Old Ammo

Kooty made mention of having some “dirty” or old ammo being shot out of his 22A and causing a foul or two. Well, as you guys often do, you cause my wheels to start spinning and it’s drawn a question.

When….. exactly, does ammo become old?

My dad and I once came across a box of loose ammo that had been sitting out in my Gpa’s garage and we were told to just go shoot it up. Well, it was mostly 22lr but there were a few 12ga rounds (old paper ones!) and a few .308.

The results were comical! You NEVER knew what you were going to get. The shot shells were the worst, sometimes firing so weak that the bb’s could be seen coming out of the barrel and falling just a few feet in front of us! The 308’s seemed pretty normal but the 22lr’s were completely unpredictable! One would shoot weaker than a 22S and the next would report loud and clear and hit the target well.

Here’s my pondering. Dad has an old gun cabinet that he stores his goodies in and it has a piano dehumidifying bar in it, which I assume is the same as the moisture control bars they make for safes, and while he has boxes of ammo that are really……approaching 30years old at the minimum, he never has a bad shell when he uses them! He has boxes of 12ga that I can remember being in that cabinet when I was a kid and they’re still there! Not full boxes but as he continues to need what he needs for grouse, he’ll only use what gets fired at birds. He clay shoots very very seldom. Last time we did though, he mentioned “polishing off the box”. 6 rounds later, it was empty. However, not a single, weak sounding round.

Therefore, under a controlled environment, does ammo really age? I’m curious because what stock piling I do (a box or two of whatever I’m after per paycheck) is in the idea that soon, very soon…… I can stop buying ammo altogether. “Let the prices rise all they want, I’m set until I’m dead” is the mindset I have. I have moisture control measures in place and check it regularly. Is this probable to achieve or am I fooling myself? According to my father’s results, I’m good to go. Or am I????

I’ve never kept a volume of ammo around until now. I was just pondering this question the other day. I think a gun safe is in my near future.

My basement is unfinished. This may be something I have to add when the build out begins in the future.

Quote:

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I am building a new home with a safe room/cold room that will have a vault door on it and it will also be used as a walk in gun safe. I had never thought about putting a dehumidifier in there because they use so dang much electricity. I currently put dessicant bags in my gun safe but what is everyone else using to keep their powder dry?

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I use an electric heat stick in my safe.

There’s a sharp division depending on what type of ammo when it comes to the age question.

As Stillakid has pointed out, when it comes to shotgun cartridges, anything from the paper cartridge era is highly unlikely to be reliable at this point.

In general, paper cartridge hulls were being phased out starting in the later half of the 1960s and were gone by the late 1970s (with a few exceptions). So any vintage cartridges that are made of paper would likely be at least 30 years old or older.

The big downside to paper was that no matter how well sealed, eventually the paper will wick moisture into the powder and also the expansion/contraction of the paper hull can eventually produce a poor seal between the hull and the wad. Obviously, if the cartridges were stored in ideal conditions, they could still be higly reliable today, but it’s unlikely unless you find several cases of ammo that were stored in Arizona for all of the last 50 years.

It’s a different story with rifle cartridges, especially those with smokeless propellent, which can be reliable for decades or even indefinately if stored correctly. It was fairly common for people to find stashes of cartridges that date back to the FIRST World War and I’ve read more than one account where these were nearly 100% reliable when fired. That’s pretty amazing considering they were approaching 100 years old. There’s a lot of surplus .308 ammo out there that was made during the Cold War and technically even though much of this is 30-50 years old, it still functions well.

Rimfire catridges, as I understand it, are highly variable depending on how well the bullet was seated. Some of the old cast lead bullets didn’t have a very good seal when they were seated, so small amounts of air could leak into the propellent, making them prone to reliability issues even at a few years old.

Grouse

Like Suzuki, I have an electric heat stick in my safe as well. My safe, however, isn’t ventilated at all so I still have to use moisture collector’s of some sort. I’ve been using the Remington rechargeable dehumidifying….. pellet thingy…. Once a month I pull it out, plug it in, and dry it out. According to my hygrometer, seems to be doing a good job. I use electric sticks in my cabinets too. They work pretty good!

Grouse man….. while nothing is guaranteed, your info made me feel better about my supply’s lifespan. Thanks!!!