Hi all,

I haven't posted here in a few years due to medical reasons, but I'm feeling a little better now. I just bought a cz52 today from a man I met in a classified ad, it appears to be in very good condition, but he informed me that he shot corrosive ammunition through it earlier this morning, he said he cleaned it, but it looks like he only oiled it, my question is how far down do I have to strip it to be sure I get all the corrosive salts washed out, do I have to submerge the barrel and slide in boiling water? I have already field stripped it, but shoud I drive out the pin and remove the extractor as well as the firing pin? This is my first handgun, and my first expirience cleaning up corrosive salts.

thanks,
Craig

No need for all that; if there were, you'd never find a CZ-52 (or any ComBloc gun) without either serious corrosion or seriously buggered and broken pins, plus wallowed-out pin holes.

Run some hot water through the bore, clean everything with Hoppes No. 9, oil with your favorite gun oil and call it good. Check on it in a few days if you're still worried.
If the thought of corrosive ammo still bothers you, get some of the bore snot made for muzzleloaders: it's designed to remove corrosive salts while cleaning the bore. Ballistol also removes corrosive salts, but it's not too effective at actually cleaning the bore, in my experience.
None of the above will do anything for removing copper fouling; use Sweet's 7.62 or Shooter's Choice for that. Caution: the Sweet's is pretty aggressive.

Thanks for the reply, I just completely disassembled the the upper/slide and barell assembly, washed all those parts with boiling water, then immersed in acetone to help dry the water, then cleaned the bore with Hoppe's (though after several passed there was still the blue-green copper traces so I quit trying) and oiled everything well and put it away.
I do think I will be getting another barrel for it, this one is pretty dark, but I'll try again later.
I was expecting to get a response within a couple of hours after posting, if not minutes, this place has really died since I was on here last, what happened?

Craig, First off, I'm glad your feeling better healthwise. I havn't posted here in a while either. I have gunsmithed for 45 years and used just about every kind of cleaner that has been invented for gun bores. About 3 years ago, I came across a "new" product called EMSS 1180 made by Eastern Maine Shooting Supplies, Inc. of Milo, Maine. (you can Google them) Funny thing is, I go by this place about once a month on the way to see a friend and never knew it was there. This stuff cleans lead, copper, powder residue, wads, etc. etc., better than anything I have ever used period. When I started getting a clean rag with Hoppe's # 9, I passed 3 more rags with EMSS 1180 before I got a clean rag again! I don't know what's in it, but it works great! I also had a CZ-52 for a number of years and this stuff will shine that bore up quite a bit. Lapping the dark bores with a mop and 600 grit grinding compound will help also. I probably should have kept that CZ-52 as it was a "fun"
gun to shoot!...........................Dick

Thanks, I'll take a look at that, I still haven't got around to taking another crack at the bore.

Take this for whatever it's worth....guys on some of the forums that mess with Mosins, etc, that shoot lots of corrosive ammo claim that if you spray some Windex down the barrel, the ammonia in it neutralizes the corrosive salts. Then you just clean as normal.

__________________
Writer of wrongs.

Windex works and ammonia works, but oddly enough, it's not because Windex contains ammonia, because it doesn't. Mostly, Windex is just a very convenient way to get some soapy water flushed through the bore.
Windex's "Ammonia-D" is actually a proprietary blend of surfactants. It's the surfactants (aka soap) that makes the water "wetter" and helps dissolve the salts.
Although there's no actual ammonia, squirting some Windex down the bore right after you get done shooting is probably the single best thing you can do after shooting corrosive ammo: the bore is hot (at least warm), the pores in the steel are open, and the water + surfactants can get to and flush out the primer salts.