Old 30-06 cartridges

[Merc]

I have 3 boxes of 30-06 cartridges that were made in 1953 according to the "53" stamped on the head that I'm not sure what to do with. The initials "RA" are also stamped on the head. Are they are military loads from the Korean War era? Does anyone have an opinion on whether they are safe to shoot in a M1917? Were the primers and powders used 63 years ago corrosive?

[gwp]

There are tables listing dates of non-corrosive ammo. Here is one: http://www.frfrogspad.com/miscellt.htm#corrosive

[jaie5070]

If your rifle is in good condition and the ammo looks to be also than you should have no problem shooting it.

[Merc]

Thanks for the table and advice. The bore has strong rifling, the bolt looks good and passes headspace. Ammo looks like it's safe to shoot but only by one year according to the table. I assumed RA was military ammo. Could also be civilian? Wealth of knowledge on this forum continues to amaze.

[kcw]

Thanks for the table and advice. The bore has strong rifling and the bolt looks good. Looks like safe ammo to shoot but only by one year according to the table. I assumed RA was military ammo. Could be civilian made by Remington Arms. Wealth of knowledge on this forum continues to amaze.

Even if it were older, corrosive primer ammo, it would still be "safe" to shoot. Nothing unsafe about corrosive ammo, other than the need to appropriately clean the gun. The brass from corrosive primer ammo is well salvageable for reloading, just throw the freshly de-capped brass into a bucket of water to flush out any remaining salts. I still a large quantity of once fired WWII GI brass, including a 5 gallon bucket of the RA-44 marked stuff, with the heavy circular primer crimp, which was sold to the Brits for use in the Browning 30 cal wing guns of the U.S. built fighters they were flying.

[Hecklerusp45]

Thanks for the table and advice. The bore has strong rifling and the bolt looks good. Looks like safe ammo to shoot but only by one year according to the table. I assumed RA was military ammo. Could be civilian made by Remington Arms. Wealth of knowledge on this forum continues to amaze.

The RA does mean Remington Arms. They filled contracts for Uncle Sam.

[RC20]

What you want to do if you really want to shoot that stuff is get Hoppes 9 and clean it afterward .

If its corrosive then the Hoppes 9 is designed to deal with that.

Other way is ammonia and water and clean the rifle.

Frankly I would not shoot it, not worth the worry and that old you can get erratic ignition depending on how it was stored.

The Greek Surplus shoots ok, its hot and they are steel so I am not keen on using those much either.

[dave]

Unless Hoppes 9 has been changed from 40-50 year ago it will not be good for corrosive ammo. Good 'ol hot soapy water is good. Ammonia & water is ok but the ammonia is really for copper fouling and don't let it set in barrel more then couple hours, as it will eat at steel if strong enough. The old WW11 GI bore cleaner is the best and it also contains ammonia. I still use it and have never had a bore go bad, shot a lot of corrosive ammo, some going back to the 20's, in the 1950-60's.

[RC20]

Hopes 9 in its original (not the synthetic) was intended for corrosive ammo as well as black powder (also corrosive)

Disagreement now that it does, I will seed that one. The black powder formula should work though.

some thing soapy water is the complete answer, I disagree, you need to get other residue out of the gun and soapy water or ammonia will not do that.

Frank I would clean the bore with solvent of some kind, then wash out if you get rust (i.e. remove any remain salt)

The ammonia in the water is to assist the water in its cleaning though soapy water works as well, supposedly ammonia helps dissolve the salts better.

[PhillipM]

Hopes 9 in its original (not the synthetic) was intended for corrosive ammo as well as black powder (also corrosive)

Disagreement now that it does, I will seed that one. The black powder formula should work though.

some thing soapy water is the complete answer, I disagree, you need to get other residue out of the gun and soapy water or ammonia will not do that.

Frank I would clean the bore with solvent of some kind, then wash out if you get rust (i.e. remove any remain salt)

The ammonia in the water is to assist the water in its cleaning though soapy water works as well, supposedly ammonia helps dissolve the salts better.

Ammonia is an order of magnatude below plain water in dissolving salts. It's really quite simple, flush the bore with water, preferably boiling due to the drying effect, and then clean normally with your favorite bore cleaner. Wash the bolt head with water also. My Mauser loves it.

[Merc]

OK, so the main idea is to remove the corrosive salts from the barrel bore. Flushing with hot soapy water and ammonia added plus using a solvent are the preferred methods. I can picture soaking the first 6 to 12 inches (that area includes the wire brush) of my pull through bore snake in Hoppes No. 9 and pulling it through the bore because that's pretty much how I clean it now. Curious to know how to flush water down through the bore without accidentally soaking the stock. Disassembling the barrel/action from the stock would be one method but that seems a little labor intensive. Dealing with water that gets into the trigger, etc. also raises concerns.

The RA 52 ammo isn't corrosive so I won't be dealing with corrosive salts, however I noticed that the .30-06 Springfield PPU SPBT 165 gr. ammo that I just bought is considerably shorter at 3.250" than the old RA .30-06 FMJ ammo is at 3.325". Makes me wonder if it's something other than rifle ammo. The cases are identical but there's a big difference in bullet size.

I recently saw a video of a gunsmith warning his viewers away from using aluminum rods to clean bores saying they cause accidental muzzle wear. His preferred cleaning tool was a pull through bore snake which is what I like to use most of the time because it gets me through the process much quicker although patches seem to do a more thorough job. Has anyone had a worn muzzle caused by aluminum rods?

[hyrax222]

Why folks shoot questionable ammo in good firearms I'll never understand. The risk out weighs the small savings in ammo costs.

Any old ammo I have is either collectable (not for shootng) or I toss it into my burn pile.

[kcw]

OK, so the main idea is to remove the corrosive salts from the barrel bore. Flushing with hot soapy water and ammonia added plus using a solvent are the preferred methods. I can picture soaking the first 6 to 12 inches (that area includes the wire brush) of my pull through bore snake in Hoppes No. 9 and pulling it through the bore because that's pretty much how I clean it now. Curious to know how to flush water down through the bore without accidentally soaking the stock. Disassembling the barrel/action from the stock would be one method but that seems a little labor intensive. Dealing with water that gets into the trigger, etc. also raises concerns.

The RA 52 ammo isn't corrosive so I won't be dealing with corrosive salts, however I noticed that the .30-06 Springfield PPU SPBT 165 gr. ammo that I just bought is considerably shorter at 3.250" than the old RA .30-06 FMJ ammo is at 3.325". Makes me wonder if it's something other than rifle ammo. The cases are identical but there's a big difference in bullet size.

I recently saw a video of a gunsmith warning his viewers away from using aluminum rods to clean bores saying they cause accidental muzzle wear. His preferred cleaning tool was a pull through bore snake which is what I like to use because it gets me through the process much quicker and I don't have to deal with patches. Has anyone had a worn muzzle caused by aluminum rods?

My understanding is that aluminum rods tend to hold crud on them which acts as an abrasive. Of course I have steel rods, and brass ones too, that get dirty. My practice has always been to run a solvent soaked patch down any rod that I'm intending to place into immediate service for the specific purpose of cleaning it off. Its been said that more bores have been ruined at the muzzle by overzealous cleaning than anything else. The U.S. government actually had to counter bore some M-1 carbines because of over zealous cleaning.....with steel rods.
On the subject of flushing a bore with water. As I do my gun related work in the basement, I have EZ access to the laundry sink there. I have about 6' of small diameter hose attached to the faucet. With the action opened, bolt retracted and barrel pointed down into a suitable receptacle; the hose is placed into the chamber and water turned on in an appropriate amount. You can use any cheap dishwashing detergent to initially muck up the bore. I like to run a bronze brush through the soaped up bore a few times too just to dig any crud out of the groves. I then flush the bore with hot water, dry and then proceed with the commercial cleaner of choice.. In more recent years I follow this practice only when using cordite propelled 303. Cordite is nearly as bad as black powder to remove. Any other corrosive ammo (ie. 8mm, 06', ) I simply use the USGI WWII bore cleaner, of which I have a VERY ample supply, and skip the water bath.

[Merc]

KCW,

Hope you don't mind me picking your brain:

The small hose technique sounds interesting. How do you attach a hose small enough to fit inside the bore to your water faucet? Using hot water would help with evaporation but do you also pull a snake or a patch soaked with oil or WD40 through the bore to displace any leftover water? I won't be firing any corrosive ammo ever but it might be a good idea to do a thorough scrub occasionally.

Thanks,
Merc

[kcw]

KCW,

Hope you don't mind me picking your brain:

The small hose technique sounds interesting. How do you attach a hose small enough to fit inside the bore to your water faucet? Using hot water would help with evaporation but do you also pull a snake or a patch soaked with oil or WD40 through the bore to displace any leftover water? I won't be firing any corrosive ammo ever but it might be a good idea to do a thorough scrub occasionally.

Thanks,
Merc

The length of hose I've been using for 30+ years has an O.D. of .5". Although it has the standard connector used to hitch up to your outside faucet, or basement laundry tub faucet, the connection on the other end that normally might be used to connect to a spray nozzle etc. has been cut off. Frankly, I don't recall where that hose even came from but it's proved useful for washing dogs in the laundry tub, and occasionally flushing out gun barrels. Anyway, the cut off end of the hose is lightly pressed and held into the mouth of the CHAMBER, which acts as a sort of funnel into the barrel. As in my previous post, the barrel is ALWAYS pointed downward into an appropriate receptacle on the basement floor. The end of the hose is lightly pressed into the chamber and then the hot faucet valve is cracked open to allow an suitable amount water into the chamber, avoiding over flooding the chamber and soaking the rifle's internals. The Brits actually had a purpose made funnel for their Lee Enfield action 303 rifles that accomplished the same thing. They are occasionally offered as surplus in SGN. An alternative to using a hose is to simply stick an inch of the muzzle of a downward pointed rifle into a receptacle of hot water placed on the floor. Insert a tightly fitted and dish soap soaked cleaning patch attached to the end of a cleaning rod through chamber and down into the hot water. Draw the rod upward, thus pulling the hot water upward, behind the patch. Upon withdrawing into the chamber, the patch will lose its suction on the water, and the water will drain back to the receptacle. Repeat has required.
A secondary benefit of using HOT, boiling water has been to heat the barrel to the point that any remaining water will evaporate, but I've never waited for nature to take its in that fashion as I've just run a couple of flannel patches (made of old, flannel bed sheets) to sop up any leftover water. I then proceed to clean the barrel as I would if I were going to start cleaning Remington Model 700 hunting rifle fresh from the field..
I should tell you that I was teethed on cleaning guns that had corrosive GI ammo run through them. During the early-mid 60's my father had a 100yd range out behind the barn, where he and his buddies would shoot their WWII "bring backs", more recently procured NRA-DCM 03 Springfields & M1917's and whatever oil soaked, GI surplus gun that they'd bought for $20 off the rack at the local "Outdoor Store". EVERYTHING they shot out of those things was corrosive surplus ammo. My job, after the shooting had ended and the men were sipping their adult "pops" on the side porch, was to be in the basement, scrubbing the bores of those rifles out with soap and hot water using the "pan on the floor" technique. I also swabbed out the chamber area and bolt face for corrosive residue. The adults then took care of whatever final cleaning they preferred themselves. Of course those guys were all WWI, WWII or Korean war vets who dealt with corrosive ammo during their service years. And too, many were old enough to recall the days when ALL ammo was corrosive, and ALL guns had to be treated accordingly. That experience is why I don't hesitate to use old, but still serviceable, corrosive ammo; while many less experienced people today think that use of it will instantly ruin a barrel.