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Old November 30, 2018, 01:11 AM   #1
Ignition Override
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Have You seen melted lacquer from Russian steel cases?

in a gun's chamber. Nobody seems able to describe the appearance when cleaned from a chamber.
The extra crud from accumulated residue in very dirty guns seems to be what they see. Guys often don't know that steel cases allow residue to build up enough to be a problem when switching to softer brass cases, which expand into the dirty chambers.

Having used over ten thousand of rds. of mostly Wolf (non-lacquered), but also some Monarch, Tula and Brown Bear in my SKS, AKs, Makarovs and now, at times, in my CZ PCR and ('94) German Sig P228, only typical residue has been seen.

** LuckyGunner's "Brass vs. Steel Cased Ammo, An Epic Torture Test" (Jan. 8, 2013) in ARs has some very long descriptions with, among other subjects, very detailed color charts comparing gas port, chamber pressures etc. Interesting reading.

>>>Lacquer melting? Nope......They state that even in guns which were too hot to Touch, the lacquer-coated ammo had no trouble and extracted better than the polymer ammo.


Off topic now, but as for bimetal coating on bullets causing premature chamber wear, yes.

Also in the LuckyGunner evaluation, If I remember correctly, the overheated barrels were a major contributing factor regarding extra wear caused by steel bullets with bimetal coatings.

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Old November 30, 2018, 02:21 AM   #2
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Nope, I've never personally seen gummered up chambers from anything I can specifically say was lacquer. One of these days I kinda want to expose some empty cases to direct and indirect heat from a propane torch just to try to get an idea of what happens what that stuff gets hot enough or loose enough to come off.
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Old November 30, 2018, 07:45 AM   #3
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I haven’t noticed anything. To be fair though, that’s not saying much, I only have one firearm that has been fed the lacquered stuff totaling about 300 rounds.
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Old November 30, 2018, 08:30 AM   #4
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I've never shot enough steel cased ammo fast enough to get it hot enough to melt lacquer ..... but as a wood flooring guy that works in a lot of old houses with wax and lacquer floors ......I can tell you that lacquer will melt and solidify in to a brown concrete like substance when mixed with sawdust and allowed to cool.
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Old November 30, 2018, 08:54 AM   #5
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No, never seen it. And I have been told by people more knowledgeable than me that the issue is a myth.
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Old November 30, 2018, 09:04 AM   #6
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Nope. No sure if lacquer is even a problem. I've read the melting point is too high to cause a problem, but it does seem logical it could melt and cause a problem. I do know that steel case ammo is hard on firearms. It's nasty ammo that will quickly foul a firearm not designed for it. I hate cleaning my guns, so I rarely use it. Learn my lesson in a 3 Gun competition with extraction problems in a AR.

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Old November 30, 2018, 09:13 AM   #7
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Not a myth.

A co worker had his NEF HandiRifle in .223 stop ejecting. Said he only shot steel case in it.
I took a good look at the chamber, which was pretty dirty. Bore cleaner only did a little to remove the fouling, mineral spirits, the same.
When we we saturated a patch with laquer thinner it cleaned the crud out completely and ejection returned to normal.
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Old November 30, 2018, 10:02 AM   #8
Bartholomew Roberts
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Never seen it. I’ve seen white patches come out with pinkish streaks during cleaning and people have claimed this is lacquer; but I think a more likely culprit is the big red band of neck sealant that used to be common on lacquered Russian ammo.

I’ve personally tried to heat empty cases in an oven to get the lacquer to melt with no luck.
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Old November 30, 2018, 11:27 AM   #9
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I think the majority of steel-cased shooters can't tell the difference, and may not even know that there's a difference, between lacquered cases and polymer-coated cases.
Poly-coated cases have been the norm with major brands for well over a decade, now.

Much of the current talk on the internet about "lacquer" is, in my opinion, completely invalid.
Too many people lump all steel-cased stuff together, confuse poly coating with lacquer, and contaminate the data pool.

You're not going to see it with normal use. You need heat, and a lot of it.


Personally, I've had to extract a .223/5.56 case that got 'glued' into the chamber of an AR (by my little brother). And, long ago, when I was a young, dumb kid that thought trying to get the barrel hot enough to ignite hand guards was a good idea, I had to clean lacquer out of the chamber of a couple SKSs.
It looks like old, nasty, hardened grease. - A barely discernible coffee 'brown' with a lot of carbon residue.

But... I found that carb cleaner removes it fairly easily.
Old Hoppe's #9 (from when it still had benzene in it) also worked. But other gun cleaning solvents available to me at the time didn't do much of anything.
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Old December 1, 2018, 01:25 AM   #10
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Many people also seem to confuse unconnected issues such as (1) steel vs. brass cases, (2) lacquer, (3) bimetal coatings on steel bullets, (4) low powder loadings at times in some Tula ammo, and the (5) hard primers which made my former Ruger Mini 30 not so reliable. It was bought as a plinker gun-not for the Taliban living near Memphis).

And lots of people still assume that (6) even modern, foreign ammo has corrosive primers. If somebody says something negative, then it must be true.

Very short comments on the internet suggest that when discussing "Russian ammo", quite often they are unable to differentiate between any two, or more of these possible issues-or know which issue they Are trying to discuss. It's often hard to know just What people are attempting to describe, when lumped under one category.

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Old December 7, 2018, 01:51 AM   #11
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I've done it.

Did it on an ak it sucks to clean out it took hundreds of rounds in a single session. Id say nearly 700 and I think it was just the chamber heat melting a little off each rouhlnd and after it built up enough.
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Old December 7, 2018, 12:05 PM   #12
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In my my old mosin had pretty good buildup of it.
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Old December 7, 2018, 09:53 PM   #13
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Russian military ammo is lacquered steel case...real AK47s/74s and the like get run pretty hot and heavy. If there was melting lacquer you would think it would cause a problem in full-auto weapons.

I have never seen a problem in the SKS weapons or the AK copys that I have owned or owned and shot by aquaintences... but they are regularly cleaned and not realy run that hot.
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Old December 8, 2018, 05:04 AM   #14
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Bought a few boxes of Tula lacquer stuff years ago. Can't say if the stuff melted--I'm not a spray shooter anyway. What I did notice was that variations in cartridge dimensions caused intermittent jams, and I had about 1 bad primer in every 15 cartridges. That was 5.56 ammo.
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Old December 8, 2018, 11:26 AM   #15
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I'm inclined to think the melting lacquer is more myth than fact. I'm not saying it can't happen, but in the 90s my buddy and I shot a TON of lacquered ammo. He had a SKS I had a MAC90. I picked up a coupe of drum mags and could go through the drum fast enough to smoke off the oil on the barrel never had any issues with extraction. I think the biggest issue, like with the Mosins, are crusty dried grease and cosmoline. Some of those rifle have been in storage for ages, a lot of time for things to turn hard. I've run lacquered and now poly coated ammo for close to 25 years in the MAC, don't think I've ever took a brush to the chamber. I wonder what would happen taking a fired case and heating it, with a lighter or toaster oven. Wonder if a guy could get any melting of the coating. I am going to try it this weekend after a range trip.
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Old December 8, 2018, 11:36 AM   #16
Bartholomew Roberts
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Quote:
Originally Posted by FrankenMauser
You're not going to see it with normal use. You need heat, and a lot of it.
How much heat? As I said, I’ve heated them in an oven at 500F for hours and nothing. In the M4, cook offs are possible in a few minutes at chamber temperatures of 600F. So, I’m not seeing how it is possible to get a rifle hot enough to melt lacquer.

I’m also skeptical that the number of people running their rifles hard enough to exceed 500F chamber temps equals the number of people reporting this issue on the Internet.

I don’t think there is any such thing as lacquer melting in a rifle chamber.
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Old December 8, 2018, 12:04 PM   #17
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I don't use it for the most part--because the results suck in the guns I've tried them in. Sure you can run a $250,000 Lamborghini on regular gas, but don't count on full performance.
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Old December 8, 2018, 12:26 PM   #18
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Quote:
How much heat? As I said, I’ve heated them in an oven at 500F for hours and nothing. In the M4, cook offs are possible in a few minutes at chamber temperatures of 600F. So, I’m not seeing how it is possible to get a rifle hot enough to melt lacquer.
And evidently if I could read looks like Roberts has already tried. lol
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Old December 8, 2018, 04:02 PM   #19
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Call me crazy--but might here be another way lacquer can end up in your chamber? cycling a cartridge in a semi-auto can be rough on cartridge--it's not uncommon to find "scrapings" in the receiver and chamber of brass and copper. Now what if the same thing was happening to lacquer and it "caked and baked" over time. Enquiring minds want to know.
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Old December 9, 2018, 06:46 AM   #20
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The current Russian Military cartridge (5.45X39) is a lacquered cased cartridge. It's predecessor, the 7.62X39 was also lacquered...if there was a problem with a lacquered case it would have been fixed a long time ago...in shooting, sometimes it's easy to blame one factor causing a problem when it is actually something else.

Just like the early M-16 failures in Nam. A forward assist, chromed chamber, and proper maintenance cured the problem. Not sure which of these fixes was the most important but I'm thinking that proper maintenance in the field might have been. Combat conditions often make proper maintenance unlikely.

I think all Russian military weapons have chrome bores/chambers and this includes the once issued PM Makarov pistol which were also fed lacquerd cases...The Mosin did not but has always been incredibly reliable. I do believe the PPsh machine pistol, as crudely built as it was, featured chrome chambers and bores...not sure about the Dragunov, etc.
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Old December 9, 2018, 09:08 AM   #21
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Not a problem for me. I'm currently using some Hornady "steel match" which has some sort of coating. Never fired more than 5-10 shots in rapid succession anyway.
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Old December 10, 2018, 01:02 AM   #22
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stagpanther: That's an interesting question, about whether lacquered surfaces can leave shavings in chambers.

Have you avoided Russian ammo (for simple fun) because of certain brands having lacquer, or more because of features such as harder primers, bimetal-coated steel bullets, or other issues Unrelated to lacquer, such as the actual steel cases? Just curious. Naturally reloaders use only brass ammo, with a few exceptions.

I heated an oven recently to 450*, put in a couple of lacquered (Russian) Monarch 9x18 handgun cases.

15 minutes later, gently rubbed both cases and nothing came off.


Bartholomew Roberts tested with 500*, and it would seem that only abuse or combat would produce those temps in gun chambers, and might deform barrels anyway.

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Old December 10, 2018, 01:55 AM   #23
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Everyone seems focused on just one boogieman: whether or not they can get the stuff to melt--I'm suggesting that there might be more than one way for something to cause issues. Call it the "AR bug reflex." I reload the vast majority of my ammo--but I did try some lacquer stuff in an AR and was very disappointed in the results, though I do once in a great while run a bit through my AK.
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