Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Daniel had a good question

about corrosive ammo cleaning:
Would alcohol work? It's polar enough to dissolve many salts, but ought to be nonpolar enough to diffuse through any oily crud that might later get laid down on top of it. Besides, you can't drink ammonia or vinegar in an "emergency".
Daniel, that is a good question. The answer is, I have no idea. I've never thought to try it.

What I wish I could do is get hold of a bunch of shot-out 1911 or Tokarev barrels and use them to test. Take some milsurp ammo you know is corrosive-primed, fire ten rounds through each, then clean each a different way and let them sit a few days to see what happens. Be an interesting experiment. I say 1911 or Toks because you can change them in a couple of minutes. I guess you could use some steel pipe just large enough to fit, say, a 7.62x54r case in: polish the inside to get rid of any plating so you have bare steel, then pull the bullets from a bunch of cartridges(no, I am NOT stupid enough to put a whole cartridge in and set it off), and dump the powder, then stick them in and pop the primer. Use several on each pipe to leave the fouling on the inside, then clean. I'd much rather use some lousy barrels, as then you can shoot at a target and get double use from the ammo.

For that matter, there is some alcohol I've tried for which cleaning bores would be a better use than drinking it. I know just which I'd use for this test, too.

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