tips on ammo storage?

[cajun47]

am i doing this right?

i have ak ammo stored in ammo cans with desiccant packs. i rarely open them but how often should i reactivate the desiccant packs? this is all stored in an air conditioned room.

i also have some 9mm, .22, and buckshot stock in my gun safe with a big can of desiccant with an indicator from cheaper than dirt. i also have some ak ammo in there still in the plastic wrap, should i take them out of the wrap and let them lay out in the gun safe?

i never had a fail to fire with the ak ammo even after being stored for 15 years. how long properly stored ammo can last? forever?

 

[GD]

Sounds like you are doing everything right. As long as you have good dessicant, you can leave the ammo in the bags. If the cans are not opened for very long, you probably don't need to recharge the packs. To be on the safe side, I would recharge them every 5 years at a minimum. Properly stored ammo can last indefinitely. I still shoot ammo dated 1938 that looks and acts like it was made yesterday.

 

[FireFalcon]

Pelican cases are high quality and air tight. Though, even the small ones can be a bit pricey.

 

[RNB65]

Keep it cool and dry and your great, great, grandchildren will be shooting it safely.

 

[dmftoy1]

I've yet to have a dessicant pack in an ammo can turn pink on me. FWIW. If the can is pretty full then there's not alot of moisture in the air for them to absorb. (assuming the cans are sealed) All of my ammo is in cans and stored in a midwestern basement . .not optimum conditions but it seems to be holding up great.

 

[Shrinkmd]

Misinformation out there?

I found this on another board:

Should everyone stockpile ammo? That's a tough question to answer and certainly a personal one. Keep in mind that most localities have rules for the storage of large quantities of munitions, and violating the rules can land you in some serious hot water. Keep more than a couple thousand rounds in your house and you are most certainly violating some sort of local law and will only be incompliance if you let officials know it is there and put up the proper HAZMAT signs to alert everyone what you have in the event of an emergency. Ammo must also be stored properly or else it goes bad and or becomes unsafe for use in a very short time span, yes, it will probably still go bang but not like it should. Large quanties of stored ammo can be hazardous in ways that only Hollywood portrays(even for a single cartridge it seems) and you have to have one helluva ammo dump to make a crater in the ground, and the right initiation sequence, but overall ammunition even in large quantity is much much safer than storing gasoline. Few people have the proper facilities to store ammo so it can maintain its 20 year expected life span, so buying tons of ammo and burying it can be a very very bad investment, especially if it is already 15-20 years old.

Here is the rest of the URL:

This seems to run against what most threads on THR say, which is that as long as you keep stuff in a sealed ammo can with optional dessicant, it lasts forever (temperature controlled as well, of course) And if true there would be virtually no point in buying that GP11 which keeps beckoning to me.

So what do you think?

 

[SoCalShooter]

I leave mine in the boxes and just put it in ammo cans. Never use the desicant stuff I am regularily in the cans so it defeats the purpose.

 

[kungfuhippie]

Well, I'd better look into this I have...one, two, three...
Lets just say "a lot of ammo"
If the communists could keep it for so long with no ill effects I think spending some time at my place won't do it too much bad.

 

[JohnBT]

"Few people have the proper facilities to store ammo so it can maintain its 20 year expected life span,"

I have ammo older than that stored in the closet and under the bed. An uncle has some even older. This is in good old humid Virginia with no AC, no dessicant and no problems. I do have a few ammo cans that came with ammo in them, but I'd need 20x that many to think about storing a significant percentage of my ammo.

Why do so many people worry about babying their ammo? It just don't get it. Has snopes done a report on ammo storage yet?

20 years is just a start.

John

 

[PAshooter]

...20 year expected life span...

???

Another example of "don't believe everything you read on the internet."

 

[kungfuhippie]

Few people have the proper facilities to store ammo so it can maintain its 20 year expected life span

Well I'd better just throw out all my surplus ammo
Dang-it why didn't anyone tell me that all this 30-100 year old stuff was worthless?:banghead:

 

[Robert Hairless]

There should be a law requiring ammunition manufacturers to put a "sell by" and "use by" date on every box.

 

[Titan6]

I am down to my last can of '67 WRA .308. Probably no good I'd better dispose of it in a safe manner...

 

[Gaucho Gringo]

Last weekend I was shooting a bunch of .22LR & 12 gauge shells that I bought in the late 60's. Not one FTF. I still have about 800 rounds of the 22 to shoot up. Ammo will keep indefinitely if cared for.

 

[AirplaneDoc]

Just shot some 45acp headstamed 19. been sitting in basements, garages, loose in a cigar box. If ammo is only good for 20 years, that must have been a good vintage.

 

[W.E.G.]

Dessicant only makes sense if the ammo is stored in an area with large temperature variations, and you are opening the cans frequently.

I store ammo in a place that is cool and relatively dry year round. The ammo always looks the same when I take it out of the cans as the day it was put in the cans.

I use a few cans for transport of ammo to the range. I keep an eye on any ammo that has been on a "field trip." So far, nothing to report.

 

[sublimaze41]

Great thread. I would hate to have all of my hard work and hard earned money wasted. Got 4 fifty cal. boxes at Gander MTN (insert gag) for a respectful $6 each. Had to go through a number to find ones without rust or without a bad seal. Man, those things make a noise when you open them in a store.

 

[silverlance]

things to think about when storing ammo (and I know a little about this)

1. keep it away from flame. yes, tossing rounds into the fire is lots of fun, but a 440 rnd can of 7.62x54R... different story.

2. keep it dry. dont put it on the concrete of your garage - lift it up with some wood, and leave airspace to dry out.

3. keep it as cool as possible. here in CA this is a big problem - I store my ammo in my garage, but sometimes that gets real hot. to deal with that, i store it in cans and put a tarp over the cans. on 110 deg days i can open a can of radway and it is nicely cool inside the can.

4. finally, buy it while it's cheap. IIRC modern non-corrosive ammo has a shelf life of about 35 years. corrosive ammo has a shelf life of... well, a very very long time, especially if the necks are wax sealed. in thousands of rounds of corrosive surplus, i have yet to have a SINGLE round refuse to ignite. i've thrown away plenty because i felt that they were unsafe to fire, but no duds.

 

[Pete409]

I think that many people are taking unnecessary precautions about storage of ammo. In my experience, and from what I've heard and read, ammo requires very little in the way of "storage care".

There are a couple of things which should be avoided if possible when storing ammo. The first is excessive moisture. For example, don't sit the ammo on the floor of a very wet basement. The second thing to avoid is excessive heat. The attic is not a good place to store ammo.

In most homes, storing ammo in the closet or under the bed is just fine. No special cans or dessicants are needed.

 

[Chiseler]

For long term storage, this is one thing I was thinking of. I like ammo cans because they divide the giant piles of ammo into easily stacked only moderately large piles of ammo cans. Plus, I manage to skim a fair amount off the USMC ranges. They just get thrown out, otherwise.
I do get a fair amount of ribbing for having a poncho liner, one MRE, and fifteen ammo cans in my ruck, though.
Anyway, down in coastal NC where I'm based, the humidity is awful. Even with the dessicant, I end up with it saturated every couple months. Here's what I'm thinking to get around that. Pull out the rubber seals. Get the ammo situated in the can and the fresh dessicant ready. Put a thick bead of silicone caulking in the groove where the rubber was. Allow to get slightly tacky. Toss in the dessicant and seal the can. Apply weight to the top of the can to ensure a good seal. Allow to dry. Label with contents. Stack with the rest of the pile. Comments on feasibility?
Now it's going to be awkward to get it open, thus you're going to want to use regular cans for short-term storage. Use silicone gasket lube on the rubber seals. Auto Zone has it. It'll help the can seal better for the short term.

 

[scrat]

desiccant packs


i had some ammo at my parents house. i found in their garage. The ammo was over 20 years old. in an old ammo can. I took it to the range and fired it all. Not one miss fire. no silicone around the top. No desiccant packs nothing. it was all good and i fired all of it.


there is a lot of people that have fired ammo from the 40's and 50's. The ammo was in regular cans. i wouldnt worry so much about it. Unless you plan on burring it for 20 years.

 

[Wolfgang2000]

If you use "good" (they make a good seal and are not rusted through) military ammo cans, and use desiccant packs, it should last you a good long time. I have bricks of 22 LR that were bought in the middle 80's that are still in good shape. If you are not opening the can the desiccant packs should last as long as the ammo.

Last year I shot some LC 7.62 Nato that was dated 65. No problems.

My ammo cans aren't set directly on the concrete floor of my basement. I was once told that there could be condensation forming from temperature change. The original conversation was about gas cans. But I figured that having my ammo 3/4" off the floor couldn't hurt.

 

[mekender]

i just store the majority of mine at the far end of a range in a giant dirt mound :-D

 

[zxcvbob]

I've started using 1 gallon paint cans to store pistol cartridges. .30 cal surplus ammo cans for rifle cartridges. (I may switch to .50 cal ammo cans as I accumulate more rifle ammo and use the .30 cans for stuff like .22LR)

 

[Soybomb]

Few people have the proper facilities to store ammo so it can maintain its 20 year expected life span

I'd say don't take your firearm related advice from myspace. I've fired tons of surplus ammunition thats older than I am and I'm relatively certainly it wasn't stored anywhere as nice as my closet in an ammo can.