Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Mausers and Military Rifles M2 Ball. What is this worth?

Yes, US Ordnance went away from mercuric primers in 1898. They stuck with potassium chlorate until the 50s, even though non-corrosive primers had been developed before WWII, because the chlorate primers were considered more reliable.

Potassium chlorate primers do nothing to the brass. The salty residue left in the bore(and gas mechanism if a self-loader) is easily removed with hot water, and as long as you do that and then lightly oil before putting the rifle up after a day's shooting there's no issue. I've used lots of corrosive primed ammunition, back when it was very available and cheap.

Unless the ammunition is degraded and has become unreliable I'd use the ammunition as is, and then wash and reload the brass, rather than going to the trouble of tearing it down.

IIRC, GI 30-06 brass had corrosive primers until 1951 when they changed over. Remaining corrosive primers were used until used up so 1951 06 brass has to be suspect as they could be one or the other.
Dunno when LC started making ammo but I do have brass marked LC 42 and LC 43 so at least I would venture a guess as late 1941 or early 1942. I have a couple hundred LC 51 that I have yet to deprime and wondering if they're corrosive as they were made during the transition. Guess I'll just have to break down and deprime them when I find the time.
Paul B.

Correctomundo, re: mercuric primers being death to fired brass. Moot point though, as mercuric primers started to be phased out at the turn of the century. The 20th century. All gov't .30-06 ammo was loaded with non-mercuric primers (but very corrosive nonetheless) from day one. All ammo loaded prior to that (.3040 Krag, .45-70, etc.) must be considered to be mercuric, but who's shooting that stuff anymore? (Actually, I did. As a kid and young adult in the 60's-early 70's we shot up boatloads of that stuff in our Krags because it was dirt cheap. Left the brass in the garbage and went home and dutifully cleaned the guns- no harm, no foul. It seemed back then every gun show table had piles of the stuff for around $3-4/100.)

The old Frankford Arsenal FA-70 primer, the notorious "corrosive" primer, was developed well before WWII and was spec'ed by the gov't for all .30 ammo produced by private contractors. It was a wonderful primer- able to not degrade under extreme conditions of storage/use and with very very consistent ignition properties. The Ordinance folks at the time were well aware of the advances in primer technology in terms of non-corrosiveness, on the part of our commercial producers and foreign entities, but decided to stick with the old FA priming compound because of those traits. They figured that the trade-off was worth it and were willing to accept the necessary protocols of religiously cleaning weapons after use.

When non-corrosive compounds got to the point where the FA primer became moot, the phase out began. There's no way to pin down exact dates and lot numbers of ammo from private contractors that are categorically non-corrosive, but it's still a rather narrow time band. It's pretty safe to say that 1953 and later headstamped stuff is safe, and absolutely post 1954-55.

As stated earlier, brass fired with corrosive primers is perfectly safe for re-use. Wash it out if you feel the need but it's not necessary.

Wartime brass has other issues which may or may not effect a modern handloader. While it is generally excellent brass and made under strict QC oversight for uniformity, there was a war on after all and in the rush to get the ammo out the door and into the hands of the boys overseas sometimes stuff got through that shouldn't have.

Thanks for the insight guys. Interesting stuff.

Congratulations on winning the shoot. That was a pretty good looking target.

Thanks Huntnshoot, that was just 1 of a few targets I shot that day. The funny thing is my girlfriend laughed at me when I told here I was going to use this old rifle:


She said, "I thought it just hung there for decoration". She didn't realize it still worked...Its like most m96 sweedish mausers though. Pretty straight shooter. Here's a target I shot with it after I changed the front sight:


At the competition that day, I chose not to use the polymer tipped bullets that it prefers. But used a more traditional lead tipped bullet. Still walked away the high score overall winner though. Some guys were using some pretty accurate Swiss k31's, M1 Garrand's, m96's, and other cool old military rifles. One guy brought a collection of old "sniper" type military rifles. We had a great turn-out that day and we had a lot of fun...

Well played! Gotta love a Swede 96.

I think you're right. I'm thinking from what I've read a long time back that all Military Ammo made in the 40s was corrosive primed. I believe even some in the 50s was as this was when they began to use non corrosive primers. I had a bunch of LC 67 ammo that I lost in a divorce. It was said to be Non Corrosive and I never cleaned my Garand with soap and water after shooting it. But anything from the 40s or 50s was suspect in my head and if I shot those head stamps I cleaned my Garand appropriately.

PS: Butler creek cover on the trickler.....

Well if a guy really wants the definitive blow by blow on what was corrosive I suggest you get a copy of Hatchers Notebook. Over the last 40 years I've sure had relatively little problem with SL 43 brass,TW stamped and of course LC. You wanna get down to cases and brass tacks( or hulls in this case) The cartridge cases that have given me the most problems were stamped Herters from the 50's to 60's. GI brass is consistant and heavy compared to commercial. I enjoy using it in 223, 308, 30-06, 9mm,38 spcl , and 45 acp. MB

Man, I get a kick out of making guns shoot, but I haven't reached that far back into the past for a military rifle yet. Good times. I did work with a Turkish Mauser from the 40's in 8mm for my neighbor's son. I got to learn all about it by pulling it apart, cleaning it from top to bottom, evaluating it's shooting fitness, and then working up a few loads for it. I couldn't make it shoot that well!

Spam can of m2 Ball WWII ammo, repackaged in Hawthorne Nevada

Dick Culver may not have a good list or know for sure. One thing I know for sure is the NAD in Hawthorne used to be the largest ammunition depot in the world. I had family work there. My grandmother used to build bombs there..