I last shot my 74 about 3 weeks ago. Maybe 1K rounds, all suppressed. I came home, tossed it in the closet in my air conditioned house and forgot about it.
I grabbed it today to get to a case for another rifle and noticed rust.
No big deal, so I threw it back in the closet.
Today I grabbed it to take care fo the rust. I attempt to make sure it clear, and it wont budge. I flip it over and look in the magwell.
interesting
I took it outside and slammed the charging handle on a fence post until it bent.
It opened up about 1/2".
I just soaked it down with WD-40, and will try getting it open tomorrow.
So much for requiring less care than AR. I’ve left ARs sit for a few weeks and never had this problem.
I know that you’ve said this before Templar, but when shooting corrosive ammo, how soon after shooting do you have to clean the rifle? I mean, if I shoot a 1K over the course of the day and then let it sit for 2 or 3 hours or even the next day, will I be okay? If I don’t have any Ballistol, what else can I use? I don’t know, maybe I’m letting this whole corrosive thing get to me.
The old saw about never letting the sun go down on a dirty gun isn’t a bad one, but you don’t need to get too anal about it.
I’ve shot literally thousands of rounds of corrosive ammo through AK’s and surplus military bolt actions and semi auto’s. As long as you clean them a couple of days after shooting you should be ok. This is also dependent on climate. The more humid an area is, the sooner you need to clean.
Ballistol is great stuff, you can use a mixture of 10% Ballistol to 90% water for most corrosive or black powder cleaning, but realistically, you can just go through your regular cleaning regimen, whether you’re using CLP, Hoppe’s, Shooter’s Choice, etc…it should be fine, just clean the weapon, then go back the next day and clean it again.
If you go to a class and shoot 1K of corrosive ammo, try to clean it as soon as you can, but you shouldn’t have a problem leaving it a day or two if you have to.
I think bigbore’s problem was exascerbated by the use of a suppressor, which probably pushed the propellent gasses back into the chamber and around the bolt a lot more than if it had just been shot without a suppressor.
Balistol is good stuff. I keep a M-44 Mosin Nagant in my Jeep as a trunk gun.
I shoot about 40 rounds (absolutely corrosive) thru it about once a month(my shoulder is usually properly tenderized by that point, yes I am a wuss), quickie clean it at the range/farm with 90/10 H2O/Balistol and put it in a gunsock and stick it in the back of my damp, humid jeep.
Never a spot of rust.
Balistol is da bomb for corrosive ammo. Basically, it is as close to an idiot proof corrosive ammo antidote you will find in this life and it is cheap too.
But man, it stinks like gym socks from 10 million BC…
