The Russian Mosin Nagant Forum

Just occurred to me, and I'm sure I'm not the first one to think of this, but wanted to put it out there anyway..

After a trip to the range with corrosive ammo, get some play-doh or clay, or what have you.. Piece of chewed gum will work as well.. cover the crown with saran wrap and push a little ball of clay through the muzzle to create a seal. Wrap the outside in tin foil to reinforce the seal. Lean your rifle upside down in a corner and use a funnel to fill the barrel with Windex or whatever your preferred solvent may be. Let it stand for 5 - 10 minutes.. Remove the muzzle plug, brush/flush, run a patch, oil, done..

Any thoughts? Too much work? I can be a bit OCD about some things and the thought of missing a spot would drive me nuts..

Take the water bottle out of your pack, it will be warm after you have been shooting for a couple of hours, dump the water down the chamber and let it run out the muzzle. Run a patch down the pipe to remove residual water, then run a patch with oil and you are good to go. When you get home you can clean with solvent, but it's the water that washes out the salt, not the ammonia in windex, not the solvent.

Take all your liquids and solvents and oils and put them in a bag, tie the bag with string, and walk into the yard swinging the bag overhead by the string, and scream like a chicken.

Water dissolves the salts, hot water dissolves the salts ever better, hot running water is better yet.

Hmm, thank you. Can I ask why I keep reading all the stuff about Windex? Just something that took off for whatever reason?

Chiroptile wrote:Hmm, thank you. Can I ask why I keep reading all the stuff about Windex?

.....No, ...no you can't! Just kidding........ This is sort of like asking which is better,....Ford, Chevy, or Dodge on a "CAR FORUM".

Some people like to use Windex. It is cheap, easy to use and the ammonia "might" help with copper fouling.

Lots of preferences both ways, ....but....either will work. Just get it washed down and oiled and the salts are gone. And no damage is done at all to the rifle as long as you do it as soon as you can. A couple hours or so is not going to hurt anything, but a day might start too. A lot has to do with where you live. (humidity ect.). Dolk

My understand is that the ammonia neutralizes the salts in corrosive ammo. Fwiw Windex has worked great for me.

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That may be a misconception, but regardless it is believed to be the case by many. As far as the salts are concerned, it makes sense that water would wash them out, but I can still see the ammonia helping to clean other crud like powder fowling. I mean, if you have dirty windows which cleans them better. Water, or Windex? So I can't see any harm in continuing with the Windex or whatever else one may use. I tried to be silly with the scream like a chicken thing because these threads always turn into a long discussion about washing salts away, or neutralizing salts, or whatever. At some point someone will say Hoppes is great for corrosive ammo, then Longcolt44 will say it ain't either! Then Millman will show the link for all the different products that were tested. Then Zeebill will write 2 chapters about how it don't matter and to each his own!
So...... In the end I have found that the most damage from salts in corrosive ammo is done by the guy who doesn't clean his gun at all or waits too long.
The real answer is boiling water, I thought everyone knew that. Except Zeebill! :P:P:P:P:P

Of course I am just kidding with Zeebill. He is a good guy around here!

Being one who has been sucker punched by these threads, repeatedly I might add, what I see is no matter how I clean it, it gets clean. Now, a patch drenched in Windex will push out more dirty nasty then it does with Hopps 9 or Kroil. Including my M27 which doesn't shoot corrosive ammo. So, I say, just pee down the barrel.

Ah, got it..

Now that that's settled.. 9 vs 40 vs 45.. Go! Heh..

For real though, thanks for filling me in on my brain fart

I was using windex, and liked it. Then I actually read the instructions or whatever you call it, on a can of Balistoll. A mix of 1 part Balistol and 10 parts water dissolves corrosive salts they said. Humm.....I use it for everything else, so I switched, and this is what I currently use AT THE RANGE.

Back home its a more in-depth cleaning but I finish off with a semi-dry patch with Balistoll. Not any issues........but I REALLY do LIKE THE CHICKEN NOISE IN THE YARD METHOD.

I just pour tequila down the barrel and catch it on the other end. Make sure you have a lime though. Actually I have zero experience with corrosive ammo....

We should start a 9 vs 40 vs 45 thread!

10mm. /thread.

Vendetta wrote:My understand is that the ammonia neutralizes the salts in corrosive ammo. Fwiw Windex has worked great for me.

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Your understanding is wrong. You don't "neutralize" anything. What you are doing is dissolving and flushing out the salts, and water is the absolute best solvent for that, about 900 times better than ammonia. Here is a link for the Wiki page on potassium chloride, which is the salt left by corrosive primers. There is a chart about 1/4 of the way down the page with the solubility of KCl in various solvents. In addition, Windex is about 95% water, 3% ammonia, and the rest is soap, fragrance and coloring. With that small amount of ammonia, even it worked as good as water, and it doesn't, there isn't enough ammonia to do much. Yes, Windex will work, but it is the water that does the dissolving and not the ammonia.

Back when I was shooting daily I would come back from the range, hit the button on the electric tea pot, then disassemble the bolt, and magazine. By the time I was set the water was boiling, I would pour a cup for tea, them go outside and pour the rest right down into the chamber while holding the rifle by the buttstock. Back inside and set it on the counter for five minutes while I fooled with the tea. Then I would clean the rifle with Hoppes leaving a wet oil patch for last. Every day, tens of thousands of rounds fired in everything from Garands, and FN49's to Bolt rifles . Simple, cheap, effective and fast, cleaning guns is a chore that needs to be done, but it shouldn't become more time consuming than the shooting was. Over time you develop a method that works, you either acquire a GI field manual and follow the directions if you have WW2 GI bore cleaner, or you learn to clean by watching the black powder shooters deal with black powder fouling. For you guys who have never shot black powder it's fouling from one range trip is more, and worse than all the fouling you will experience in your smokeless rifles over the next 30 years put together. Compared to Black Powder a little corrosive primer salt is nothing at all to deal with.

Junk Yard Dog wrote:or you learn to clean by watching the black powder shooters deal with black powder fouling. For you guys who have never shot black powder it's fouling from one range trip is more, and worse than all the fouling you will experience in your smokeless rifles over the next 30 years put together. Compared to Black Powder a little corrosive primer salt is nothing at all to deal with.

Yep, I'd heard black powder was the worst, then I got my black powder revolver and found out that everything I had read was understated. It didn't take me long to realize the best way to clean it really is to take the grips off and scrub it out in a bowl of hot water. Likewise the best way to clean a Mosin is to pour hot water down the barrel, gets it clean and does no damage.

I made this cleaning tool out of some copper tubing a small funnel and a .303 cartridge with the primer end drilled out to fit the tubing. Get a couple brass fittings, put a couple bends in it and it will fit a Mosin 7.62X54, 8mm Mauser and British .303. Just boil some water put the rifle nose down over the shower drain, insert the cartridge end in the chamber and pour boiling water through and it it will heat dry almost on contact. No mess no fuss, no salts. Feel free to copy, I did after seeing a British tool that was made for this use. Note: do not ake pictures of red things on a red background.

Water, hot water is by far the best and has been proven so in tests. But far be it for me to stop you from spending money on stuff.