Stupid noob question

First, I apologize immensly for asking a stupid question like this, but having just gotten into AK's I'm new to the possibility of corrosive ammo. I dealt with AK's extensively back in Vietnam, but this is my first time at finally owning one. I picked up a Romanian AK a couple of weeks ago, and have yet to fire it, but the gun shop owner gave me about 50 rounds of that old, Russian lacquered stuff to shoot through it. I've also got another 30-40 loose rounds of the same looking stuff with SB on the headstamp. Although the "Russian hunting ammo" says non-corrosive is there a way to tell by simply looking at a round? This will be the first, and last, of this kind of ammo to go through the rifle, but I figured it would suffice just to make sure it goes "bang" when the trigger's pulled.
Thanks for educating me and putting up with this kind of question.

AKs tend to not care about ammo too much, and most ammo you run across will be just fine. New production ammo tends to be non-corrosive, while any surplus should be considered corrosive. Shooting corrosive ammo is not a deal-breaker either; just clean your rifle thoroughly after shooting and don't worry about it.

My MAK-90 hangs up about 1% of the time with hollow points (and I didn't realize this until I had 3500+ ) so test your AK with ~100 rounds of whatever you want to stock up on. To be safe, I'd thoroughly clean your AK after shooting the unknown ammo that was given to you (boiling hot water down the bore and gas tube, then clean/oil as normal)

To clean my Soviet arsenal after use I spray windex down the barrels and any other surface that woud get any fouling on it and clean it as usual. I shoot the cheapest/most corrosive ammo through my guns and they are all fine but I cant hit anything very well with it.

Windex doesn't do anything for dissolving the primer salts left over after shooting.

What does then because I was lead to believe that it did?

Water... preferably hot, for the reason it will evapotare better and not be left behind in those small places to rust.

I have no idea how that rumor started. The primer salt residue is water soluble, so water is a common thing to use. Unfortunately, water doesn't evaporate too quickly and can puddle in crevices. In my opinion, the best thing to use would be a water/Ballistol mixture.

Maybe the rumor got started by people like me who use Windex as part of the cleaning routine after shooting corrosive ammunition...

Is it any better than just using plain water? Maybe-maybe not. Some say the ammonia and other ingredients help remove the dissolved salts and powder fouling better than plain water, hot or otherwise. It also has the convenience factor of coming in a handy spray bottle that is very inexpensive. There is no substitute for proper cleaning, no matter what products you are using. I use Windex (actually the cheap Walmart brand) to remove the gross contamination in the beginning, followed by a regular cleaning with Hoppes #9 or CLP, depending on wether the wife is around to complain about the smell of Hoppes! No rust problems here after following this routine for years...

1DD

Windex is mostly water and a little alcohol based soap to increase the solubility (heating plain water also increases its solubility). I have used a few squirts of WIndex in my bolt-action guns when shooting corrosive ammunition as a pre-routine to normal cleaning for years and it does a good job of disolving the salt residue and carrying it away either with a patch or letting it run out the muzzle. It is NOT a cure-all preventative that alone will prevent rust. It MUST be removed (along with the salts it has disolved and captured). Like 1Devildog said I use it for bolt guns because it is cheap and convenient.

For gas guns, I have found the easiest, quickest and most effective way to deal with the salt residue is to simply rinse the whole gun forward of the buttstock with hot clean water. This is what I do;

1) Field strip the gun including removal of the forarm.
2) Spray everything with the 10% Balistol/Water mix
3) Scrub the bore with a brush and scrub the action and components with a toothbrush
4) Pour HOT water through the action and down the bore and the gas block, rear sight base, etc. Also, rinse all the components.
5) Shake the loose water out and then spray everythnig with the 10% Balistol mix again.
6) Wipe everything down with a clean towel
7) If it is a nice hot summer day let everything dry in the sun for a couple hours. If not, use an air compressor or a blow dryer to dry out the little nooks and crevices.
8) Clean and lube as usual. Assemeble gun and perform safety checks.
9) After a couple days inspect weapon for signs of rust (I have never found any)

NOTES:

The wood stock and wood gas tube handguard are the only things I avoid getting wet. For convenience, I replaced the wood on the gas tube of my regular range gun with a plastic East German handguard and hose it all down.

I actually mix my Balistol solution a little strong (between 11%-15%) so that there is enough capacity to mix with any remaining rinse water left in the nooks and crannies, etc.

FWIW: Neither alcohol nor ammonia (the two most common chemical additives to Windex other than water) are solvents for the primer salt residues.

Right, but they don't have to be. H20 is the "universal solvent"...

1DD

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