plateshooter
New member
Ballistol mixed water (looks like milk) is what I patch my corrosive ammo shooters and my BP guns out with before leaving the range. When I get home a regular cleaning follows. Works for me.
Cleaning Corrosive Primer Salts, What Am I Doing Wrong?
- Thread starter ZRTaylor
- Start date
As you've read from other people it will take a long time and a lot of cleanings before your bore is clean so don't worry just stick with it.
Here's my mosin cleaning routine for the last 5yrs
Shoot rifle liberally since I have to clean it every time.
Don't do anything at the range, put it in case and take it home after range sesion anywhere from 1-3 hours later.
Take out bolt, place rifle muzzle down in wash tub sink spray windex with amonina down barrel and on bolt face.
Let sit for 5-10min then flush with warm water then let water drain for another 5-10min then use compressor to blow everything dry.
Then clean like all my other guns, spray Mpro7 down barrel and on bolt let it sit for 5min then scrub with nylon bore brush then spray Mpro7 down barrel again then use patches till dry. Then run 2 patches with CLP and put it away if I'm not going to shoot it for a long time otherwise run patches to dry out bore.
Here's my mosin cleaning routine for the last 5yrs
Shoot rifle liberally since I have to clean it every time.
Don't do anything at the range, put it in case and take it home after range sesion anywhere from 1-3 hours later.
Take out bolt, place rifle muzzle down in wash tub sink spray windex with amonina down barrel and on bolt face.
Let sit for 5-10min then flush with warm water then let water drain for another 5-10min then use compressor to blow everything dry.
Then clean like all my other guns, spray Mpro7 down barrel and on bolt let it sit for 5min then scrub with nylon bore brush then spray Mpro7 down barrel again then use patches till dry. Then run 2 patches with CLP and put it away if I'm not going to shoot it for a long time otherwise run patches to dry out bore.
Jim Watson
New member
When smokeless powders came in, barrel corrosion got to be a worse problem than ever seen with black.
The leading theory was "acid gases" retained in "the pores of the steel."
As velocities climbed and hard metal fouling from cupro-nickel jackets became a problem, shooters noticed that a barrel cleaned with ammonia dope or Winchester Crystal Cleaner had no "acid gases" left lingering around, and no tendency to rust as long as the ammoniacal solvent was used properly, dried out, and the barrel oiled.
It remained that way until the Bureau of Mines ran some tests at the request of the Army. You can get the 1922 report 'Corrosion Under Oil Films, With Special Reference to the Cause and Prevention of the After-Corrosion of Firearms' from Amazon.
The leading theory was "acid gases" retained in "the pores of the steel."
As velocities climbed and hard metal fouling from cupro-nickel jackets became a problem, shooters noticed that a barrel cleaned with ammonia dope or Winchester Crystal Cleaner had no "acid gases" left lingering around, and no tendency to rust as long as the ammoniacal solvent was used properly, dried out, and the barrel oiled.
It remained that way until the Bureau of Mines ran some tests at the request of the Army. You can get the 1922 report 'Corrosion Under Oil Films, With Special Reference to the Cause and Prevention of the After-Corrosion of Firearms' from Amazon.
I have no idea where that is coming from?
Hot water & swab: 5 minutes.
Dry: 2 minutes.
Oil: 1 1/2 minutes.
That adds a total of 8 1/2 minutes to the regular cleaning process.
You can beat yourself up if you want to, but its really not needed, you just need to get a good routine worked out. I shoot corrosive & am done cleaning in 15~20 minutes.
Jim Watson
New member
I thought you were referring to the layers of fossilized fouling in surplus rifles.
Years ago, either a low budget TV show or an early internet video, the Resident Expert showed how he cleaned NEW gun barrels with boiling water. He wanted to get whatever cutting or preservative the factory left in there, down to bare steel that shooting would "condition."
Years ago, either a low budget TV show or an early internet video, the Resident Expert showed how he cleaned NEW gun barrels with boiling water. He wanted to get whatever cutting or preservative the factory left in there, down to bare steel that shooting would "condition."
Using Hoppes no 9 to clean after firing corrosive ammo comes up fairly often, and one of the previous times this came up, a guy on Calguns ended up calling Hoppes to get the straight answer. Which was: "No"
The old formula worked fine, the current formula, not so much.
This is backed up by the excellent test Surplusrifle.com did a while back, testing various cleaners on removing salt from test strips of steel.
Introduction here:
http://www.surplusrifle.com/reviews2006/alittlesalt/index.asp
The page you want is here (scroll to the bottom):
http://www.surplusrifle.com/reviews2006/alittlesalt/index2.asp
Hoppes No9 plus is formulated for Black powder, and should work fine on corrosive primers. http://www.hoppes.com/bore-cleaners/no-9-plusl
I just use hot tap water, lots of it, squirted into the bore with a turkey baster. Followed by a good squirt of WD40 to get rid of the water, and a shot of CLP to oil things back up. Takes about a minute per rifle.
The old formula worked fine, the current formula, not so much.
This is backed up by the excellent test Surplusrifle.com did a while back, testing various cleaners on removing salt from test strips of steel.
Introduction here:
http://www.surplusrifle.com/reviews2006/alittlesalt/index.asp
The page you want is here (scroll to the bottom):
http://www.surplusrifle.com/reviews2006/alittlesalt/index2.asp
Hoppes No9 plus is formulated for Black powder, and should work fine on corrosive primers. http://www.hoppes.com/bore-cleaners/no-9-plusl
I just use hot tap water, lots of it, squirted into the bore with a turkey baster. Followed by a good squirt of WD40 to get rid of the water, and a shot of CLP to oil things back up. Takes about a minute per rifle.
spacemanspiff
New member
Its been a good long while since I have shot any rifle that I had to worry about cleaning out the salts from the bore. But I would basically use the hot soapy water, except after running the hot soapy water thru the barrel, I would then take a plastic baggie, rubber band it tight around the muzzle, and pour more of that soapy water in, let it soak a little while, then run clean hot water thru. do the same with windex, let it soak in the barrel, then run patches and brushes through.
Mike Irwin
Staff
The old Hoppes formulas (which I've talked about before) had benzene, which does a fairly good job of dissolving corrosive priming salts, and also a fair amount of water with the benzene.
The new formulation, which removed the benzene due to it being a pretty nasty chemical, also removed most of the water. There's still a small amount of water, which comes from an alcohol component, but it's not that much and isn't enough to do a particularly good job at removing corrosive priming fouling.
The new formulation, which removed the benzene due to it being a pretty nasty chemical, also removed most of the water. There's still a small amount of water, which comes from an alcohol component, but it's not that much and isn't enough to do a particularly good job at removing corrosive priming fouling.
Cleaning old, dried cosmolene isn't that hard either, you just have to use the right solvents.
I use denatured alcohol (yellow "Heet" works well), on a mop, not patches. I cleaned out a bore with 50 year old cosmolene in about 15 minutes that way.
Immediately oil it though, you've gone 101% down to bare metal.
To the OP's 2nd question:
Use a 20 gauge brush.
As Mr. Smith said, use water as soon as possible after shooting to flush the salts away (I use hot water I bring to the range in a thermos). For my 1st MN, I too went through the 1st year cleaning and fretting. After a couple foaming bore cleaner sessions, it finally STAYED clean.
Also, to help with the extra cleaning you're doing now (until you've worked out the antique crud), try some Ed's Red:
http://www.frfrogspad.com/homemade.htm
Use a 20 gauge brush.
As Mr. Smith said, use water as soon as possible after shooting to flush the salts away (I use hot water I bring to the range in a thermos). For my 1st MN, I too went through the 1st year cleaning and fretting. After a couple foaming bore cleaner sessions, it finally STAYED clean.
Also, to help with the extra cleaning you're doing now (until you've worked out the antique crud), try some Ed's Red:
http://www.frfrogspad.com/homemade.htm