How To Clean A Rifle Barrel After Shooting Corrosive Ammo

We dear our milsurp (military machine surplus) ammunition for our AK's, but some of them are "corrosive" and crave special cleaning after a range solar day.

Sounds hard?

It isn't if yous follow our guide that covers why some ammo is corrosive and how to quickly make clean it so your gun doesn't rust.

Tabular array of Contents

Corrosive?

So what makes some ammo corrosive? It depends on the primers and whether or non they leave behind salts when fired.

These salts attract water from the air and nosotros all know what happens with water and metal and common salt.

For the chemical science guys out in that location, the primers leave behind potassium chloride or sodium chloride (mutual salt) when burned.

There'south 2 types of centerfire primers—Boxer and Berdan. Not sure what centerfire or primers are? Check out our Basic Bullet Guide.

Boxer primers are non corrosive while some Berdan primers are. It's better to play it rubber and just think of all Berdan primed ammo every bit corrosive.

Why?

Almost all corrosive ammo is older armed forces surplus ammo.

And so why do we bother with this old stuff that rusts your gun?

Simple fact is that they shoot great and are CHEAP.

Our favorite ammo for our AK'southward is the Yugo M67 which is only mildly corrosive and as well non-magnetic. They go for less than 20 cents a circular while others such as PMC or Sellier & Bellot go for l-70 cents each.

That adds up!

But…they are getting rarer to find, so make sure to stock upward when you tin.

How to Make clean Corrosive Ammo

We'll be using an AK pistol for analogy purposes, only this overall method tin can be used for anything shooting corrosive ammunition.

Nosotros talked near salts to a higher place and hither'southward a scary photograph of what could happen if y'all shoot a lot of corrosive ammo and just leave your gun alone. We recommend cleaning it the twenty-four hours that y'all shoot, although in drier climates nosotros've gone 24 hours with no signs of rust.

There'southward tons of methods out there, but to get rid of salts, you need to flush it out with hot water.

That's all there is to it.

Some other recommendations say to utilize soapy water, ammonia, or other water based cleaners, merely information technology just boils down to water taking away those salts.

We field strip our AK and put it nether the tap with really hot water and just allow information technology sit for a few seconds. We like it every bit hot as possible since it will dry out off much quicker. If your sink can't fit a gun or tin can't get as hot, simply boil some water and run it through.