How Did The Commies Fight With Corrosive Ammo?

[fiddleharp]

I'm assuming that the Soviets, Chinese, North Koreans, VC and NVA fired billions, if not trillions of rounds of corrosive ammo during their various wars from the turn of the Twentieth Century to the Afghanistan Occupation.
Seeing as how today we religiously clean our weapons immediately upon returning from the range after firing surplus East Bloc ammo, I can't help but wonder how these soldiers maintained their weapons under the hideous conditions which they often fought. How does one apply hot, soapy water when it's forty below on the Eastern Front?
Did they poke around among their dead comrades for replacement guns in better condition?
What will corrosive ammo eventually do to a soldier's weapon, assuming he lives long enough for its harmful properties to take effect?

 

[shaggy430]

I've wondered the same.

 

[dak0ta]

They probably didn't, hence chrome lining of the barrels and important parts exposed to the corrosives?

 

[Cosmoline]

Most military ammunition used corrosive primers prior to WWII. Some nations upgraded to non-corrosive. I believe we did at some point and the Swiss did. But the Swiss were rich and we had a small military at that time. The eastern block was slower to make the change and of course had enormous backstocks of corrosive primed ammo.

As far as how they kept the rifles from getting rusty--sometimes they didn't. But their firearms are designed to work well enough even with rusty bores. And if they were behaving properly they'd juice the steel with cleaner and follow up with oil. Ever seen the two-part cleaning bottles being sold surplus?

How does one apply hot, soapy water when it's forty below on the Eastern Front?

There's no need to apply hot soapy water if you have a cleaner that neutralizes the salts. Ammonia based cleaners seem to work fine. I just use mpro spray and it works fine. I think a lot of Americans get too freaked out about rust.

 

[rikman]

No chemist here, but any water would neutralize salts? Melted snow,tea, urine in a pinch?

 

[adelbridge]

This isnt scientific by any means but I have observed that if you keep shooting you are OK but if you put it up for storage dirty it will corrode.
How did we win WWII with Garands that have a barrel life of maybe 2000 rounds? The simple answer is you deal with the technological hand you are dealt and like it because it is leaps and bounds better than the technology it replaced.
There are hundreds of thousands of military surplus rifles for sale today that date to WWI that fired nothing but corrosive ammo and they are still serviceable.
As a side note I shoot corrosive black powder muzzle loaders and i can go a couple weeks without cleaning and no hint of rust.

 

[M-Cameron]

picture yourself a Russian conscript....

youre most likely not a gun guy, youve been fighting for the past 8 months, youre tired and hungry.......do you honestly care if your gun gets a little rusty?


most modern engagements are at 200yds and less, so you dont need a super accurate rifle, so you are most likely arent even going to notice the accuracy degradation of rust in your bore....

heck, a wipedown with an oily rag and a quick swab of the bore is more than enough to keep the gun ticking and harmful rust at bay.

 

[macadore]

picture yourself a Russian conscript....

youre most likely not a gun guy, youve been fighting for the past 8 months, youre tired and hungry.......do you honestly care if your gun gets a little rusty?


most modern engagements are at 200yds and less, so you dont need a super accurate rifle, so you are most likely arent even going to notice the accuracy degradation of rust in your bore....

heck, a wipedown with an oily rag and a quick swab of the bore is more than enough to keep the gun ticking and harmful rust at bay.

Also, if your rifle malfunctioned you could always pick another one up off the ground. They were laying around ever where. At the very least you could salvage enough parts to keep shooting.

 

[mshootnit]

one time I left the corrosive salts in an AK-74 for a month to see what would happen. There was a fine coat of rust on anything non chromed. But I could have loaded it right then and there and fired it. They keep running with just a little maintenance. The bolt guns would work as well or better in those conditions.

 

[Downeast]

Quote:

No chemist here, but any water would neutralize salts? Melted snow,tea, urine in a pinch?

Dilute to some extent, but not neutralize

 

[mljdeckard]

They probably weren't really that concerned about accuracy.

 

[willypete]

Because, for various reasons, it's not as big of a problem as it's made out to be.

Also, tanks, artillery, and bombs played a greater role in winning the war than did the individual infantryman. I know that runs contrary to the romantic idea of one man, one rifle making a difference, but them's the facts.

 

[AJMBLAZER]

They believed strongly in armorer maintenance. Not much maintenance past the usual field cleaning was done by anyone but an armorer.

Then again their guns are pretty tough and didn't need much of that.
If the gun was shot out or damaged...give him a new one, we made millions comrade.

Also heard stories from Eastern Bloc guys of big ass dunk tanks of diesel. Strip your gun down, dunk it in there, swish it around or let it sit for a while, then wipe it down really good, lube up what may need it, and reassemble.

 

[kingcheese]

Motor oil and gasoline, from what i hear

 

[LordDunsany]

Nowadays a blast of Windex followed by a good wipedown and a bit of oil will take care of those ol' corrosive primer blues....

Works great for BP shooting as well, which is where I learned this trick.

The old timers would use urine when there wasn't much water at hand.

Ron in Texas

 

[Girodin]

In his Adaptive Kalash video Travis Haley talks a bit about this.

 

[Texan Scott]

"So, what kind of ammo does your gun eat?"

"Comrade, in Soviet Russia, ammo eats gun!"

 

[briansmithwins]

They did what they could (or what they were forced to do by their sergeants), when they could.

But, yeah, guns rusted out. Where do think all those 'sewer pipe bore' MNs and K98k rifles come from?

Why do you think the Sov hardchromed the bores ang gas pistons of the SKS and AK? It wasn't because there was a excess of chrome in the Soviet Union.

BSW

 

[kBob]

Actually the old USSR had more chrome than anyone, even the folks in the South African contenent, perhaps more than the rest of the world together.

Same same titanium. Thus titanium jets and submarines just before the fall were not ruinously expensive to them by themselves.

Here is a clue. If your unit's political officer could make an arguement that failing to prevent bore corrosion was an act of anti state proportion you could be shot or at least put in the front rank on the next dozen assaults. Strong incentive to FIND a way to keep that bore rust free. Nothing motivates a guy quite like the posibility of a 7.62 pistol bullet to the base of the skull.

-kBob

 

[Rob G]

Hot soapy water and ammonia based cleaners are not necessary to clean up after corrosive ammo. All I've ever done to clean my AK is spray plain water down the bore and gas tube until it runs out the end of the barrel. Dry it real quick and oil. Never have had a problem with rust. I'm pretty sure that the average Russian soldier could find water and a bit of oil every couple of days.

You also have to consider climate. The reason salt is corrosive is because it draws moisture in the air to itself. Which means that down here in SE TX where the humidity is always high a gun shot with corrosive ammo will rust pretty quickly. Up north in PA (my old home) I could leave my AK uncleaned for days or more from fall until late winter and never see a spot of rust. I've never been to Russia but I imagine in many parts of it humidity is not a problem, especially in winter.

 

[Slamfire]

I have seen a lot of rusted sewer pipe barrels on rifles from the corrosive ammunition era. That includes US, British, Russian, Finnish, German, Japanese, Chinese, never bothered with Italian, French were very rare, and anything out of a third world country. Like the Turkish M98 I have.

Soldiers represent the same cross section of humanity as regular people and maintained their weapons the same. Just drive around and see the rare, well cared for car, and the common moderately maintained car, and the not so rare, parts following off the thing, car.

Just saw two today, one had a towel over the passenger side rear window, covering the empty space from a missing window and another, with clear plastic duct taped over a missing window space.

 

[surfinUSA]

I don't know what the eastern block did but I know here Hoppes #9 takes care of this just fine. Unless there has been some change, it says it right on the label.

 

[Sheepdog1968]

Folks then weren't obsessive over 1 moa accuracy out of a firearm when given the pucker factor, they were highly unlikley to shoot that accuracy. My guess is a little corrosion wouldn't impact their accuracy during a war situation. Also, I'm sure 80 or 90% of the cleaning they or you or I can do is accompolished with the first 20% of the effort.

 

[akodo]

Here is a clue. If your unit's political officer could make an arguement that failing to prevent bore corrosion was an act of anti state proportion you could be shot or at least put in the front rank on the next dozen assaults. Strong incentive to FIND a way to keep that bore rust free. Nothing motivates a guy quite like the posibility of a 7.62 pistol bullet to the base of the skull.

-kBob

This is it.

Militaries of the world liked the corrosive primer cartridges because they had more reliable ignition. To combat the corrosion every single gun had a cleaning kit embedded in the gun itself (rod under barrel, supplies in the buttstock) so even if you grabbed your gun and ran, you'd have the tools to keep it functioning.

Second, the life of a soldier is 'Hurry up and wait' or '99.9% boring and 0.1% scared crapless'. I hear about militaries in peace time coming up with all sorts of tasks to keep soldiers occupied, like picking up cigarette butts outside buildings. During war time it was 'dig your foxhole then clean your rifle' some Captain says 'we are going to wait a few more hours for the artillery to get ready' the NCOs translate that to 'Clean your rifle again Private!'


Also as mentioned before, extreme accuracy wasn't what was needed, and wasn't what most recruits would be delivering even if the gun was corrosion free.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

How Did The Commies Fight With Corrosive Ammo?
Millions of dead Axis soldiers would say, pretty hard.

Serious. The reason I have always heard:
Corrosive primers are cheaper and more more reliable in bad weather (like Russian-Siberian winter!) than non-corrosive primers.

I read also that it takes corrosive salts time to do damage and firing the gun every seven hours or so will dry the barrel out and prevent corrosion from the salts.