[WebHobbit]

Me and my buddy are probably gonna do some reloading after NOT reloading at all for a few years. We have some small pistol primers from several years back....would these still be good?

[P95Carry]

From my experience, primers have an amazing shelf life. I have a stash of old large rifle primers (Rem) and used these in some rifle loads for plinking .... no probs at all.

I think, if storage has been reasonable ... no severe extremes of hot/cold/humidity ..... should be just fine. Of course, I have been led to believe that primers do in fact ''like'' a degree of humidity too.

If doubtful ... I load up, say .... 20 to 30 rounds ... bash em off and see if any probs. OTOH ..... if i load for SD stuff . handguns ... then I'd probably play safe and use fresher stock ..... just to be sure (and paranoid!!:p )

[longspurr]

I've shot ammo that I know is 50 years old. It still went Bang and had reasonable accuracy. From what I've read and shot if stored under reasonable conditions ammo - primers can last a human lifetime. However if stored in very hot or humid conditions then use the ammo only for practice, as the first reply said, load a box and test the results.

[WebHobbit]

Thanks guys. I'll ask my buddy if his "reloading room" was AC'd year round. I'm thinking it was...so were probably OK.

[HSMITH]

Even if the humidity was high for years if you let the primers dry well they will be fine. Primers are made wet, water wet, and dried. They can do this several times and still be loaded and used fine once dry..

[Standing Wolf]

I've used primers that were close to twenty years old, and had been subject to lots of changes in temperature and humidity. They worked just fine.

[uglymofo]

I've had some primers stored for 30 years in a vented shed; they were subject to 120 degree heat and 30 degree cold. Accompanying summer and winter humidities aside, they never got "wet". They fired fine.

[mec]

a year or so ago,we shot up some cci primed .357s from the mid 60/s> No primer problems at all. I watched a local guy shoot a dcm match with a MKIII smle using 80 year old cordite loads with clorate primers. No problem and he shot pretty well.

[Larry Ashcraft]

I picked up 2500 RWS rifle primers dated 1973 at a garage sale. I've been using them for quite a while and haven't had any problems.

[MonkeyMan]

There was an article in the latest American Rifleman that came in the mail yesterday that I found right interesting. According to the author primers are quite hardy. He even states that WD-40 won't "kill" them if they're allowed to dry out first.

[Paul "Fitz" Jones]

I had a buddy tell me he bought several million primers dirt cheap because they had been rained on outside. He stored them in a hot Arizona warehouse over a year and sold them at a tidy profit as they all went bang when dry.

John Paul

[P95Carry]

That Fitz pretty much bares out earlier comments. They are of course manufactured ''wet'' .... and so I'd assume, if compound relatively undisturbed .... once dry they'll be good to go.

Wish I'd made a deal like that!! (envy smilie!)

[blades67]

They're probably useless by now, just ship them to me for disposal.;) :D