Ammo to stay away from?

[two70]

As long as you have the more involved procedure down -- water and ammonia and getting into the gas tube, bolt face, and any other parts exposed to the salts, and if you clean as soon as possible after you finish shooting every time -- you should be okay.
It's still quite a lot of hassle just to save a few bucks when there's other ammo that can be gotten for similar prices without having all that on your mind.
Just MNSHO

If you chase corrosive ammo with a few rounds of non-corrosive ammo it really makes cleaning easier and far less of a hassle.

 

[oldpink]

If you chase corrosive ammo with a few rounds of non-corrosive ammo it really makes cleaning easier and far less of a hassle.

That's a useful tip.
Of course, as with you, I roll my own, so no issue for my rifle, but it'll help others.

 

[whiskeytangofoxtrot]

Only surplus I ever had issue with was the Indian 7.62x51, hangfires galore.

 

[Leo]

Any third world ammo is not on my buy list. Pay the extra for American made stuff.

 

[two70]

That's a useful tip.
Of course, as with you, I roll my own, so no issue for my rifle, but it'll help others.

My problem is that I have too many cartridges to load for to exclusively feed my Mil-Surps reloads so I plink with cheap surplus ammo and chase it with a few re-loads.

 

[johntheplinker]

I avoid any reman ammo, I've read too many reports of the stuff blowing up or otherwise damaging firearms, not to mention functioning can be less than ideal.

As long as you have the more involved procedure down -- water and ammonia and getting into the gas tube, bolt face, and any other parts exposed to the salts, and if you clean as soon as possible after you finish shooting every time -- you should be okay.
It's still quite a lot of hassle just to save a few bucks when there's other ammo that can be gotten for similar prices without having all that on your mind.
Just MNSHO

Been over this many times before, but that is totally unnecessary for corrosive primer cleaning. It is water that dissolves the salts and then flush the dissolved salt away. IIRC, potassium chloride (the salt left by corrosive primers) is about 600 times more soluble in water than ammonia. I will agree, though, that it can be more involved cleaning a semi action vs. a bolt action.

 

[amafrank]

The key to the whole thing is figure out what you want to shoot and then buy ammo for it. If its an old crappy milsurp rifle why buy top grade match ammo for it? If you have a ten thousand dollar sniper rifle why buy indian crap milsurp ammo for it?

Corrosive ammo isn't the problem many make it out and as John the plinker noted you need nothing more than water. Running a round or two of non-corrosive doesn't help either. It just adds more powder fouling over the top to make it harder for the water to reach the corrosive salts. John nailed that one too....potassium chlorate in the primer compound becomes potassium chloride in the barrel. Potassium chloride is an analog to sodium chloride which is table salt. It is more hygroscopic than table salt too. It absorbs moisture from the air and pulls it to itself. This helps rust your steel parts and fluff the aluminum ones. Shoot the corrosive ammo and then clean first with water before running any oil type cleaners. Hot soapy water works best of course because the soap and heat help remove any oil from the surface so the water makes better contact with the salts. After running a few thousand rounds of corrosive 8mm through a machinegun I clean just as I noted above, hot soapy water, then oil. My barrels are still clean and shiny after many years of shooting. Wear is more of a problem than corrosion.

Some types of ammo are known to be bad like the indian 308 and the turk 8mm. Sure the bad rounds are few and far between but is it worth it to you to risk blowing up your gun or damaging yourself just to save 3 cents a round? Not to me. I've been repairing machineguns for years and those two types of ammo have made me more money than any other single cause. Some of the damage is spectacular with a 1919 blown up after firing 2 rds of Turk 8mm and an MG42 that blew the extractor through the bottom of the receiver with indian 308. Those are just 2 examples of the many. Its always a lottery but why stack the odds against yourself by buying what is already known as a sure thing.

Any of the federal or Lake city ammo sold with an XM prefix is reject military contract ammo. The reasons for rejection can run to anything that doesn't meet the contract including excess or insufficient pressure readings, high or low velocity readings, physical problems with dimensions and on and on. Generally the reject ammo isn't dangerous but there was one lot a few years back that blew up a pretty good number of M16s and other ARs. In any case you're not likely to get target grade ammo in rejected lots so if thats what you're after buy something else. XM doesn't always mean bad but it never means great.

One last one here, fluted chambers and ammo. The HK types have fluted chambers. They're done like that because its part of what makes the system work. The intent of the flutes is to allow hot gas from the cartridge to flow on both sides of the cartridge case which keeps the case from sticking to the chamber walls when under pressure. In most guns this is a bad thing as it adds to the amount of pressure the case itself puts on the bolt. For the HK types it makes the action cycle. Some types of ammo don't like this system and won't work well with it. When you toss in all the clones and homebuilds with barrels of questionable origin it makes it even worse. Really soft brass will flow into the flutes in barrels that don't have properly fluted chambers. This flow causes the case to stick in the chamber rather than floating on the gas. That makes the system fail and you get bad or poor ejection and cycling. You can see it in the cases which now have raised ribs on them especially in the neck area. For these rifles steel cases are top of the line for function and we've run tens of thousands of round of steel cased wolf ammo through all sorts of HK and other fluted chamber rifles with no problems. On the other hand I've got a bunch of the malaysian 556 ammo that came in years back and it won't run in most of these guns. The cases are too soft and the HK flutes are marginal so the cases flow in to the flutes and hangup. Just another example of choose the ammo for the purpose, not just the price.

I don't buy plinking ammo for target shooting or target ammo for plinking so keep in mind what your intended purpose is when buying ammo and you'll be a lot less disappointed.

Hope something there helps

Frank