Surplus ammo and powder stability?

[HammsBeer]

So I have about 8K rounds of surplus Swiss GP11 stored for my K31's. They are mixed lot years ranging from '79 to '92. All of them were in sealed battle packs with no signs of moisture or corrosion on the cases.

My concern is I've read some accounts of old surplus ammo as far back as WWII being safe to fire, and then others say that over time the powders can deteriorate and actually cause increased pressures and possibly damage the rifle. GP11 is very accurate ammo and noncorrosive, but they have heavy crimping around the bullets so to pull the bullets, dump the powder, and reload them would be difficult.

What's the consensus of THR on shooting old surplus ammo? Am I being paranoid about internet rumors of old ammo pressures, or is it something that's only prone to cheaply made poorly stored ammo from questionable countries?

The '79 has wax sealant around the bullet/case crimp and the '92 is case annealed. They all look shiney new like they were made yesterday.

 

[bainter1212]

79 is not that old. I have shot WWII surplus '06 with no negative consequences. Not to mention the thousand or so rounds of assorted 54R I have shot that varied in production date (and country of origin) sometimes by decades.

I picked up 300 rds of FN 64 headstamp .303 recently (that's 1964 production). It shoots good.....REAL good in fact. It is just as accurate as the $1.50/rd Hornady Vintage Match I was shooting before I picked up the surplus.

Generally, if the rounds look clean they probably are fine. However, one should always be aware that shooting old guns and old ammo can be risky......but then again shooting any firearm is risky. Take appropriate precautions.

 

[medalguy]

I have shot literally thousands of rounds of WW II ammo over the past 50 years. US and allied ammo I would add. The quality of ammo varies considerably from country to country, and I observe what I read somewhere: Don't shoot ammo from countries where you wouldn't drink the water, and that has been sound advice for me.

I would think Swiss ammo would probably be good ammo and stuff from 1979 forward would be good. Heck I'd consider most of that "new" ammo.

 

[nathan]

Just store them in a controlled environment and the powders would remain stable.

 

[coloradokevin]

I have some ammunition for my 8mm Mauser that was loaded in the early 1930's. It has all shot just fine for me. Your milage may vary, but '79 really isn't that old!

 

[Lucky Derby]

It really depends on how it's been stored. If it has been exposed to moisture or extremes in temp it can be a problem, although the threat is probably not as big as the internet makes it out to be. As long as it doesn't look bad, I'd shoot it.
I've shot a lot of WWII British 9mm and US .30'06. No issues what so ever. Late 70's is not old ammo.

 

[ku4hx]

I still have some Hercules 2400 in the little square metal can I bought in the early '70s ... I bought a lot. Still works to perfection.

Powder that has deteriorated has a sort of acidic vinegary aroma. If you're concerned, pull a bullet or two and do the smell test. But in over fifty years of shooting I've come across bad powder a single time and that was back in the early '80s.

Not all smokeless powder is the same, but they all have certain characteristics in common: http://www.alliantpowder.com/getting_started/safety/storage_handling.aspx#Anchor-How-47857

 

[Field Tester]

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=743712

SlamFire did an awesome job answering a similar question for me in this link. Some of the data dates back to the 60's. Give it a look.
I'd have no problem firing 80 year old ammunition depending on how it was stored.

 

[ol' scratch]

I have always heard it has more to do with how the ammo was stored. I have personally fired 8mm with a head stamp of 1938. The oldest ammo I have fired with some regularity was 44 head stamped surplus ball.

 

[No4Mk1*]

The only bad ammo I have encountered was made in Pakistan, so i second the comment regarding don't trust their ammo if you wouldn't drink their water. Swiss should be fine as long as you store it well.

 

[OldMac]

No problems with russian ammo from the 1930's in both 38r and 54r. I did have some 7.5x55 soft tip ammo from the 1970s start to corrode around the necks. I pulled the bullets and loaded in good brass with new powder and primers. then shot the empty cases in the k31 to pop the primer before recycling. Every primer went bang. The "powder" i dumped out was wet nasty little clumps of cylinders. From my limited experience, i think it is sound advice to shoot it if it looks like it has been stored well. If rusty, bulging, or otherwise looks questionable, then toss them. You could always tie the rifle to a tire and pull the trigger with string to test one.

 

[nathan]

I have plenty of Greek 8 mm dating back to 1938 and 39 as pre ww 2 production. These were plenty from Century Arms back 10 yr ago for cheap. They looked clean in small cardboard boxes. And the ammo brass looked thick and well made. It shoots accurately too with my Yugo M48A . SOmetimes it doesnt go bang but after i recock the second or third time it goes off. I may have to get a heavier spring from Wolff.

 

[OldMac]

I wouldnt hesitate to shoot any of the cartridges in your photo.

 

[Steel Horse Rider]

To echo what has already been said, I own and have shot Russian Ammo from 1953 and US 30-06 ammo from as early as 1950. I think I have Swiss ammo older than what you have shown in my stash and have absolutely no qualms about shooting it either. I think the remark about water and ammo are pretty accurate....

 

[HammsBeer]

Recently reading about old powder deterioration had me concerned there was a ticking time bomb in this ammo. I've shot about 500 rounds of both older and newer lots and all functioned fine, and I haven't seen any corrosion in any of the cases.

I'm guessing the glue sealed wax paper packaging might have something to do with it looking so clean. Even the powder and bullet of a '79 I had someone pull looked new and I'm not a powder expert, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn this week.

 

[rcmodel]

If the ammo looks as good as that in your photo?

It looks way better then a whole bunch of old ammo I have shot over the years dating back to WWI.

'Ticking Time Bomb' my you know what!!!

Choot'm Lizbet! Choot'm!!!

rc

 

[jonnyc]

I've shot 7mm Mauser dated 1900 and was pleasantly surprised at the reliability and accuracy.
Generally, if brass-cased ammo looks clean and undamaged, it's worth a try. The priming may have gone 'wonky', but you won't know that without a test. On the other hand, I would avoid shooting any German WWII steel-cased ammo. No telling what kind of dangerous corrosion might be going on inside those pretty cases. No testing is worth the potential damage.

 

[caribou]

The only powder deterioration Ive delt with was in 1040'sTurk 8mm and early 50's 7.62x54r, as both had neck splits and splits apon fireing. I am sure it was exposure to the air, via the cracks, even the unseeable. I dumped the turk, and a friend took the 54r for Zombies and dissassembly.
The metalurgy in both I belive , was flawed and from what Ive read I wasnt the only one back them (early 2000's) when I looked into such via internet

 

[Slamfire]

The only powder deterioration Ive delt with was in 1040'sTurk 8mm and early 50's 7.62x54r, as both had neck splits and splits apon fireing. I am sure it was exposure to the air, via the cracks, even the unseeable. I dumped the turk, and a friend took the 54r for Zombies and dissassembly.
The metalurgy in both I belive , was flawed and from what Ive read I wasnt the only one back them (early 2000's) when I looked into such via internet

I have studied this issue and written much about the thermochemistry. I was glad to be of help for Field Tester.

Deteriorating gunpowder outgasses NOx, one of the mix is nitric acid gas. Nitric acid gas attacks brass. Cartridge brass typically fails at the highly stressed case neck first. But, if you see green corrosion in the case or on the bullet, I would shoot the stuff.

Here are some good threads on old ammunition:

.http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?230264-When-milsurp-ammo-goes-bad

1. When milsurp ammo goes bad........

Have had a lot of 7.65 Argentine for several years; SF 80. I have shot about half of it but hadn't shot any for a couple years. Took some out this last summer and loaded 5 into the mag of my M1909, took up a good sitting position and set the sights at 600m for a sage brush on a hillside about that far away. Fired the first shot and smack into the sage, worked the bolt and fired the second shot and smacked the sage again. worked the bolt and the third shot wen high right and away.......dropped the but of the rifle out of the shoulder and immediately noticed smoke curling up out of the receiver........not good

Opened the bolt and the case came out minus the primer Checked the other 2 shots and they all had high pressure signs. Stopped shooting.

I finally got around to pulling the rest of the bullets and about 2/3 had severe corrosion inside the cases and on the bases of the bullets. Picture shows 2 of the fired cases including the blown primer. Middle case shows corrosion inside the cases. Bullet on right shows corrosion on the base. Other 2 bullets cleaned up nice with polishing. Powder looks good with no discoloration and smells good but will make good fertilizer any

Take a look at this thread:

Corrosion like I have never seen

http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=542632

I inherited a bit of ammo when my Father died, and among that cache was a box of Norma 220gr .30-06 (from the 60's by the look of the box)...

I pulled them out to look at them this AM, and this is what I found:

Five out of 16 rounds have this corrosion on them...On two, the corrosion has expanded the case below the bullet to the extent where the brass ruptured...This box was stored bullet down for decades at Dad's, and for a few years now here...They had a cardboard divider in the box so none touched, and there is no sign of water damage to the box or divider...I have looked through the rest of the 06 ammo boxes, and all are pristine like they came from the factories yesterday (but none are Norma)...

What the heck am I seeing here?

Is this corrosive primers gone bad and dripped through the powder to the base of the bullet and then eaten through, or is this deteriorating powder fuming through the case?

I obviously am not going to fire any of these rounds, but are they even safe to subject to bullet pulling in an impact puller???

I'd love to salvage the bullets at least...

Any help or opinions would be appreciated

I am reading more and more about 20 plus year old Vihtavuouri going bad in the case, this thread has some excellent pictures.

Has anyone else had Vihtavuori N140 corrode in loaded ammo?

http://www.falfiles.com/forums/showthread.php?p=3745264

Unclenick had an interesting experience:

Of particular interest to me was the link to the thread on N140. In the early 1990's, my dad got a 1/4 lb free sample container of N140 at Camp Perry, and gave half of it to me. That's about 20 rounds worth in .308; not enough to do serious load development with. I put it in a plastic bottle with a plated and painted steel cap with cardboard seal disc. I left it at the back of a high shelf in the basement where it was out of sight and soon out of mind. Some time later I bought a full pound of N140 to experiment with, but that original 1/4 lb continued to sit.

I finally re-encountered the bottle during some cleaning out activity. It looked like this:

the lid out. Rinse water put over it poured out yellow. At that point I cut the container open and buried the wet mass under the compost heap to let nature take its course.

Interestingly, the remaining 1/8 lb still at my father's place (also untouched) appeared to be in fine condition in it's original container. Shaking some out onto a white sheet of paper to look for traces of red dust showed no signs of any. Odor was normal. Nonetheless, with only that small amount left, we scattered it over the yard.The powder in it was not powder any longer. The grains were all stuck together. That was the result of the lid seal failing and letting humidity in. The acid fumes corroded

So, what about your Swiss ammunition? I recommend you shoot it up. It is getting long in the tooth, don’t expect it to last another thirty years, though it could. At some point in the future it is going to go bad, just when, that cannot be predicted without a chemical analysis for the percent of stabilizer left in the powder. If you get high pressure indications like sticky extraction, pull the bullets and dump the powder.

 

[AK103K]

I had some issues with older reloads over the past year or so, as well as some Malaysian 5.56 surplus. I also came across a couple of Samfire's threads, and believe hes spot on in his assessments.

The reloads I had, were loaded and stored by my dad back in the late 80s. They lived at the beach at the time, and everything was stored in the garage, which wasnt temp controlled, and it got very hot there in the summers. I inherited the ammo a few years back, and started to burn it up last year.

Right off, I started to have split necks, and in some cases, complete neck separations. This was with both USGI 30-06 cases, and commercial 30-40 Krags.

Thinking the brass was bad (at that point it was), I pulled down what was left, and reloaded both the powder and bullets into other, cases. When I pulled the bullets, I noticed the base of a number of them, were corroded, with a fairly heavy blue green tarnish. At the time, I really didnt give that much thought.

I put them back into the rotation, and this past spring, was starting to shoot them up, and started running into split necks again, some, split before they were even fired.

That brass was once fired, and had only been prepped before it was stored. Ive since loaded more of it, but this time, with fresh powder, and havent had any problems since.

Im pretty much convinced, the powder was the culprit, and especially after reading through Slamfires threads..

As far as the Maylasian stuff, I got that back in the late 90's. It was dated late 70's, early 80's. Great deal, 2000 round cases for around $150 or so if I remember right. Im still burning up the last of now. Over the past year or so, I noticed that a lot of the fired cases had cracks/splits in the necks, especially at the shoulders. I pulled some of the bullets, and the same corrosion was present on the base of the bullets as was on the reloads.

Now, if you remember last winter, when that Malaysian airliner went down, there was a big stink about how the batteries for the black boxes were stored. That got me to thinking about storage and heat. Coincidence? Im thinking not.

 

[HammsBeer]

Considering I have almost $5K worth of GP11 ammo, the bulk of which is about evenly split between the '79 and '92 lots, I'd be interested if there is a lab test or home test to check the remaining stabilizers in the powder. I know many of you are saying it's still fine, and it probably is, but it wouldn't hurt to find out.

I haven't found any corrosion in the cases of fired rounds or split necks, but if the powder is indeed near the end of it's life, I'd rather pull and dump the powder. I could save the excellent berdan primed brass and match grade cupronickel bullets and reload with fresh powder, but that is alot of work, and I'm not setup for reloading yet.

Currently all my ammo is stored in the basement (60 deg) in surplus ammo cans with dessicant tins that I dry out once a year in the oven. But that doesn't account for how it was stored for it's first 30 years.

 

[jonnyc]

Hamms, don't worry. Your Swiss ammo is just fine, and will probably remain so for decades to come. Keep it stored properly and your grand-kids will still be shooting it. If 5000 will last that long!

 

[coloradokevin]

This stuff was loaded in the mid-1930's. It shoots just fine, at least the last time I tried it. I've shot a few hundred rounds of this stuff, with no hiccups.

Obviously you want to give your rifle a corrosive ammo cleaning after shooting this stuff. But, it works fine:

 

[Slamfire]

Do you know an Ammunition Specialist in the military? They might be able to help about testing. This Swedish document, Insensitive Munitions and Aging http://www.foi.se/ReportFiles/foir_2874.pdf provides a good overview. Militaries have more than just gunpowder to worry about. Because I have not looked, I am unaware of any non governmental agencies who do this work.

The only test I am aware of that you could do are the methyl violet test, Methyl violet can be supplied as pre-made pH testing paper from vendors who distribute chemical laboratory supplies.
Go to Dodiss http://www.assistdocs.com/search/search_basic.cfm, download Mil Std 286. Look up the procedure Method 404.1.2 in MIL-STD-286 (see p. 301 of 407) Incidentally this oven is made for serious work : http://www.reichel-partner.de/wp-content/themes/ttConcept/pdf/Methyl-Violet.pdf

Basically you put gunpowder in a test tube, put methyl violet paper in, and see if it changes to pink/red. That is proof positive that the gunpowder is outgassing excessive amounts of nitric acid gas.

Another test is the time to fume. The procedure is in there, but basically gunpowder is heated to 150 F (I assume in a test tube) and if it fumes within less than 30 days, it is scrapped.

I highly suspect that an ammunition specialist already did this on all these surplus ammunition lots. That is why it is on the market, the originating military decided the stuff had two problems : 1) It was unsafe to keep in storage anymore and 2) it was either unsafe or unreliable to shoot, or both.
My suggestion is to sort the stuff by age and shoot the older stuff up first. If you experience any case cracking or high pressure indications, immediately pull the bullets and dump the powder for that year. You should be able to save most of the cases (no guarantee they won’t crack on first firing) and bullets.

While you run into people who have had no problems with hideously old ammunition, just chalk that up to luck. These immortals ought to volunteer to treat Ebola patients as nothing bad can ever happen to them. For normal mortals, have no expectations that this ammunition will last forever, or for as many decades as it already has. These charts are from a 1969 and 1970 Ammunition Surveillance Conference, the ammunition they are scrapping is WW2 ball ammo, about 26 years old at the time.

 

[Sunray]

The absolute best .303 Brit ammo(1944 vintage DA Ball. Made the IVI we got later look really crappy. It was too.) I've ever fired was 44 years old at the time. Unless the stuff has been stored incorrectly, it'll be fine.