Brass Storage

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I use anything I already have laying around. Bags, plastic jars. I usually put my cleaned and sorted brass in plastic bags and seal them shut.
I use to work for a company that made plastic food bags and I have lots of unprinted, new ones at home to use so why not.
Brass Dude Dog sent me.jpg
I have new Winchester 30-06 and 308 brass from the early 1990s that has never been reloaded and it's stored in zip lock bags from back them.
They still look like new. Anything you can get your hands on that keeps the air and moisture off will work fine. Out side temp won't really hurt it.
Just keep it dry and it will last for a long, long time.
I do keep it out of direct sun light just to keep the bag from condensating inside.
 
Just saying, I recently was given a bunch of loaded ammo and brass that was stored for a few years in a mini-storage building that was not climate controlled. It was in various paper and plastic boxes in plastic tubs. Apparently they sweated and some of the brass was corroded beyond use. I suspect the plastic tubs were not air tight.
 
lightman said:
Just saying, I recently was given a bunch of loaded ammo and brass that was stored for a few years in a mini-storage building that was not climate controlled. It was in various paper and plastic boxes in plastic tubs. Apparently they sweated and some of the brass was corroded beyond use. I suspect the plastic tubs were not air tight.
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I wouldn't store any reloading stuff in our outbuilding. Sheet metal without installation isn't much protection.
 
Wow, this is overwhelming. I'm really about to get into reloading .38 Special, and I just put the brass back into the box I shot it from. I guess I have a lot to learn.
 
gobsauce said:
Wow, this is overwhelming. I'm really about to get into reloading .38 Special, and I just put the brass back into the box I shot it from. I guess I have a lot to learn.
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You just have to think big my friend. Collecting brass has been a decades long adventure for me. I even ended up purchasing a few new firearms because I had a bunch of brass that had been setting around for years unused and I found deals on dies for.
 
FROGO207 said:
You just have to think big my friend. Collecting brass has been a decades long adventure for me. I even ended up purchasing a few new firearms because I had a bunch of brass that had been setting around for years unused and I found deals on dies for.
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You bought firearms to fit accumulated brass? That’s a die hard reloader.
 
I store all my components in the garage throughout the year. It gets from a low of about 32 degrees to a high of 120. Brass will last forever. I keep it in coffee tubs.

I keep my powder on the shelf in the garage. I have some I haven't used in 20 years but after testing a couple of them I still get the same velocity.
 
AzShooter1 said:
I store all my components in the garage throughout the year. It gets from a low of about 32 degrees to a high of 120. Brass will last forever. I keep it in coffee tubs.

I keep my powder on the shelf in the garage. I have some I haven't used in 20 years but after testing a couple of them I still get the same velocity.
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No kidding? You’ve kept powder in an unairconditioned garage in Arizona for 20 years? Some on this forum will excoriate you for merely mentioning such a thing. And they know who I’m talking about:). They keep powder stored in a hermetically secure space with their prescription drugs, baby formula, and salami.

But I digress, you’ve noticed no adverse effects with brass nor powder?
 
gobsauce said:
Wow, this is overwhelming. I'm really about to get into reloading .38 Special, and I just put the brass back into the box I shot it from. I guess I have a lot to learn.
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I started out doing the same. I put the brass back in the boxes and also used the same boxes to put my reloads.
But if you have several calibers you shoot and reload for, those boxes start taking up a lot of space.
.....and then there are range pick-ups.
I used to shoot a lot at an outdoor range where people would shoot and leave their brass laying on the ground.
That turned me into a brass scavenger.
I saw no reason to leave nice, shiny new brass laying in the dirt. Mondays were an especially good brass pick-up day.
And if you have friends that shoot and don't not reload, they may also start giving you their brass.
 
CQB45ACP said:
No kidding? You’ve kept powder in an unairconditioned garage in Arizona for 20 years? Some on this forum will excoriate you for merely mentioning such a thing. And they know who I’m talking about:). They keep powder stored in a hermetically secure space with their prescription drugs, baby formula, and salami.

But I digress, you’ve noticed no adverse effects with brass nor powder?
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None that I can tell even when I chronograph my loads.
 
Hi...
I have stored brass in Folger's plastic coffee cans and coffee creamer containers for years in my unheated garage.
I have a metal cabinet that is 6ft tall filled with thousands of pieces of handgun and rifle brass that have suffered no deleterious effects through 20-25 years of storage.
I do rotate the brass regularly but there are multiple containers with thousands of pieces of 9mm, 10mm and .45ACP that have never been reloaded over the course of a couple of decades or longer.
Same thing with rifle brass just the amounts are only in the hundreds.
Revolver brass doesn't sit in storage more than a month or two except for .38Spl which I have thousands of...I just don't shoot very much .38Spl
 
CQB45ACP said:
No kidding? You’ve kept powder in an unairconditioned garage in Arizona for 20 years? Some on this forum will excoriate you for merely mentioning such a thing. And they know who I’m talking about:). They keep powder stored in a hermetically secure space with their prescription drugs, baby formula, and salami.

But I digress, you’ve noticed no adverse effects with brass nor powder?
Click to expand...

I have part of a 3# keg of WW 230 powder left that I am currently using. I bought it just before it became obsolete. I haven't chronoed any loads but it seems to still have the same oomph it did when purchased. I have stored it my garage just like AzShooter. The only difference nothing ever freezes in my garage and our highest temperature during the time I have had the powder was 114. I have some other powder from the same era and they are still good. As to brass and lead, weather extremes are far to small to affect either.
 
doubleh said:
I have part of a 3# keg of WW 230 powder left that I am currently using. I bought it just before it became obsolete. I haven't chronoed any loads but it seems to still have the same oomph it did when purchased. I have stored it my garage just like AzShooter. The only difference nothing ever freezes in my garage and our highest temperature during the time I have had the powder was 114. I have some other powder from the same era and they are still good. As to brass and lead, weather extremes are far to small to affect either.
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Yeah i understand brass/lead but it’s the powder’s longevity or stability or whatever that surprises me cause it certainly goes against conventional wisdom.
 
CQB45ACP said:
Didn’t even know what they are until I just googlized em. Thought they might have been a meat filled Salvadoran tamale.
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The best ones are the mystery meat simmered in banana leaves and that magical red sauce you only find in small villages around the river mouth, Bluefields. I have no idea what's in them but they're addictive. Can't find them here in the states, anywhere - and we have a really big Nicaraguan population here in Florida.
 
My processed brass I store in plastic nut/snack jars but the clean unprocessed I store in a clean cardboard boxes stacked in the garage.
I found a shelf that the plastic jars just fits, so I put it in my reloading room.
Reloading-Brass.jpg
 
I don’t even have an opportunity to accumulate 5 gallon buckets of any kind of brass. I have to buy once fired to replace what I can’t recover as I shoot and 45acp is relatively expensive and scarce right now. I do really enjoy processing brass though—it’s a great hobby in itself.
 
I can tell you what NOT to do: don't do what I do. I have ziploc baggies of brass in boxes in a storeroom attached to the house. Also have brass in unmarked boxes, snack jugs, carboard mailing boxes, used ammo boxes, new ammo boxes, 30/50cal ammo cans, oyster buckets, and every once in a while I'll find loose, mixed brass in sandwich baggies in an old range bag. It's like a never-ending Easter egg hunt of miscellaneous shooting items. I found a plastic shopping bag from a pawn shop I used to haunt decades ago with four sleeves of Winchester LPP in it. It was wadded up in an old NRA range bag I used before Y2K. The price tags said 5/$20 - $4/each - and there were only 4 in it so... Not sure how much I paid, if anything (Rich used to just wave his hand and say, "I'll get you next time..." when I picked up sale stuff) or when I got them. Some day I'm going to go nuts and all of these little surprises will be like Christmas every day. :)
 
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