Well, the dirty dark secret of old mil surplus ammo. If it sat in a wherehouse in a sealed tin, under moderate conditions......it's as good as the day it was made 60 years later. If it sat in Uncle Bobs garage in Yuma Arizona for 25 years, got sold at his estate sale, then rode back and forth to various gun shows, swap meets etc, then the tin was split and it was sold off in smaller packages, then some got shipped around, then somebody tumbled a batch to make it look shiny again, then it showed up at a gun show on the other coast........well, after 60 years of temp swings, humidity, and "shake,rattle,roll", that rifle powder has brittilized and broken down......and your pressures will be off the roof.
Old gunpowder stored in cold environments will last longer because the deterioration of gunpowder is exponential with respect to temperature. But the stuff is still breaking down. Norway is very cold, I think I found record highs of 69 F, and yet, in this report, nitrocellulose based propellants are breaking down. Just takes longer.
1978 AN EXAMINATION OF DETERIORATION OF AMMUNITION BY STORAGE
These DTIC links break frequently, I assume the webmasters are constantly changing the software, but if the link breaks, go to DTIC and type in the report name.
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADA055897
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA055897.pdf
I am going to claim that any military surplus ammunition is on the market, because an ammunition technician inspected that lot, and per his written instructions, scrapped the lot because it was too dangerous to store any longer, or too dangerous to issue.
The whole issue of Ammunition Inspection is a big dark hole with respect to the shooting society. The Navy is particularly concerned about their munitions exploding on ships, and I think this site is a great introduction to the topic of Insensitive Munitions.
Navy Insensitive Munitions
http://www.insensitivemunitions.org/
If you search, you will find that battleships blew up due to old gunpowder auto igniting in the magazines. Not only the ship went down, but so did everyone on board.
Disaster in Harbour: The Loss of HMS Vanguard
So you see in Insensitive Munitions literature a constant concern about auto combustion. A ammunition depot or a ship exploding is a highly visible public event and creates a lot of work due to the bad publicity. Making ammunition that does not go off by itself takes pre planning and thought. Maybe some of you remember hearing about the
Port of Chicago Explosion, which I am going to say, was just one highly visible explosion that made it into the news. And it was due to munitions that would explode if dropped. Today there is a 40 foot drop test munitions have to pass, back then, probably no drop test.
This is something I found at the USMC Marine PM for Ammunition web site:
Malfunction and Defect Reporting, Why it matters: Fall 2014 USMC Ammunition Quarterly
Have you, as a supporting Unit Ammo Tech, been out on a range and had those who were training bring back ammunition, stating that some or all of the ammo did not fire or function the way it was supposed to? Have you been issuing out ammo or had ammo brought back to you on a range that was dented, leaking orange powder or otherwise defective? Have you wondered what to do with the ammunition assets in these scenarios?
How about as a supporting Ammo Tech? Have you been in the process of completing a receipt (turn-in) and the supported unit technician tells you how some of the ammunition being turned in didn’t function correctly (there were duds, they were rusted/ dented, etc.), and wondered what the correct procedures were to handle these types of situations?
The correct answer to each one of these scenarios is to have the supported unit technician complete a Malfunction or Defect Report as required per Marine Corps Order (MCO) 8025.1E.
First, let’s review the definitions of a malfunction and a defect. Per MCO 8025.1E, a
MALFUNCTION occurs when an ammunition item fails to function in accordance with the design, intent and expected performance when fired, launched or otherwise employed as specified. Malfunctions include the abnormal or premature functioning of an item as a result of normal handling, maintenance, storage, transportation or tactical employment.
A DEFECT is an imperfection that may prevent an item from functioning as intended or result in a malfunction.
Defects include, but are not limited to, cracked cartridge case, loose primer, missing safety pin, deteriorated or leaking propellant bags or containers, presence of excessive rust/corrosion, and obvious external damage, etc.
Responsibilities of the Supported Unit
When a supported unit experiences an ammo malfunction/defect, the following information needs to be provided, at a minimum:
•Identification of the unit, with a Point of Contact (POC) with first- hand knowledge of the incident
•Complete identification of ammunition, Department of Defense Identification Code, National Stock Number, Ammunition Lot Number (ALN) and Serial Number, as well as the quantity of how many rounds were fired and how many rounds failed
This document can be found here:
https://www.imgva.com/pmammo
but like all Government documents, they are liable to be pulled back inside their firewalls and disappear forever.
What is shows is that the USMC trained someone about Ammunition, pays that person to be available at a unit level and to record events. Which are forwarded to someone else in the chain of command, or an organization in the chain of command, and those groups are monitoring ammunition failure reports. At some point, the whole infrastructure decides that there are too many incidents of bad ammunition from one lot, and the stuff is pulled. This is costly, clearly beyond the imagination of deniers, but it exists in each service.
There is a USMC PM for Ammunition,
https://www.marcorsyscom.marines.mi.../Logistics-Combat-Element-Systems/Ammunition/ and you can believe that each service has someone performing the same functions of inspection, over sight, approval.
In so far as the Turkish ammunition I referenced, I am quite certain the Turks went through their warehouses, pulled the ammunition that was too dangerous to use for practice, or too dangerous to keep in storage, and sold it on, laughing all the way to the bank. They know American's hunger like pigs for cheap ammunition, and believe that ammunition is immortal.
