U.S. Commercially loaded ammo....

[silverchief]

I hope this may be the right place to ask, but anyway, here goes.
Recently (within last couple of years) I've heard that recently, commercially loaded ammo by U.S. manufacturers is loaded with powder/propellants that have a much shorter shelf-life. I would like to find out anything regarding this.
Without getting into "politics", it wouldn't surprise me in the least bit, that the government may have imposed certain "sanctions" (for the lack of any other term) against the manufacturers, quite possibly to reduce or eliminate the stockpiling of ammo by John Q. Public. I'm not a militia man, or even what one would call a survivalist, but when I find a good deal on sporting ammo, I buy extra, as the prices on always on the climb. Right now, I'm using up the last of a 500 round brick of .22 long rifle ammo that I bought about 25 years ago.
Any thoughts, info or whatever would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Wayne.

 

[Panzerschwein]

Where have you heard newly made ammo has a shooter "shelf life"? And what do you mean by "shelf life"?

If properly stored, almost any modern ammunition should last at LEAST 50 years and work just fine.

This is the first time I've heard of this.

 

[Sam1911]

We hear about this from time to time and it is a complete urban legend. No truth to it at all.

 

[joem1945]

Sounds like BS story to me. I see no way powder manufactures could make powder that way. The military or law enforcement would never accept that. And for self defence if a cartridge failed at a critical time the law suit would be open ended for damages in the millions.

 

[blarby]

Basically.



There was some hubub about trying to do this some years back, but it was a non-starter. About the same time they wanted to start putting nanoplastic identifying particles in gunpowder, which could be recovered and identified in GSR.

 

[highlander 5]

Perhaps this legend comes from the creation of non corrosive primers. If my history is right when non corrosive primers came out the military were reluctant to change to NCP as they had a concern about shelf life. As usual the military was years behind the curve.

 

[gun_with_a_view]

 

[Art Eatman]

I don't remember the year, but some of the more ignorant people in Congress were mumbling about shelf life and identifiers. Primers, gunpowder, explosives in general. The primary opposition came from the people involved with explosives. They wanted no additives which might make a building explode instead of imploding. And, I imagine, from the military as well as the powder manufacturers themselves.

 

[HankB]

I believe some of the "lead free" or "green" priming compounds had or have a questionable shelf life; we really don't know for sure since they haven't been around all that long, and accelerated life testing (e.g, storing at elevated temperatures to simulate long-term effects) may not give reliable results.

And I don't know of any manufacturer that shares shelf life data with the public. (If YOU do . . . please share the info with the rest of us.)

For a time the Wikipedia entry (always 100% reliable, I'm sure. ) claimed that the aluminum styphnate priming compound used in the 5.7x28mm lead free rounds had a short 1-5 year shelf life. Since this assertion has been removed, perhaps it had no basis.

 

[il.bill]

...
Recently (within last couple of years) I've heard that recently, commercially loaded ammo by U.S. manufacturers is loaded with powder/propellants that have a much shorter shelf-life. ...

Where or from whom did you 'hear' that?

 

[gun_with_a_view]

Sounds like a gubm't plot for Brown Shirts ammo to outlast The Peoples ammo.

 

[Sam1911]

And with that little bit of hilarity, I think we're done.