Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Mausers and Military Rifles Corrosive 30-06 Question

Do any of you know what year the US Government 30-06 Military surplus Ball ammo for use in the Garrand and 1903 Springfields became non-corrosive , or has it always been non-corrosive.

Somewhere around 1952, but I don't have my book at present. Generally anything past 53 is good . Some exceptions though.

It is listed in this table if you can read it.

TN9-1305-200 dated June 1961

I just recently tried out my new brass tumbler on some mid 50s US Army ball brass that I had shot decades ago and just never messed with until now.. All of it looked like clean primers, but I had some older 40s cases mixed in and the difference was noticeable.

Thanx, I got some more info on the Savage Forum as well which agrees, The 1935 stuff I was looking at had nickel bullets rather than copper but I don't know why or what the difference is. Maybe they were just coated to go easier on the barrel,

Not coated. Solid cupro-nickel jackets. It would seem odd to find them loaded in mid-30's U.S. gov't ammunition, but were retained for certain specific kinds of loads. Cupro-nickel jackets fell out of favor many years before. Jacket fouling in the bore is somewhat worse with them than with the gilding metal jackets that followed, and are used to this day.

The primers used in that pre-war ammo were very good. The Frankford Arsenal priming compound was very stable under extreme storage conditions, and quite uniform in ignition. It's why the gov't stuck with them for so much longer after all commercial ammo companies (and a lot of foreign gov'ts) had switched to non-corrosive priming compounds. A lot of serious handloaders in the 50's and 60's hoarded their stashes of the old surplus FA-70 primers for that reason.

No big deal to shoot that pre-war ammo. If it's Frankford Arsenal (and it probably is) you'll find it should return very good accuracy as it was made with excellent uniform brass. Just clean the bore judiciously afterward (the old hot soapy water trick is as valid today as it was 80 years ago, followed by "modern" cleaning protocols after the hot water scrub). "Never let the sun set on a dirty barrel" was the watchword back then and is valid today for those of us who occasionally shoot the stuff. Save the brass, anneal it, and enjoy a long life of reloading it- it really was excellent brass. The corrosive salts in the priming compound don't have any effect on brass. Don't confuse it with the much older mercuric primers that did attack brass.

I shoot reloaded SL 43 brass a lot, other than a split neck every once in a great while no problems. Also using LC 52 &LC 54. I think using brass that was originally mercuric or chlorate primed is a larger concern. Naturally any brass with blue and green corrosion on it is laid to rest. GI brass is heavier than commercial , it's thicker so developes higher pressure with the same load as in commercial brass. It's also older and more work hardened. GI brass is no place for hot loads PERIOD. Use caution and be conservative. No point in risking your safety and firearm to save money on brass. With the 223 & 308 both are newer than GI 06 BUT still be careful. MB

Chlorate primers had zero effect on brass. It was the mercuric primers that caused brass embrittlement, and they went out of vogue in the first decade of the 20th century.

I have, and regularly use, a couple batches of FA (Frankford Arsenal) brass from the 1930's. God knows how many times they've been loaded- at least 8 or 10 times- but they do get annealed every now and then. I have one more small batch of FA-32 brass waiting in the wings for its turn at bat. (I pulled the bullets, dumped the powder, snapped the primers, de-capped and de-crimped primer pockets, annealed, and tucked them away for a rainy day.)

Good advice re: reduced case capacity. Not dramatically so, but enough to warrant cutting charges back a couple grains.

Gnoahhh, I defer to your higher knowledge on this, I was typing my post while you were putting yours in. But like you, I like my Springfields and still enjoy using GI loads and brass.Last fall I picked up an 03A3 Rem with 200 rds of LC 52 LOT 39222 and 200 rds of the same lot once fired brass as well a pile of hand loads, dies,bullets, etc for$450 from an old guy who just wanted it to go to some one who knew what it was and appreciated it for what it still is. These days a guy can spend a pile a cash on a rifle that could not even begin to follow a 03 or 03A3 thru the Gov't testing trials our Springfiellds passed. One could only hope to live long enough to wear out a few Springfied barrels huh? MB

Amen, brother! I'm currently the custodian of a safe-full of '03's (no 03A3's though- looking back I don't think I ever owned one except the sporter my Dad had). I feed 'em with a wide variety of loads. A couple have only had cast bullet loads down the pipe since I owned them, some get fed M1/M2 Ball and Match ammo or handloaded equivalents, some get a mix of everything. All good. (The cast-only rifles are ones I re-barreled with NOS date of manufacture correct gov't barrels or new Criterion barrels. I can look up and quote exact round counts for them.)

I remember seeing an old photograph from the 20's-early 30's of the range testing facility of Springfield Armory. All rifles were hauled out there for targeting before being shipped to their end users. Service grade 03's had to meet a strict accuracy requirement of 2MOA minimum, match rifles had to perform at 1.5MOA minimum. Invariably most all performed better than the requirements, and those that didn't went back to the shops for tweaking.

It was a long room in a shed with shooting benches the length of the wall, and guys at each bench with racks of rifles waiting behind them. What struck me was the huge pile of empty brass at the feet of each shooter. Can you imagine doing that 8-10 hours a day every day. Tough bunch of hombres! (And not a pair of ear muffs in sight!) Those guys got together on weekends for recreation- they had a private club. A shooting club...

Addendum: earlier Match ammo was sometimes loaded with gilding metal jacketed bullets that were given a tin wash, in the belief that they gave a little better accuracy and helped ameliorate copper fouling. What they discovered though was the tin had a nasty tendency to cold solder itself to the brass case necks, raising chamber pressures to ungodly heights.

HATCHERS NOteBOOK IS SORTA OUR BIBLE HUH? MB

That and Brophy, Canfield, Crossman, Ness, Whelen, Sharpe, and a bunch of others!

Malcolm-
The date of change to non-corrosive varied among manufacturers, and depended on ammo type (e.g. ball vs AP).

This list may be helpful:
http://www.odcmp.org/1101/USGI.pdf

--Bob