Just how popular is the 5.45x39?

Is it really worth getting into another caliber to save a couple of bucks on ammo? The cost of the upper, at least a couple of extra magazines makes up the difference of alot of .223/5.56 ammo.

Do I really need to add that to have an extra upper laying around will almost certainly require the purchase of a lower to keep it company?

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Bring back the S&W 10mm!!

Just how popular is the 5.45x39?

Is it really worth getting into another caliber to save a couple of bucks on ammo? The cost of the upper, at least a couple of extra magazines makes up the difference of alot of .223/5.56 ammo.

Do I really need to add that to have an extra upper laying around will almost certainly require the purchase of a lower to keep it company?

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Bring back the S&W 10mm!!

It's getting more popular every day due to the cost of ammo. 5.45 is cheap compared to .223/5.56 but is only made in the old "communist bloc" countries. Also, it is very corrosive and can eat away at your barrel if not cleaned right away. Some folks take a bottle of windex with them so they can spray it in the barrel right after shooting. Cleaning involves a hot water washout of your barrel followed by WD-40 to displace the moisture. For my purposes, it's too much of a hassle and I'd be worried constantly about the barrel being pitted or rust damage to other parts of the weapon. Then again, I'm one of those people who won't shoot Wolf or other steel cased ammo thu my guns. S&W tells you not to shoot metal cased ammo in the .223/5.56 guns and it will invalidate your warranty. With the 5.45 they seem to contradict themselves! Personally, if I want to save $$ on ammo I'd buy a 22 upper.

OK, I'll play...what is a 5.45x39

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Forum consigliere

Soviets'answer to .223.They used it in
AK 74s in Afganistan.Currently the ammo
is the cheapest centerfire available.
2/3s the recoil of .223.Bullet is designed to
tumble,unlike fragmenting .223.
Main attraction for most right now is price.
Surplus steel core is corrosive as noted before.

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The steel case with the laquer will stick in the chamber after a string of rapid fire. Take along a cleaning rod to knock out that stuck empty case. Of course this is with the old mil-surplus stuff. Dont know about the new poly coat Wolf ammo.

I think the fact that it's all corrosive is enough to make me pass on the caliber.

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Bring back the S&W 10mm!!

It's popularity of late is due to an influx of cheap surplus ammo. As former Combloc countries join NATO they are obligated to switch to NATO standard caliber small arms. They've been selling their 5.45x39 ammo on the surplus market. A year or two ago you could get 1080 round spam cans of corrosive ammo for $110. It's still available for around $150 a can - still a bargain by today's prices.

Here's a pic of a 5.45x39 cartridge next to a .223.

I understand your concern, but the corrosive salts are easily cleaned with hot soapy water in the barrel and then flush out using a funnel and the hose on your kitchen sink with the water set to the hottest setting. Run it long enough and the steel heats up enough that the water is easy to dry out. I have done this for years with an old semi AK and have never had a spec of rust. I have a friend who shoots corrosive 9mm in his SIG P210 and only cleans every few months. No rust as he stores in air tight tupperware with silica gel to absorb moisture. Remember, moisture is the problem. The corrosive salts only corrode if water mixes with them from the air, and so with a pistol, you can keep the air and moisture away with air tight storage. This is harder to do with a rifle due to size, so you just have to use a hot soapy water with hot water rinse out. Easy.

Dealing with corrosive ammo is dead easy. Clean with water before you clean with anything else -- two or three patches wet with water through the bore will get rid of the corrosive salts. Then a dry patch, followed by a lightly oiled patch, and you're done. Nowhere near the bugabear folks make it out to be, and surely not enough for me to pass up cheap, high quality ammo.

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Pisgah

You guys are going to make me rethink my aversion to corrosive ammo. I guess it isn't the pain I thought it would be to clean.

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Bring back the S&W 10mm!!

Windex does nothing to stop the corrosive salts in the primer from eating the metal on your gun. Trust me on this, I learned that real quick.

It's not just your barrel you have to worry about, it's the gas sytem, the bolt face, inside the receiver, and even the end of the barrel and the flash hider. I shot some corrosive through my AK-74 I used to have, I live near the great lakes so it's always a bit moist here at least, and within 5 hours I had fuzzy rust on my bolt face, inside the receiver, feed ram, gas tube, gas block, and the end of the barrel. The barrel was chrome lined so that wasn't a problem. I used windex immediately after I shot it and it only seemed to help the rust form.

I'd buy a decent 22 upper long before I'd consider the 5.45x39. You'd have to shoot an awful lot of that stuff, thousands and thousands of rounds, to amortize the cost of the new upper and mags. It's kind of like buying a new hybrid car to save several dollars per tank-full of gas......if you need a new car, fine, but if not then it's not going to be economical at all. And if you reload, then 223 is still not all that expensive to shoot.

THIS is the real problem with the 5.45! I bought an M&P15R (5.45) to take advantage of the cheap surplus COMBLOC ammo. Bought up a bunch of spam cans of the stuff at $120-$130 per 1080 rounds, and it is great fun to shot. Prices started to go up, the election was looming, and I decided that the 5.45 needed a 5.56 stable mate just in case the COMBLOC dried up - ordered a Del-Ton upper. Then decided that it would be a way bunch cheaper to shoot some .22LR, so bought a Spikes conversion for the 5.56 - but the hammer spring in the M&P15R lower is too strong for the .22LR kit. Soooo - had to buy an EA lower kit to put the 5.56 upper on to use the .22LR conversion. Confused? It's the insidious BRD!!

Bottom line - the 5.45 is still the most fun to shoot. It goes bang loudly like the 5.56 and is cheap like the .22LR (well, not quite, but still less than half the price of the 5.56). After 5,000-6,000 rounds of the 5.45 I've paid for the rifle.

I shoot 10 Wolf non corrosive to coat things, Then I shoot the Russian corrosive 150-200 rounds then 10 non corrosive to blow the corrosive crape out. I clean with straight ballistol except for the gas tube and muzzle brake which I rinse in water. The bolt I wash in fresh kerosene in a little plastic box. My AK74 has never shown any rust and I have been thru nearly 2000 rounds