Hello guys, i was recently given some m2 ball from a friend and the head stamp is R A with the numbers 45 on the bottom of the case head. I can post pictures if needed. I was just curious who the manufacturer was and if the ammo is corrosive. I have heard conflicting opinions on the manufactures, some have seen its corrosive and some have not. another person said to just pull the projectile and reload into LC brass with primers i know are not corrosive. Please let me know what you guys think. Thanks.

Remington Arms and it IS corrosive. All WW2 30/06 was corrosive, the only WW2 rifle ammo that was not was .30 Carbine which was always non corrosive due to the poppet gas port.

Leaving you 2 options.
1) Shoot it as-is, don't sweat it, and clean your gun.
2) Reverse Mexican match it: Use a kinetic puller, and dump the powder and bullet out into a pan - pour powder into a modern primed casing, and seat bullet on-top.  Tadaa, 30-06 M2 ball converted to non-corrosive for the cost of a primer (and the brass prep).  Assembly line it, and you'll find the conversion goes very fast.  Take old primed brass, and dump it at a gun-show for salvage value (someone will want the WWII primed brass - someone always does).

I do #2.

Save it as part of USA history..

Slightly hurt me to find empties from long past WW2 facilities that help support the war effort

Corrosive primer means you need to clean your gun before storing it. I am not sure why so many are afraid to use it in their guns.

The guns that shoot this stuff have survived by the millions and they shot thousands of round in less than ideal conditions and are still around. Going to the range and having fun then cleaning the gun before putting back in the safe is no problem.

Shoot the stuff!

I would save it as history.

Not really worth the hassle to clean to protect an otherwise very good condition gun from a corrosive primer.


At least in a bolt gun you have a decent chance of cleaning completely.

It is a real chore on a gas gun to get everything cleaned.

Of course just about every Garand has had at least some of it used already.

If you are going to go though the trouble of pulling it down why not just de-capp the RA brass and prime them with new primers?  

Usually I wouldn't think twice about shooting corrosive ammo which simply means it leaves salts behind that accelerate corrosion but if you are going to shoot it from a gas gun like a M1Garand the cleaning is a little more involved then simply cleaning the bore and bolt parts.

Unless it has some kind of collecting value I think I would pull it down if shooting from a Garand. De-capp it and reload the same powder and bullets back into the RA-45 casings using new primers.

If you are going to shoot it from a bolt action just simply shoot it and make sure you clean the rifle the same day.

Motor

Caliber .30 Ball M2 was loaded with corrosive primers until the mid- to late 1950s.  We fought and won WWII with corrosive .30-'06 and nobody cried about having to clean their rifle.  So if you shoot it, clean the Garand properly.

I'm on the "save it as a relic" side here.  I have a collection of EC-marked steel .45 cases that I almost loaded a while back.  I decided against it, and have since gone through one of several steps to preserve these cases so they don't rust.  They'll go with my DEN 43 case and a "9 m/m" RA case (also from the WWII era, I think).