Corrosive primers: Cleaning tips?

I shot on Sunday, cleaned that night W/O water. Got her out last night, she looked good but I cleaned her with water to just be safe. Afterwards I applied lots of oil. Looks good now. I'll check again next week to be sure.

Can anyone tell me why there is crossive ammo? What benefits does it have over what we use now?
 
When they came out with the fulminate primers around 1830 or so they realized early on that it would be good to find something less hygroscopic than the detonating compound they used. Unfortunately, the needs of the military dictate that ammo have lo-o-o-ng storage life so the corrosive primers were the only option. Remington came out with Kleanbore around the 1920s or 30s as did Winchester with IIRC Staynless. However, none of these could meet the needs of the military. The only non-corrosive primed WWII ammo I'm aware of is 30 Carbine.

As Mike Irwin pointed out so well, the product of detonating these corrosive primers is something like table salt. Table salt attracts water even out of the air. The salt will easily wash off with water but no amount of oil will remove it. It will just cover it and allow it to work under the oil. :eek: That's why so many outwardly pristine WWII pieces have pitted bores. I've seen many Lugers eating clean except for a pitted bore. Luckily, they still seem to shoot like a laser pointer. HTH:D

There are great books available with basic knowledge like this. One of which is Hatcher's Notebook.
 
Big G's got it right.

It was a question of shelf life, but it was also to a smaller degree a question of "why bother" when bolt action rifles are so easy to clean.

It wasn't until the United States started adopting rifles with complex gas systems (the M1, the M1 Carbine) that a true need for a non-corrosive primer was seen.

One of the big reasons why the M1 carbine was issued only with non-corrosive ammo is because the gas system is virtually impossible to take apart in the field, making it very hard to clean. It was recognized that there would be problems if corrosive ammo were used.
 
Drundel,

I just now realized that no one has mentioned the reason behind using soapy water.

Water will work just fine, but the soap does something for you...

It removes any trace amounts of oil that may be in the bore and which could trap some of the NaCl salts.
 
"Things my old uncle taught me": I put a cupful of warm soapy water in a tin can. Insert the rifle muzzle into it. Run a patch down the barrel and just pump up and down a few times. Change to warm or hot just-plain-water and repeat.

Then run a dry patch through the barrel, followed by a pass with an oily patch.

Simple, quick, cheap and protective...

:), Art
 
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