Quoted: soap and H2O right? lots of scrubin too...

Yes, the key element is water.  Most folks I know simply take a bottle of windex to the range spray it down, a quick swab, to neutralize the acids then simply do regular clean when they get home.  

For storage, I would highly recommend going back a couple days later and repeat the entire cleaning process including the windex then using an oil soaked patch to plug the barrel.

As Protus pointed out, when used frequently like the guys who actually used these rifles in combat, they just used oil but cleaned frequently.  

As for the ammo, as others have pointed out not all surplus ammo is the same.  It ranges from precision rounds to slave labor trash it together as fast as you can.  What I do is find one I really like then buy in bulk.  I violated this rule of thumb once and bought a crap load of what looked like neat ammo at the time and am now pulling the bullets and reloading the powder due to inconsistancy.

A special note of caution here regarding 8mm Mauser.  Most surplus out there is RS or a spitzer type bullet and from 2,700 fps to 3,300 fps muzzle velocities. The pre-WWII rifles can be an R which was only intended to shoot up to 2,400 fps.  There have been quite a few "Whoops, that's not good.", destroyed guns, and injuries over the years by not knowing the difference.

The biggest variances in surplus ammo I have seen is in Russian 7.62X54R which can range from this is good stuff to garbage.  A rule of thumb I use here is be wary of any ammo with a bad finish and a very thin case lip.  That's usually indicative of the trashed out by slave labor ammo.  

A good general rule of thumb is be wary of WWII ammo period and opt instead for ammo made in the 50's.  This was the beginning of the cold war and though soon to be replaced, much of the WWII vintage rifles were still widely used and an unbelieveable amount of this ammo was manufactured.

Tj

Quoted: I just use boiling water poured into a funnel from the chamber end, let the water dry and clean as usual.

That's what I use on my black powder guns and often use real gun powder not Pyrodex.

Tj