What is the oldest ammunition you have shot?

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colemanw

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A couple of guys on another thread mention some old ammo that fired effectively despite being over a century old. What experiences with old ammo have you all had? The good:) the bad:fire: and the ugly:D-

Late 50s Remington .38 Special LRN No problem
 
Back in '71 we shot up some 1943 .45 hardball on the Army range for pistol team practice. Smoked more than current stock but it all went bang.
 
I've shot some .43 Spanish loaded by Remington about 1900. Most of it did not fire.

I've shot a lot of German and Polish 8x57 from 1936 to 1939. Almost all of it was sure fire.

I have a lot of US 1941 .30-06. I have not shot much of it, but it shoots clean and really accurate.

CDD
 
I had some old .38 spl. that I think was approx. 80 years old. Out of 15 rounds 6 no fires, 2 slow burns, 1 primer blow out (had to dig small bits of primer out my thumb for a week).
 
I shot a box of 30 remington dated 1908 last year so I guess 100 year old ammo, and yes it all worked.
 
11mm .43 Mauser, Production date 1899 Rem. Union Mec. Car. Co.
Shoot 5 shells every year on my birthday. Hope to start reloading these this year.
 
38/44 Ammo from the middle 30's. I have 3 more boxes of it that I will be shooting soon to chrono.

Some of it fires well, so well, it fires.
 
.45 Long Colt from the late 1890's...In, I might add, a 1895 Colt SAA in 5 1/2" dress with a rather colorful history...Unbelievable pleasure and honor...
 
WWII Vintage

Nothing exotic, but I've shot plenty of WWII milsurp in .30-06, 8mm Mauser, .45 ACP, .30 Carbine, .303 Brit among others. No problems - I don't recall a single one of 'em not firing. I'm still shooting some of that stuff.

Man, makes you wonder how much of that they made if we're still using it 60-70 years later...:eek:
 
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I've shot some old surplus .303 Brit ammo that was from the 1920's. It all fired but there where a few that was a little slow to go off, kind of a 1/2 second pause after the trigger was pulled.
 
The oldest was probably .38S&W that I believe were from the twenties, maybe even older. I shot only one from a Webley and hit dead center from 10 meters :cool:. Then my friend tried one but it was, as someone called it, a slow burn and the bullet got stuck in the barrel about an inch from the muzzle :uhoh:.
 
Some VERY old .30-06 ammo. Came in a wood block with a wax paper wrapper. Could not read the writing on it, but it appeared military. Fired all 10 rounds with no problems.

T2E
 
8mm from 1942, ive gone through 50 rounds so far without a single problem.
 
Oldest I ever shot was old 8x57mm ammo, from about the late 1930s.
I have fired a few hundred of these and all of them functioned.
 
I shot a few hundred copper-washed 7.62x54R that I was told was thirties era. The copper was was so oxidized we had to hose and rub each round down with break free so it would extract without having to bash the bolt handle into the table at the range.

Had a couple of hang fires, even on non-lubed round, no duds, could not get it to do better than 5" at 100 though, through a pristine '54 polish M44. More a pattern, than a group.
 
Ten rounds of .45-70 military ammo dating to the 1880s.
This was done in the early 1970s, so it was 90 years old at the time.
It was the rifle and ammo of a friend of my father's. Two of the 10 rounds wouldn't fire. Eight went KABOOM and the slugs hit an old stump about 50 yards away.
How I wish I had that ammo today for my collection, or enough to fire a few over the chronograph.
 
Bought a crate (~1600 rounds, IIRC) of Euro surplus 9mm about 15 years ago. It was manufactured in the 30's. I used up most of it, and it all went bang, Still have a hundred or two left, and I expect it will do likewise. Don't shoot much 9mm these days.
 
Don't know how old they were, but I've shot black powder .38 specials. Figure that would be the 20's at the latest, so between 85 and 110 years old.
 
Two boxes of 9mm's I reloaded in 1975 and just found after cleaning my basement shelves. All worked fine.
 
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