Old Ammo... Safe to shoot?

[Dorrin79]

In addition to some guns I also got a grab-bag of ammo this weekend.

Said ammo had been stored in a shed in houston (bad!) but was in a military ammo can (better). Ammo is <>10yrs old.

Basically a bunch of shotgun shells in 12 and 20 ga and some winchester .270.

the ammo all seems ok - no corrosion on primers/cases, no deformation or wear marks / lines. The brass .270s are dull instead of 'shiny'.

Should this stuff be safe to fire? I thought it would be, but my brother wasn't so sure.

 

[mondocomputerman]

That ammo sounds perfectly fine to shoot. You might want to wait for some other replies from some other members though. Some of our members are very knowledgeable on older ammo!

Mondo

 

[popbang]

If the ammunition/powder has broken down it may result in it not firing. Give it a try, it will most likely shoot fine.

 

[Fudgie Ghost]

Just shot some 1980 stamped 223. A couple of FTFire's, but that's it. Seem's the worst problem with old ammo is that it might not go off.

 

[mattf7184]

If not stored properly, then older ammo is not safe to shoot. Seem a bunch of case ruptures, etc due to ammo being stored just in the box or in a baggie.

 

[Red_SC]

If there's no corrosion, go for it. I just got a bunch of military .308 ammo from 1968 and 1970 that wasn't in an ammo can. It looks rough, but I tumble it a little and weed out those with significant corrosion. They shoot fine, and are actually more accurate than I expected.

 

[Cosmoline]

I've shot 1930's vintage Turkish 8x57JS with no problems. The only thing is it seems to get slightly hotter with age.

 

[Moparmike]

Cosmo: As you age or as the ammo ages?

 

[Cosmoline]

Both!

 

[M2 Carbine]

Red_SC
It looks rough, but I tumble it a little and weed out those with significant corrosion.
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Red,
you might not want to tumble loaded ammo.
Think what the tumbling may be doing to the powder.
The burn rate could be changed to the point of making the round dangerous to shoot.


I shoot old ammo all the time. No telling how much I've still got that I loaded in the 80's and 90's.
Not counting military from the 60's and 70's.
Mostly I keep all my ammo in 50 cal cans.

 

[JohnKSa]

When it comes to old ammo you should always watch out for squids.

No, wait, I was thinking of something else.

Squibs, that's it--watch for squibs.

 

[No4Mk1*]

I consider ammo to be relatively new if it was made in the last 30 years. Unless stored improperly, like in the shed as you describe. I would still shoot it without hesitation. Hopefully someone wasn't learning how to reload with it.

 

[TonyB]

The oldest ammo I've ever shot was .32's from the early 20's(my great grandfather's)...worked perfectly(was kept in a basement crawl space until my Father discovered it in the 80's)(don't ask......)

 

[Khornet]

I've fired

1918 .45 ACP ammo (in the mid 1980s) with no problems at all. Also some WRA 42 M2 Ball with fine results. Since the WWII M1 ammo is corrosive, I also pulled a few, reprimed with modern primers, replaced the powder (which was in excellent shape, not discolored or fragmented, and still had that ether smell) and bullet in the old case, and blazed away.

Currently I'm shooting some Korean PS 75 ammo with no problems, and went through a case of FN M2 Ball made in the 70s with good results. It appears that with reasonable storage conditions, ammo will last decades.

 

[mainmech48]

Even today a lot of the truly "surplus" ammo we buy was made forty years and more ago. Anyone who really believes that all of this stuff was stored in climate-controlled warehouses all that time: Do I have a deal for you!

Seriously, I've bought 30-06, 7.9x57, 7.62x54, .45 ACP etc. that dated from WWII and it worked just fine. Not match quality accuracy by any stretch, but almost all of it went "bang" when asked. Can't recall any case splits, head separations, squibs or similar truly bad caca with any of it.

FWIW, many years ago I got to actually fire an original Remington derringer which belonged to my best friend's grandfather. The .41 RF ammo dated back to the early 1930's, and had been stored in a cigar box in his bureau drawer since he got it.

It fired. We both got to fire two rounds at a 'phone pole from about ten feet. Two managed to penetrate about a half-inch into the wood and two bounced off. Given the cartridge, I doubt that it could've done much better when it was new ;-))

 

[No Trespassing]

My wife inherited a Colt Police Positive in .32 LC from her grandmother (courtesy the Chicago police circa 1940's). There were two unmarked boxes of ammo with the gun. I'm at work and I forget what the cartidges were marked but they are a known brand.

The gun's in mint condition and the ammo looked OK, no corrosion or obvious signs of degradation. We decided to run a few rounds through it before putting it up for storage. The first shot souded a little funny but not alarmingly so. I had never heard a .32LC so who knew...the next round sounded bad...two burst cases!

 

[Red_SC]

Red,
you might not want to tumble loaded ammo.
Think what the tumbling may be doing to the powder.
The burn rate could be changed to the point of making the round dangerous to shoot

I'd heard that too, but I don't think I have too much to worry about. Many manufacturers tumble their loaded rounds to make them look good before shipping. Also, the short time I'm tumbling them wouldn't have nearly the effect on it that riding around in my vibrating old truck for a couple of weeks does, and that's never affected it.

Also, a poster on another forum decided to test this, and tumbled ammo for different amounts of time, then shot it. There was no velocity difference between the untumbled ammo and ammo that had been tumbled for 8 hours.

YMMV, but I'll keep tumbling them a little to clean them off, until I see evidence to the contrary. But, if I suddenly stop posting, how 'bout somebody come check on me. Thanks for the warning, though!

 

[Smokey Joe]

Old Ammo

In the mid-'60's, as an impoverished college student, I was given a box of WWII-era steel (zinc?) based, paper-cased, roll-crimed 12-ga shotgun ammo, in its original box, the label of which assured the user that the ammo complied with the wartime regs on conserving vital metals. Therefore at the time it was <> 20 years old. (It was a nationally recognized brand; don't remember which.) Of course, as an impoverished college student, I shot up the ammo at various birds, squirrels, and rabbits, then discarded the box. I recall 2 FTF's out of the 25 rounds, one of which cost me a nice bunny. Would that I had stored that box of ammo away—think what a collector would pay for it today! But then, that's true of most of the stuff I used up, broke, wore out, or threw away in my early years, and I'm engaged in the business of living, not running a freaking museum. So I waste very little effort regretting this.

The point is, that the ammo hadn't been stored in any special way except not damp, it all chambered, and 92% worked. And paper shotshells are much less protective of the load inside than any other pre-loaded ammo IMHO.

I would not hesitate to fire any modern ammo, in a modern firearm chambered for same, if the firearm were in good condition and the cartridge(s) showed no sign of bulging, corrosion, splits or other obvious malfunctions. (An old gun, however, a stranger to me, I would have checked out by a competent gunsmith first of course. And everyone's definition of "modern" is different.) I WOULD suspect old rifle ammo of having corrosive primers, and clean my weapon accordingly after such firing. And as noted above, I would pay attention for squids—oops—squibs.

BTW, most ammo is shipped by semi-truck, and the powder gets "tumbled" all the way from manufacturer to shore shelf. Same with reloading powder you buy or order by the can.

I've begun tumbling all my reloaded rifle and pistol ammo, to clean off any lube left on the cases. A side benefit is that it really looks nice. Have observed no difference in ballistic performance. The rounds chamber and handle really slick, and I suppose that my bottle-neck rifle cases grip the chamber walls better (but have no way of measuring this.)