Corrosive? Sure. Now what's the deal with laquer?

Ok, I got over the corrosive thing. I admit to checking the bore and bolt of my Mosin every day or so (not like we need an excuse to check on our stuff). Maybe I got lucky, or just cleaned well, but so far many rounds of Polish light ball and never a sticky extraction.

I see that lots of other surplus ammo is steel case and laquered instead of copper washed like the Polish. 8mm Romanian is laquered as well, as opposed to the slightly more pricy Yugo.

So, the question is, for a bolt rifle, is it feasible to stock up on laquered ammo and just clean your chamber reasonably after the range, or is using this type of ammo a one-way trip to ruining your rifle? Obviously, the price difference between the two types is insignificant between that of new ammo and the corrosive stuff.

So does anyone have a couple empty crates of romanian and czech laquered stuff lying around, with their precious chamber none the worse for wear?

Laquer can't ruin your chamber. Also, in a bolt action you'll rarely, if ever, shoot it rapidly enough to melt any laquer in the chamber. Shoot it. Clean it as you would with any ammo. I clean my chamber every time I clean the bore, who doesn't?

if you fire in semiauto, then lacquer could be a prob. not so in a bolt rifle.

Usually with my bolt I will go through about 100 to 150 rounds over 2-2.5 hours. I'm definitely not putting them through as fast as possible, although sometimes the rear sight can feel pretty warm. Does that sound "fast enough" to melt the lacquer, or no way. It's not like I'm putting in the strippers one after the other and working the bolt as fast as I can.

Well, maybe for just one or two strippers:)

Lacquer is a problem in hot-running semiautos, especially ones that are sensitive to fouling like the AR family. Many guns simply arent made to tolerate a sludge of lacquer building up in the action.

Even if you get a buildup of lacquer in your rifle's chamber it's easy to clean out with a chamber brush stuck on the end of a cleaning rod segment, and chucked into an electric drill. Put some lacquer thinner on the brush and slowly spin it in the chamber to clean out the buildup.

FWIW, I used to shoot a lot of Chinese lacquer-coated 7.62x39 in my SKS before import was banned. Never had a problem.