Mosin Nagant and corrosive ammo

H

hlds54

New member
I bought a Mosin 91/30 lin april 2011, the day I got it I put 20 rounds of wolf russian steel case corrosive ammo thorugh it and didnt clean it. ( I know bad idea). this past april (2012) I finally got aorund to dissasembling the rifle becouse i was refinishing the stock. I cleaned the barrel with windex and some break free. so what i want to know is, is the rifle safe to shoot considering i didnt clean the rifle for a year. thanks
 
wolf generally is not corrosive, it is modern production intended for civilian users so it does not have salt in it to preserve it over decades of storage. if it was 40 year old tula out of a spam can wrapped in plain gray/white paper then you may have to worry. however you are fine and there is no reason your mosin should be unsafe to shoot.
 
I'm sure it's as safe as it was when you shot it last. What is the condition of the bore, and has it changed from the last time you shot it?
 
I don't think the Wolf ammo is corrosive, but I guess it's possible.

Anyway, all that corrosive ammo does is leave a thin film of potassium chloride (potassium salt) in the barrel. It attracts moisture. Unless your rifle is stored in a damp or high humidity area, or it gets wet, you'll probably have no corrosion problems with it.

Also, if you do get moisture corrosion, it will be quite obvious when you look down the bore or try to clean it. Red rust on the swabs.

Those Mosins have spent their entire lives, at least seventy years, shooting corrosive ammo, often not being cleaned regularly or properly, and they've survived pretty well.

Corrosive ammo is definitely something to pay attention to, but it's not necessarily the end of the world for a barrel.
 
Just to play it safe, (when I shoot corresive ammo) I shoot some windex down the barrel before I leave the range and then plug the barrel with a bit of paper towels (to keep it from leaking all over the place). The windex negates the afffect of corresive ammo, at least it works for me. Then when I get home I run a few patches of Hoppe's # 9 down each barrel, let it sit over night and do a complete cleaning the next day.

My 2 cents.....
 
I'd still go with hot water over anything else when corrosive ammo has been shot. I have an armourer's funnel that was made for the Enfield. Works great on other bolt action guns.
 
Its the water in the Windex is what neutralizes the salts from the primers. Hoppe's #9 will do the job just fine. Thats all I use on my Mosin's
 
all i normally shoot out of my mosin is corrosive ammo. Its so cheap i cant pass it up
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X2 I have no idea what my Mosin will do with modern ammo. But they shoot pretty dang good with the surp. Mine get a hot water bath just like my ML's then dried and oiled up. "If you are going to ride her hard at least do the old girl a favor and giver her a BATH" :D
 
lol I usually shoot 148 light ball silver tip stuff, but i just got some 182 gr heavy ball from jg sales before they ran out of everything.

Anyone know how the 182 gr heavy ball shoots?
 
Some say it's the amonia, others say it has no effect, and it's just that you scrubbed it out with a water based liquid cleaner. I say that Hoppe,s #9 has been doing the job for me for many years. Corrosive ammo or not. I just do a much more thorough cleaning with repeated scrubbing after corrosive ammo.
 
You could do what the Russians at Stalingrad did after a hard days shooting, just pee down the barrel. I never have figured out how the woman handled that.I guess when you stop to think about it, the ammonia in the pee was just what was needed to clean the barrel
 
I thought it was Amonia in the windex that neutralized the corrosive ammo. I read urine works to.
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It is the salt in the primer that causes the corrosion. Water is what dissolves the salts left behind. Its called dilution.
 
Don has it right, the salt deposited by "corrosive" ammo is simple (neutral) potassium chloride, produced from the potassium chlorate used in the primer. The reason people started using windex is that the ammonia was supposed to help with copper residues at the same time, and it dries fast. BUT, if you use windex you still have to make sure you get the liquid to flow out (or use a really wet patch). Otherwise the salt doesn't get removed, and, as there is no neutralization happening, you actually accelerate the corrosion by providing moisture.
 
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