Damage from corrosive ammo?

Well it seems as if this whole corrosive ammo thing is more of an urban legend than any actual scientific fact.

It seems that all of us have heard of rifle barrels being destroyed by it overnight.
But nobody has ever actually seen it happen.
 
Wulf45 said:
Hi Coolzak,
I bet you have some interesting Stories!! Did you use the SKS at all while serving in the Army or only the AK-47...hopefully someday maybe we can get the AK here even if it is as a restricted.
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We used AK-74 and AKS-74U in 5.45x39mm/RPK amd DshK mashinguns.For shooting regular soldier in artillery use around 200 bullet/yr.Infantry probably a lot more.i was corporal and they have policy to teach us to use any of weapon in regiment-from makarov and AK to DshK and RPG/No SKS .My father was working in grain elevator and they have guard armed with SKS(end of 70-early 80)
 
I've left my gun unclened for months. The bolt carrier and bolt were stuck close. I opened the tailgate on my truck and slammed the rifle butt onto it while pulling the carrier back, came unstuck, looked down the barrel, put 5 rounds in the mag, sent the bolt home, fires. Flawless...

I don't think we need to worry as much as people say. Plus, it's an SKS, they can be had for $170, lol... fawwwwk it...

I do try to keep it clean, but I'm not anal about it.
 
i didnt clean my sks for about a week and when i took the gas piston apart there was slight pitting and rust, however i took some oil and a penny and it all scraped off looks pretty much like 'new' i think it has a lot to do with humidity in the area, my basement doesn't have much but during the day when i was shooting it went from cold to hot (when i brought my gun inside) so it prob caused some condensation.
 
I've put just over 1000 rounds of corrosive through my 858.

I've cleaned it with the hot water trick and oiled with G96.
I've cleaned it with warm campfire water and oiled with G96.
I've used only G96.

I now forgo the hot water and wire bore brush altogether and just push a few patches through with G96 or Eds Red(if I want to be cheap and/or really slather it on) on it to get initial salts out. Then wipe all surfaces that have been exposed to gasses with the same stuff leaving them pretty oily. Same with the other moving parts that have been exposed to gas... wipe em off a bit and slather them in oil. Then dry only the bore and chamber out and then throw some Wipeout in it for a night or day. I'll repeat the Wipeout and let sit for a night for as long as my patience holds out. Pretty easy to push a patch or two through before work and re-foam it.

And I clean the rest of the stuff when I get to it.

In my experience, once the initial salts are wiped off and a decent enough coating of oil is on there, it's fine to sit until it is cleaned properly. I think it's important to remember that the salts aren't going to rust anything except bare metal.

One note with Eds Red. Remember it has acetone in it. It will strip some paints(krylon flat black) and is toxic to be breathing.
 
Mr Freeze said:
In my experience, once the initial salts are wiped off and a decent enough coating of oil is on there, it's fine to sit until it is cleaned properly. I think it's important to remember that the salts aren't going to rust anything except bare metal.

One note with Eds Red. Remember it has acetone in it. It will strip some paints(krylon flat black) and is toxic to be breathing.
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I usually use just Ed's red on my SKS and VZ58.
Swab the bore a few times.
Wipe the gas vent out with a Q-tip.
Put some on a rag, and clean the Piston off,
Brush some on the piston head with a brass brush.
Wipe the barrel down with the same rag.
Clean off the bolt head with the rag.
Once in a while I'll grease the bolt carrier rails.

Then just put the gun away and forget about it. The ATF residue in Ed's red will provide the small amount of metal protection you need,
Oil will just attract more powder residue.
 
I lent my Ruger Mini 30 to a friend and gave him a couple of boxes of non corrosive ammo.

He returned it a couple months later. The barrel was badly rusted and pitted on the inside. He had bought some additional cheap ammo to shoot. It was corrosive.

So yes, I have seen it. It is a real issue. The big variable is humidity.

The ammo leaves salt in the barrel, which attracts moisutre and leads to rusting.
 
I unknowingly bought my 858 with the barrel nearly closed shut with rust. I'll try to take a picture.

D9GwE.jpg

BctHI.jpg

The photos aren't the best, but you get the idea. Seems like the original owner forgot to clean it, and decided to dump it at Epps.
Seems to shoot fine though; no keyholing that I've seen so far. An interesting thing though, is that the barrel only seems to have bad pitting (as shown in the above photos) the last 6-8". Before that it appears to be fine, though it's pretty difficult to tell.
 
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Have had a problem myself with corrosive ammo but not that bad. I went shooting with it and never knew about corrosive ammo. Just a little surface rust that was easily cleaned.

However, I forgot to clean the gas tube.... that was a mess a couple of months later...
 
Dexter Morgan said:
Well it seems as if this whole corrosive ammo thing is more of an urban legend than any actual scientific fact.

It seems that all of us have heard of rifle barrels being destroyed by it overnight.
But nobody has ever actually seen it happen.
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Did you miss my post? Did you miss the other ones where people told you theyve had their guns rust from forgetting to clean them? Did you miss this?: http://www.canadiangunnutz.com/forum/showthread.php?t=631790&highlight=corrosive+test
Corrosive ammo will cause rust on bare ferrous metals, the potassium chlorate in the primers accelerates the formation of iron III oxide (rust) which penetrates the surface very quickly forming pits when the rust is removed. They look like little rust coloured crystals growing outward from the surface of the steel. Humidity and temperature play a big role in just how fast it happens. In a dry climate you may never have to worry about it, in high humidity you may have literally a couple hours. Last summer I took my buddy out shooting with my SKS-D using Czech corrosive ammo. It was 35 deg. C and really humid. I got home 6 hours later and had trace amounts of rust starting on the gas piston and in the gas tube.
 
Did you miss my post?
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No, I didn't miss your post. You said you had some pitting in the gas tube, but the barrel was completely fine.

First was an old SKS that I left for 24 hrs during the summer when it was humid. The gas tube and piston had pits in the surface, tho the chromed bbl was untouched.
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years ago i had a 7.62x39 AR. shot ~100 rounds through it, the bolt broke. took the barrel off and switched back to .223.

years later i found the uncleaned old 7.62 barrel. the rust in it looked like a piece of steel that was left a a damp garage.

scrubbed the barrel and re-oiled, looked almost perfect.
 
The piston on my SKS came pretty rusted. Bore was in very good condition though.

I took it camping and left it uncleaned for about a week after 100 rounds. After a thorough cleaning the bore came out a little darker but otherwise still in pretty good shape. Still shoots the same.
 
I would like to add a different twist to the chrome lined barrel.

I think they lined them for less wear(longer barrel life) under heated firing, rather than fight corrosion.
Those steel jacketed bullets do more harm on an un chromed barrel...
Just my opinion.:)
 
7mmlefty said:
I would like to add a different twist to the chrome lined barrel.

I think they lined them for less wear(longer barrel life) under heated firing, rather than fight corrosion.
Those steel jacketed bullets do more harm on an un chromed barrel...
Just my opinion.:)
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I agree, chrome is very hard, a benefit for automatic firing. barrel escape serious wear. they will wear but much slowly than non-chromed barrel. Of course chrome protect well against corrosion,another benefit. I would add that the jacketed steel bullet that we fire are very soft steel so dont harm much the cz858 since thoses are semi auto and with reduced mag. Mean that they are way more difficult to wear out than most peoples think,just an opinion too:)
Jocelyn
 
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