Washing ammo?

[MRT]

I have a lot of Wolf 9mm ammo that I've been shooting through my Glocks. At first it functioned very well, but it turns out that the ammo is so dirty/greasy that it gums up the magazines enough to cause extreme feeding problems. When I say that the ammo is dirty/greasy, what I mean is that if I load up a dozen mags or handle the ammo much, my hands get black gunk all over them (the ammo is factory new Wolf). This black gunk builds up in the mags until they just won't function any longer.

I have spent a lot of time cleaning out the gunk from my mags to get them to function again, but I'm wondering if there is something I can do to clean the ammo first. Could I just wash the rounds with some soapy water? Is this crazy? I'm assuming that I shouldn't use any solvent. Any other ideas?

Thanks,

[Kain]

Seeing what steel cased casings look like at the range after being rained on I think that washing them might be a bad idea. May end up just being the price that you have to pay to shoot steel cased ammo is that you will need to clean out your mags from time to time. Personally brass cased isn't much more expensive to me, granted I usually buy in bulk, but I also pick up my brass and sell it locally to the reloaders bringing my cost down to about where steel cased ammo is or not much more. May be something for you to give some thought to.

[RearwardAssist]

You could try cleaning it in a tumbler I would not wash it, unless a case is properly sealed, water getting to the primer/powder can cause FTF.

[MRT]

Seeing what steel cased casings look like at the range after being rained on I think that washing them might be a bad idea. May end up just being the price that you have to pay to shoot steel cased ammo is that you will need to clean out your mags from time to time. Personally brass cased isn't much more expensive to me, granted I usually buy in bulk, but I also pick up my brass and sell it locally to the reloaders bringing my cost down to about where steel cased ammo is or not much more. May be something for you to give some thought to.

Yeah - I've definitely decided to go back to brass, but I have several thousand rounds of Wolf to burn through. I know that steel rusts, but I was thinking of drying them off right away.

I think what I'll end up doing is just wipe each round with a rag to get the worst gunk off.... and only use in it in a few marked mags.

I may look into a tumbler.