soaking with G96 had them back to normal and both shoot just as well, but it was an eye-opener.

I had a PSL for about 15 years (and several Mosin-Nagants) and spent hours trying to figure out the real story about corrosive ammunition and how to clean my rifles.

The short answer is, Russian (Warsaw Pact Ammo-corrosive) uses a primer that ignites at lower temperatures (winter) so as to ensure they function for them 24/7.

There is no "negating the Salts", there is only one solution, washing the residual salts away.  Using Hot water to wash them away from the gun and it's field stripped parts is the solution.

Get yourself a "gun pot" to clean all of the field stripped parts in (i.e. boil all of the parts that can be removed from the gun) and then boil a pot or 2 of hot water.

Boil the gun parts for 20 minutes or so, then remove, let cool and wipe down.  If necessary use a heat gun to evaporate any excess water.

Take Gun/Receiver outside and pour Pot or 2 of hot water down the barrel and gas tube - let dry.  If necessary use a heat gun to evaporate any excess water.

Clean as normal - oil gun appropriately.

I have been doing this for 15+ years and NEVER had an issue.  Good luck!

This has been common knowledge for decades, and I still see folks suggesting some chemical other than plain old water- preferably hot. Salts are already chemically neutral; they just need to be dissolved and carried away. Sure, detergents in some products might be of use to help cut through carbon deposits and the like, but it's the water doing the work.

MOOSE MILK

water mixed with BALLISTOL

That will work, but no better than regular hot water.  Ballistol will work fine after the hot water shower.  As will many other gun oils.

yes

Hot water first

scrub with MOOSE MILK.

the water in MOOSE MILK will evaporate, but leave a thin coating of BALLISTOL oil behind, instead of rust.

I clean my Cap & Ball revolvers the same way.

5.45 commie corrosive



Colt Navy



Remington NMA, hands look like I've been working on an old car LOL

+1

Hot soapy water + rinse + dry then clean and lube as usual.

I shoot 7.62X54r, 7.62X25 and 7.62X39 corrosive ammo.

I've put over 10,000 rounds through a Chicom AK I bought back in the mid 80's, the vast majority of it corrosive, and it's fine.  Back then, all you could get was Chinese ammo, all of it corrosive.  Then the wall fell, and you could buy East German by the case for pennies a round, also corrosive.  We were in college and we'd shoot a case of that stuff in a few days.  All I ever used was Hoppe's No.9 for cleaning but I was always thorough. Here is that rifle almost 40 years later, and it looks none the worse for all that corrosive ammo.

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Note how much carbon has built up in the compensator over the years.

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You can shoot corrosive all day long, you just have to be thorough in cleaning after doing so.  You certainly don't need water and an oven!

You can skip the ammonia.It's the water that dissolves and washes away the salts in the primer residue. Potassium perchlorate is the substance in the primers that causes the issue. When the perchlorate burns it creates potassium chloride. This is very hydrophilac, absorbs moisture from the air and causes rust. So we use this property to our advantage and use water to dissolve it and wash it away. A little soap helps to break the surface tension of water and enable it to penetrate easier into tiny crevices and other small places. Potassium chloride is over 50 times more soluble in water than ammonia, so it is the water in your hydrous ammonia that is doing the work.
Windex is mentioned quite often for corrosive primer cleaning, but it never had much ammonia in it to start with, and IIRC has less than 1% in it today. It is basically very expensive, colored soap water in a handy squirt bottle.

Excellent summation.