Extremes in temp affect on ammo ?

[Alan Fud]

I keep spare ammo in my car. I use to live in the Florida Everglades where the temps regularily hit the 90's and I'm sure that inside the car it was even hotter.

I now live in the hills of PA and my car is presently sitting outside with temps in the single digits.

QUESTION: Is the ammo that has been sitting in my car for the past few years still safe & reliable to shoot?

[one-shot-one]

saw a show on pbs the other night about a team that goes around the french countryside picking up unexploded ordenance from wwII much of wich is still capable of exploding some 80+ years later.
your ammo is probably ok, definatly good for practice, maybe use fresh for any defensive weapons just to be safe.

[john l]

Assuming that the ammo is kept dry, it will go bang. Velocities might be a tad lower.
John L

[Jim Keenan]

A certain big importer once bought up a bunch (two or three million rounds) of .30-'06 that had been in storage in the tropics for many years. It was good that they got it cheap, because it was almost all duds.

The Army used the old FA70 corrosive primer through WWII because they KNEW it was stable; at that time the non-corrosive primers had not been around long enough to prove themselves in tropical and arctic storage. (Carbine ammo was an exception because the carbine was considered a limited use weapon and the mechanism could not be easily cleaned.)

If I were you, I would shoot up that ammo and buy fresh. In the process, you can find out if the heat and cold did affect the primers, and act accordingly in the future.

Jim