Ammo shelf life

[Campbeans]

Hi, so I'm aware that our powders should not be stored in a high heat environment as it can cause more rapid degradation , but what about afterburner are reloaded ? Is there a "shelf" life of loaded or factory ammo ? I read once no more than 10 years , no more than 30 years , avoid temperature fluctuations , the primers usually deteriorate first , etc... Anybody actually know for sure ? I have a friend who coats his primers with nail polish after reloading , swears that will prevent them from going bad in long term storage ? Thanks .

[tazman]

I have ammunition I reloaded and stored in sealed metal ammo cans in the early 80s that still shoots just fine.
Granted that a lot depends on how it is stored. Mine is located in my basement where it is cool. Never a problem with it.
Some of that ammo was loaded for a specific rifle and still shoots to point of aim even after this long. I test it out periodically to make sure.

[Southern Son]

I think that there are variables. If you were to pan lube your cast boolit, leaving some of the lube on the bottom of the boolit, and that lube was not particularly powder friendly, then you will get the powder starting to break down. If the round goes together clean and is well sealed (I don't mean nail polish or the other sealants sometimes used, just a clean projectile in good neck tension and a properly seated primer), then I have no idea, but certainly longer than 10 years. Think about ex-military ammo. In particular surplus WW2, that stuff must be 70+ years old, and so long as it was well made (not all countries made good ammo), it still shoots well.

[RED BEAR]

i have ammo that was loaded in mid 80s that i took no precautions at allit was stored in old tool box in spare room. and still shoots just fine. i will admit ran most through tumbler again. just to make pretty.

[farmerjim]

I have ammo that I loaded in the 60's still shoot fine, and it was stored in an attic in hot and humid south Louisiana.

[Shawlerbrook]

Unless abused, the shelf life is longer than ours. I have 1938 dated Nazi ammo for the 8x56R that still shoots fine.

[Kskybroom]

This year i witnessed a member at my gun club shoot two box's of 45 acp ammo marked U S C CO 17. That all fired. I bought the three box an the brass .....

[daboone]

When my dad, a 60+ year resident of Hawaii, died in 2004 he had in his car port a 50 cal GI can with some 30/06 of Korean War era. Think temps from the high 40s to the low 90s, humidity alway 70 and above. Some of it needed to have external greenish corrosion wiped off with steel wool. Not one FTF. I'd saved the cases and reloaded them with his Herters press and a rusty can of Dupont 4350 and that worked too.

[trapper9260]

I have some factory and reloads ammo from back in the early to mid 70's and shoot just fine and try to keep it away for high heat. Still use it today .

[georgerkahn]

Imho, the conditions of storage are most important, too. A gentleman who was in advanced years when I knew him -- an Australian fellow named George S. -- spent his gainful-employ years on United Kingdom vessels -- through two wars. He told me the British had run out of ammo fighting in Zulu War conflicts, and as a result, their military vowed to not this phenomena again occur, at least while under each's command. The "jeeps" (Land Rovers) were "stocked to the hilt" with ammunition, to hopefully prevent a similar occurrence. HOWEVER -- it was later empirically learned that several years of bouncing about in Land Rovers actually took the coating off powder, as well as actually ground it to a finer granule powder size. Hence, there were MANY, many blow-ups using this ammunition.
Hence, again imho, it is not just the time and probable temperature extremes, but the storage conditions, which affect the ammunition over time.
I, personalty, have Remington .30 and .32 rifle ammunition from 1907 and 1908, respectfully, of which I fired three rounds of each with zero problem, but a couple of years ago -- I wanted to see if it worked, but -- for "collector value" did not wish to use it all up. My only concern has been a few cases which have "corrosion spots" appearing which, based upon these, I would not consider a safe wager to shoot.
geo

[Campbeans]

well this is comforting to hear .Thank you all .It appears then that ammo properly loaded can last a very long time . I realize high heat can sometimes shorten the life of powders , but I didn't know if ammo after exposure to high heat or temperature fluctuations could do the same ? I guess then that powders in certain canisters or containers can't stand up to these changes in temps as well as ammo .

[EddieZoom]

Some pretty amazing examples....thanks guys.

[wv109323]

I have some 1953 ball 30-06 that I still shoot. It is stored in the original military can sealed. It has been keep in my garage where temps fluculate between 30 and 100.

[jmorris]

No more than ten years? That used to be a long time, when I was in grade school. I have socks that are older than that now.

Stored properly decades old ammunition and or components are perfectly fine.

[1hole]

Powder is the weak link in ammo and even it's pretty tough. Best I can tell, primers last forever, I still have a few boxes that were new in WW 2 and they still work fine.

Smokeless gun powder is organic chemistry and organic stuff does degrade over time. Heat always accelerates chemical changes and cold always retards it; best way to preserve powder for long time would be to store it in a freezer. Any "hot" temp a man can survive will have no immediate effect on powder but the effects of heat and time are cumulative. Some powders last a loong time, some degrade in a couple decades.

Powder doesn't know what the temp is so normal variations have no provable effect, meaning human tolerable temp swings are meaningless in the short term like, 10-30 years. Powder doesn't know if it's in a sealed can or sealed in a brass case so loaded ammo will be affected by heat exactly as if in a can.

Wind can't blow in and out of cartridge cases to change the humidity inside so primer and bullet sealing compounds are basically meaningless. I don't know but the military may still seal ammo, they used to do that to be sure that even if a truck load had been dropped into water for weeks it would still go boom when it was recovered. The military sealed bullets with a thin mix of asphalt and lacquare (nail polish) on primers.

Only "old" ammo I ever lost in storage was due to some lube experiments I did with cast .30 cal bullets in the mid '60s but didn't shoot it all up until the late '90s. I'd stored it in hot summer garages for over 30 years and wasn't surprised when many of them didn't fire because the soft bullet lube I was playing with had finely melted and ran down into the powder. (Pulled the bullets, cleaned the cases, installed new primers and things were fine.)

By the way, brass tarnish is a brown, nearly black, surface condition that's ugly but harmless. On the other hand, brass corrosion is a green stuff which eats into the metal like rust on steel and weakens it. Lightly corroded cases may be safe to use but maybe not so, to be safe, it should be hammered flat and discarded.