Armory Sponsor
Posted: 4/16/2026 8:58:51 AM EDT
|
I recently got in 5 surplus mags all have various degrees of rust from very light to pitted out heavily The worst is severely damaged but seems functional still What’s my best option for trying to fix the damage? |
|
I am no expert but I’d knock any major dents out and refinish with a black durable finish. Plenty of suncorited L1a1 mags out there. Guys would use black bbq paint or the newer baked on coatings. |
The only hyphenated names I like are cartridge names......30-06, 30-40, 38-55 etc.
|
This may give you some insight. https://www.arizonaresponsesystems.com/tutorial-repairing-fal-magazines/ |
Now with more political fatigue.
|
Wire wheel and gun oil for the rust, then you can either leave the patina or degrease and refinish-I usually use spray enamel for AK magazines. Make sure the feedlips aren't bent or crushed, and make sure there are no dents-there are a variety of techniques to pop them out. Use brake cleaner to blast out any cosmoline. I recently rehabbed an old surplus mag that looked like a beaver chewed up one of the feedlips. It straightened out well enough. I've restored 20 surplus FAL mags and 4 Colt SMG mags in the last week. At least they work and look cool. 
|
|
I hit them with some sand paper and clp I also ordered 5 more surplus mags that are hopefully in a little better condition so I’ll have 10 surplus and 6 new DSA The dsa feed lips had various burrs I cleaned up and smoothed out and they feed good hand cycling them I still haven’t tested the rifle but hopefully in the next few days I can make it to the range |
|
Over the years I've refinished a slew of magazines (PSL in particular) and found the following is a good solution, assuming the magazines function and just need to be cleaned/refinished. Step 1: Boil the magazines bodies and parts in order to remove grime/oil - wipe clean/dry Step 2: 5 Gallon Bucket and Coke (Cola) - drop the parts in for about 24 hours. The Cola will eat the rust and the paint so check every 8 hours or so because if left too long it will eat metal. But once cleaned they are good to go. Step 3: Boil water again and clean off the coke and use hot water so that any moisture will evaporate quickly. Then dry and set aside. Step 4: Crap you pants...as flash rusting will occur. You will take the magazines out, dry and set aside, and within 60 seconds a very light amount of rust will appear. Not a problem. Step 5: Use 0000 Steel wool and clean off the rust. It won't take much work to remove the flash rust. The problem is the Steel wool will leave remnants. Step 6: have a little dunk tank of water ready to remove the steel wool. Give a quick dip, remove and dry with rags. Put aside. This is the last step before painting. Step 7: Paint the outside and all parts as necessary (be sure to make sure you don't get paint inside the body of the magazine as that will affect the functionality. Block off/Tape, etc. as necessary. Step 8: If necessary, replace springs from Wolff Springs as necessary. Good luck! |
|
If you reload and have a large case vibrator I would use that. I put new pistol mags spring, follower and and mag tube. Slicks them up really nice. I have used it for some mags that where under water in my basement when it flooded. I didn't find them until a month later. M14 gags. They cleaned up really well |
|
Originally Posted By Big_Red_Rocket: Over the years I've refinished a slew of magazines (PSL in particular) and found the following is a good solution, assuming the magazines function and just need to be cleaned/refinished. Step 1: Boil the magazines bodies and parts in order to remove grime/oil - wipe clean/dry Step 2: 5 Gallon Bucket and Coke (Cola) - drop the parts in for about 24 hours. The Cola will eat the rust and the paint so check every 8 hours or so because if left too long it will eat metal. But once cleaned they are good to go. Step 3: Boil water again and clean off the coke and use hot water so that any moisture will evaporate quickly. Then dry and set aside. Step 4: Crap you pants...as flash rusting will occur. You will take the magazines out, dry and set aside, and within 60 seconds a very light amount of rust will appear. Not a problem. Step 5: Use 0000 Steel wool and clean off the rust. It won't take much work to remove the flash rust. The problem is the Steel wool will leave remnants. Step 6: have a little dunk tank of water ready to remove the steel wool. Give a quick dip, remove and dry with rags. Put aside. This is the last step before painting. Step 7: Paint the outside and all parts as necessary (be sure to make sure you don't get paint inside the body of the magazine as that will affect the functionality. Block off/Tape, etc. as necessary. Step 8: If necessary, replace springs from Wolff Springs as necessary. Good luck! If you are going to do all that, might as well parkerize them, and then paint afterwards. Park is good for paint adherence too. |
a loaded gun won’t set you free, so you say…
|
I've always laid them out in the sun to get grease & comsoline heated up. Many times, what looks like rust can be dirty cosmoline or grease. It helps that I live in a warm climate, it'll be over 100 degrees this week and the sun will get them too hot to handle. Boiling water does a similar thing and allows the petroleum coating to float to the top of the water. With sun, it starts dripping and I use old rags to do the initial clean. Don't throw the oily rags in the outside trash as it can start a fire. If it's only a few mags, I'll use a can of brake or carb cleaner to blast off the dirt. I spray into a container so I can leave the mags soaking in the spray as I'm working over the other mags. If it's a large batch, I'll pick up some solvent from the hardware store. You can use synthetic wool to work over the rust. It won't leave little bits of steel wool in the pits that end up rusting. Go slow as it'll rub off the existing finish quicker than you think. Then work over any dents or scratches. I don't have dedicated tools, but you can use some hand tools to get the big dents out. It's a good chance to replace the springs, but I've only replaced springs on problem mags. I've literally bought thousands of surplus mags in my lifetime. I miss the days of cheap mags. It was also common to get a dozen AK or FAL mags thrown in when buying a used gun back in the day. When ammo was cheap, I could cull mags at the range. With the cost of ammo now, getting replacement springs may be the way to go. I know I'm much more careful with ammo than I was when it was $100 for a 1100 round case. I recently came across a box of FAL mags that I had sitting in the garage. I bought them back when they were still being imported and are still covered in grime. The nice thing about living in the same house for decades is I find gun stuff all the time that I forgot I had. I believe I have found most of it, but I do still have several boxes that I haven't gone through in 20 years. I found some 40rd AK mags the other day that still had ammo in it. |
Armory Sponsor