Giant
Member
I reported on another thread here that Korean M2 Ball, KA 73 was very good ammo, very accurate. Well, it is accurate, but the batch I purchased from J&G sales appears to be mildly corrosive.
I took two rifles to the range several days ago, cleaned one when I got home, but left the other to do later. got busy and several days went by before I got to the second rifle. The KA 73 left a brown coating of something in the chamber, but the barrel bore was bright and pretty clean. Took a soapy water chamber brush to the browned out chamber and it cleaned up ok. There was a little brown deposit around the firing pin hole as well, so I cleaned everything out with soapy water and then Hoppes number 9.
This brown deposit does not look like corrosion I have seen on Mausers from WWII corrosive primers. Can't say for sure what it is, could be really dirty powder? Primer salts? Don't know, wish I did!
So! Seems to me that anyone shooting the Korean Surplus M2 Ball would want to clean their rifle with soapy water just in case. One could also test for corrosive primers by pulling the bullet and powder from a round and firing the empty case on to a small sample of clean steel, such as the blade of an old screwdriver. Set the sample next to a damp cloth and in 24 hours it will grow rust if the primers are corrosive -- Of course firing that empty round means you will have to clean the firearm with soapy water, just in case! (g)
I had thought corrosive primers were discontinued by world military organizations in about 1953, but who really knows what goes on in places such as Korea. Perhaps someone there found a warehouse of corrosive primers and used them...
Giant
I took two rifles to the range several days ago, cleaned one when I got home, but left the other to do later. got busy and several days went by before I got to the second rifle. The KA 73 left a brown coating of something in the chamber, but the barrel bore was bright and pretty clean. Took a soapy water chamber brush to the browned out chamber and it cleaned up ok. There was a little brown deposit around the firing pin hole as well, so I cleaned everything out with soapy water and then Hoppes number 9.
This brown deposit does not look like corrosion I have seen on Mausers from WWII corrosive primers. Can't say for sure what it is, could be really dirty powder? Primer salts? Don't know, wish I did!
So! Seems to me that anyone shooting the Korean Surplus M2 Ball would want to clean their rifle with soapy water just in case. One could also test for corrosive primers by pulling the bullet and powder from a round and firing the empty case on to a small sample of clean steel, such as the blade of an old screwdriver. Set the sample next to a damp cloth and in 24 hours it will grow rust if the primers are corrosive -- Of course firing that empty round means you will have to clean the firearm with soapy water, just in case! (g)
I had thought corrosive primers were discontinued by world military organizations in about 1953, but who really knows what goes on in places such as Korea. Perhaps someone there found a warehouse of corrosive primers and used them...
Giant
