South African ammo is corrosive, as well as many other cheap brands out there. Even if you see "mildly corrosive" on the packaging or description, there is no such thing...it is synonymous with "extremely corrosive"...corrosive is corrosive.

This is taken from a thread in the cleaning and maint. forum. Is this true? I have lots of this stuff, and it was advertised as NON-CORROSIVE. If it's corrosive, I don't want to be shooting it through my guns!

I dont think the south African Battle backs are corrosive? I have shot an awful lot of it with no troubles

Same here.  I've got the 223 and 308 battle packs that have "non corrosive" on the side of the battlepacks.  I don't trust stickers, but the headstamp dates are a little late to still be using corrosive ammo.

The only South African ammo that is [i]supposed[/i] to be corrosive is the "New Generation" brand.  

I have not noticed even it being corrosive in the calibers that I have shot.

New Generation??? Never even heard of it. All the battle packs I have are PMP I believe.

There wan't very much of it around as far as I know.

It came in plastic boxes just like the 50 round boxes you put reloads into.  The label was yellow.I have a good bit in 7.62 X 25 and 9mm.

My 5.56 battle packs have a 85 headstamp, which I believed to be well after corrosive primers, and my 7.62 has 89 I think. I have never heard prior to this of anyone haveing any problems with SA in battle packs, but after reading the post in the other forum, I started to wonder.

STANMAN,
I would not worry about it as long as you clean the weapon everytime you use it and do not put it away dirty.
The only area Ive neglected on my AR recently is the ports on the muzzle brake.I noticed it had some dark grey almost black crusty build up in the ports.Once I removed it with a nylon brush and Hoppes #9 the metal was frosted/pitted.I always oiled the ports though.
All I have been using for the last few months is the PMP commercial ammo so I wonder about wheather its corrosive/erosive since I have never seen this in the past with other brands.
Im going to leave the foriegn cheaper ammo alone and go back to the Black Hills remaned ammo just in case.

Edit to add.Corrosive ammo is still being made in some countries.
Ive got some CZ 1991 dated 7.62x54R that is corrosive as hell.
Ive also got a case of yugo 7.62x39 that is corrosive as well as another case of yugo 7.62x39 that is not.The yugos were nice enough to label the corrosive ammo as such.But I always clean for corrosive when using any of the yugo ammo either way.
I dont think there is a cutoff date of when corrosive ammo was stopped.
Raymond

The frosting and pitting seen on the muzzle brake could just be the muzzle blast flame-cutting the steel.  Seen it happen on a muzzle brake that I used to have on one of my rifles.

From my experience, I haven't had any problems with south african ammo as far as corrosion goes, even have left a rifle sit dirty for weeks after firing it and there was no corrosion to speak of.  However, the bore was chrome-lined and the the bolt and carrier still had a film of CLP on them when it was put away.

It could be gas erosion to the ports.But Im not sure that gas erosion would cut the ports all the way to the outside edge front and back side of the Armalite two port brake.May be though if the steel is soft.
Im going to try a case of Black Hills and see if it gets any worse.
Im not too fond of the brake anyway.
Raymond

If you clean your gun well soon after a shoot even corrosive ammo should not be a problem, but if you know its corrosive best just stay away from it.I clean my guns well after I shoot 10 rounds or 500 rounds, it just makes sense.