long term primer storage

[jballs918]

well guys i maybe picking up 5k in primers soon. so may question is how long do they last and what is the best way to store them. please remember i live in vegas with almost no humidity

[Dale53]

You will, no doubt be living in a climate controlled house (air conditioning in the summer). Just keep them in an area that is cool during summer and dry year round.

I have primers that are over 20 years old that seem to be giving good service. Would I use 20 year old primers for a serious bench rest match? I doubt it.

Just use a bit of common sense and you'll have no problems.

Dale53

[454PB]

I'm still using some I bought at a garage sale. The original owner wrote the purchase date on each brick. Most of them say 1977, a few in 1980. All work just like new. Keep them cool and dry, they should last a long time.

[lurch]

I've got some primers that were given to me because my father wanted to get them used up. They were stored indoors for many years in a cool basement and I've had them in my garage for almost nine on top of that (gets in the mid 90's in there in the summer occasionally when the weather really heats up). I am working on a way to get all my stuff in a more climate controlled environment, but it's not tops on the priority list at the moment. They still go bang very nicely and are very servicable for general usage. I don't know when they were made, but I do know that they are pre-GCA 68 and were probably purchased around 1963 (when I was but a twinkle in somebody's eye). How long ago did Herter's primers disappear? The cups appear to bea lot softer than current production or "vintage" CCI.

My father also has some German military ammo (corrosive priming) from 1936 that is still shooting, though it does have a mis fire now and again. Didn't start that until relatively recently (last 3 or 4 years I think).

I have had 2 lots of powder go south on me. One was some surplus H322 that went bad about four or five years after I bought it. The storage history on this is not known though. One lot of 4895 (circa 1963 I think) went bad too, but it was stored for a number of years in an outdoor shed, in an old Packard trunk.

Bottom line - store ammo/powder/promers in a nice place and they will generally last a long time.

[Obsolete]

I reciently pulled down 50 M2 Ball rounds , I snapped the caps in one of my bolt rifles after the pulldowns.... all 50 primers went bang.All 50 of them were from 1952.

[jballs918]

ok i guess i will take them out of my garage then it get about 140 in there during the sumer is that bad fir storing ammo in there

[Linstrum]

Hey, there, guys, how ya doin’?

To answer the question about how long modern primers will last, if kept cool (around 50°F) and dry they will probably last at least a century. Their longevity is apparently of great concern to the anti-gun cretins because they occasionally try to sneak a bill through Congress to make a law so primers will be formulated to only last a year or two!

Unfortunately, trying to determine how long modern non-corrosive primers will last by comparing them with the old type of corrosive priming compounds used in World War Two by the United States, British, or German military won’t work. That is because the old fashioned mixtures used are totally different from the somewhat newer non-corrosive chemical type. The corrosive priming is a physical mixture of several chemicals that serve the functions of fuel and oxidizer, usually potassium chlorate, sulfur, antimony sulfide, with ground glass as the friction material. The modern non-corrosive priming is basically two main chemicals besides the ground glass. The two chemicals used for non-corrosive primers were settled on about 80 years ago and are still used nowadays. They are lead styphnate as the impact-sensitive initiating material and another chemical such as one of the nitroesters (such as TNT) for the booster to increase power and gas output. Other things like finely flaked aluminum are added to help ignite the gunpowder by producing white-hot particles plus increasing the temperature and over-all primer energy. Comparing the two different primer types would be sort of like asking how long gasoline lasts before it gunks up your fuel pump and carburetor by comparing it with diesel fuel.

The United States Military did not use non-corrosive primers exclusively until about 1953, although they were apparently phased in over a period of years. I have 40 experimental cartridges that are non-corrosive from Frankford Arsenal dated 1951 that are the same size as 7.62 NATO, so they were introducing them from at least that time. The .30 carbine ammunition had non-corrosive priming from the get-go since the little carbine’s action was too “delicate” to withstand getting rusty, so if anyone wants to find incontrovertible proof of how long non-corrosive modern primer mixtures will last, .30 carbine ammo would be a good place to start looking since the primer mixture used in them is very similar to what is being used nowadays, i.e. a lead styphnate and nitroester mixture.

Keep yer powder cool and dry! And yer primers, too!

[45nut]

I was hoping you would drop in on this! Powder and chemistry are certainly your strong point,,much as floodgates loading tool knowledge. We are certainly richer for the both of you and a few hundred others.

[Linstrum]

Hi, 45nut, thanks for the "flowers"! I get back every bit as much as I give, though, and more. Thank you and the others who set up this place for us.

Yeah! You are quite right, one of the many reasons why I hang around this place is because of the large number of contributors who have a great deal of expertise to offer all of us. Yup, I get back a lot!

[Lloyd Smale]

Id have to say about 6 months as thats about as long as a case has ever lasted me

[1Shirt]

Yep, cool and dry. A number of years ago, back in the 60's, I was buying corrosive govt. primers by the brick for about $5.00 each. They were in wooden slide type trays and packed in white boxes 6" long 3"wide, and dated in the early to mid 40's. Shot the last of them in the late 60's. Don't ever recall having a misfire, but sure had to pay attention to cleaning as soon as I got done shooting.
1Shirt!:coffee:

[Junior1942]

ok i guess i will take them out of my garage then it get about 140 in there during the sumer is that bad fir storing ammo in thereIt's not just bad for ammo storage, it's terrible!!

I use an old frost free refrigerator. It stays 36 degrees at low humidity. The freezer section is filled with powder. To use powder, I pull it from the freezer and put in in the fridge for a couple of hours of slow cooling. Then I leave the jug out overnight and use.

Caution: do not open the jugs of powder or the boxes of ammo and primers until they cool slowly to room temperature or mositure will form.

[TAWILDCATT]

I Picked Up 2 Boxes Of German 11x15mm In Trinadad In1944.when I Got Home I Shot Them In A 71/84 Mauser I Had.cases Marked 1887.most Went Off.. If You Have Room Get A Medium Sized Refrig That Works And Put You Supplies In It You Only Have To Run It When Temp Get Bad.mine Is In Garage. I'm In Sc.not To Dispute Previos Post On Carbie,but I Understood The Primers Were Commercial Primers Rather Than Order Special Mix.

[Char-Gar]

When the Viet Name war started to heat up about 1965 or so, remembering how ammo, power and primers became unavailable during WWII, I stocked up on promers.

I still have about 1K each of CCI and Winchester SR primers. I recently tested them against fresh stock and there was no difference in reliability or accuracy.

These primers have always been stored inside my home for 42 years.

[Poygan]

In the late severties, I bought a brick of Winchester small rifle primers that were contained in wooden rows in the box. I have no idea as to how old they are but I've never had any problems using them. Mostly, they have been stored in the garage under less than ideal conditions.

[floodgate]

Since we're talking about OLD primers, there's one you should look out for (I'm working from memory here, so if I'm wrong, someone please correct me); I believe it was the Western 8-1/2G LR primer that was made into the 1950's with the old mercuric (mercury fulminate) priming mix. I also seem to recall that some of the Frankford Arsenal .30-'06 National Match loads in the 1930's used it too; it was supposed to give better ignition and slightly better accuracy than the "non-corrosive" primers. But always remember, the residues from mercuric priming will destroy your brass (the mercury amalgamates with the copper in the brass, weakening it seriously)! (This was less of a concern back in the black powder era, as much of the residue was trapped in the BP fouling - but was still a problem, though less so with the lower pressures of that era.)

Again, correct me if my memory has played me false.

floodgate

[sundog]

Several years ago I used a bunch of really old Alcan primers (may even have some left), and they worked fine. I've got an bunch of [maybe 30+ year old] CCIs that still function just fine. Also have a little H4427 circa late 60's that's just about used up, and it's fine, also.

[TDB9901]

In the early 70's, I aquired a number of boxes of Remington large pistol primers at an estate auction.

These had been purchased by the decedent's son before he went into the military in 1951. The son had been killed in '51 or '52 in a traffic accident, and they had been untouched ever since. (They were close friends of my family, so I know the history)

I still have 2 or 3 boxes of them, used a few last year when I ran out of newer stuff and wanted to shoot a new .45 I had just aquired. They worked fine, and they have probably not had the best of storage for many of those years.

Tom

[DLCTEX]

I bought a few K LR primers at an auction last summer. They had been in a storage shed since at least 1978, and so far all 200+ rounds fired have gone bang very nicely. Our temps reach as much as 110*, and in that shed they probably spiked much higher. DALE

[Ricochet]

ok i guess i will take them out of my garage then it get about 140 in there during the sumer is that bad fir storing ammo in there

YES! You can expect your powder to seriously deteriorate in a few months with temperatures frequently going that high.

[Ricochet]

I don't think the Western 8-1/2G primer was mercuric, but it was corrosive. Mercuric primers went out of use in the U.S. pretty universally by WWI because of what we're talking about here, unreliability after storage in warm, moist climates. Fulminate spontaneously deteriorates and the Brits had lots of trouble with ammo shipped to tropical areas that wouldn't fire after a year or two. Frankford Arsenal had a big batch of primers that wouldn't work because they didn't get properly dried during the rush to arm for WWI, and they switched to the Winchester priming formula.

[mooman76]

I keep my powder, primmers and ammo in my garage with no problems and been doing it for years. I think keeping dry is the most important and extream temp after that. It doesn't get as hot as you would think in this climate. The hottest my garage gets is about 115 and things on the floor don't get near that hot. I keep mine in a old wooden foot locker which keeping in a closed container helps also. I noticed the temperature difference from getting things like sodas out of the garage. If I got something off the floor it was not near as warm as something say up higher on a shelf. And just for curiosity sake I have a old high/ low thermometer that shows the the highest and lowest temp and this summer I will place it in my container to see what it gets. When I was in the Marines we stored ammo (mostly ) small arms in buildings above ground for years, decades really and as long as it is containerised it kept fine!
If you have the means to keep your reload stuff in a climatized place I say do it but it isn't always practical for some folks!

[Ricochet]

For smokeless powder, keeping the temp down is the main concern. Humidity is relatively unimportant. Powders are actually soaked in water at several stages of manufacture, and Ball powders are manufactured almost entirely underwater. They're intended to have a very thin layer of liquid water adsorbed to the surface that remains stable through a wide humidity range. The water film seals the microscopic cracks in the surface of the powder grains and stabilizes it.

[Linstrum]

The last I heard there is still some of the original lot of Unique left that was manufactured in 1901 and kept for test and comparison purposes. It is actually stored under water to keep it stable! When they want to do a comparison test, a small amount of the powder is removed and driied, than the comparison test is run. What is hard to believe is that after 106 years its burn characteristics have not deteriorated appreciably. After I read the report in American Rifleman about Unique back in 2000, when it was only 99 years old, I decided that Unique would be my powder of choice for all applications requiring a powder in that burn range. It is a little dirty burning in some circumstances, but after more than a century it has taken a lickin' and keeps on tickin'! The chemists who made that stuff are long since gone but their handiwork is still here

[Ricochet]

Unique is well named. It's been used in a wider variety of applications than any other powder, I suspect, and works pretty darn well in all of them. I thought it was older than that. Had it in my head for some reason that it came out in 1898. Bullseye is of similar antiquity.