How long can you store cast boolit in brass?

[glowe]

I have a ton of cast boolits for 9mm, 357, 22cal and 30cal. I want to start making a stockpile of bullets with them. But I was wondering about long term storage with cast boolits in brass. My consern is the boolit lube melting or contaminating the powder.

Thanks

Greg

[fredj338]

My exp is lead bullets stored in brass cases is going to result in a high volume of split cases on firing. I don;t know if the bullet is expanding slightly over time ro bonding to the brass, but some 10yr old 357mags lost 50% on firing to neck splits. SO I no longer load a bunch of lead bulleted ammo for long term storage, YMMV.

[glowe]

Thanks for the reply, good to know

[Calamity Jake]

I have loaded cast ammo from 1993 have no problems with it

but I see the above poster has had problems, as he says YMMV.

[snuffy]

I have a ton of cast boolits for 9mm, 357, 22cal and 30cal. I want to start making a stockpile of bullets with them. But I was wondering about long term storage with cast boolits in brass. My consern is the boolit lube melting or contaminating the powder.

Thanks

Greg

I'm confused. You're going to make bullets with boolits!?¿

Boolits; cast of pure lead or lead alloy.

Bullets; J-words, condom bullets, jaxketed, full length gas checks.

NOT bullets equals loaded ammo, rounds, shells, cartridges.

2,000 pounds of boolits! Wow, how long did it take to cast them?:kidding:

[MT Gianni]

Obviously storage conditions come into account. Powder will last longer stored below 75F than above. There would be no chance of lube migration if temps are too low to start melting it. I have shot 22 LR over 30 years old and the only thing I did was wipe oxidization off of the bullets. It grouped as well as I expected it to.

[I'll Make Mine]

I've got a box of .357 Magnum reloads built with commercial cast bullets in the 1980s; I fired a couple cylinders of them a couple months ago, and noted no problems.

[rodsvet]

I have a lot of 44 mag I loaded back in the 80's. Still shoots as if I loaded it yesterday. All my stuff is 100% linotype, maybe that makes a difference. The ammo is stored in my garage in socal and gets over 100 in the summer. Seems to make no difference at all. Could be the low humidity. Rod

[runfiverun]

the lead isn't the issue.
what's in the lube can sure cause a problem though.
alox has a tendancy to create high neck tension [try wacking a few tumble lubed swc's from a revolver case]
some lubes contain salts,and some not done properly can contain glycerides.

[btroj]

I hope it is a long time, I have ammo stored for 10 plus years that I have been shooting.

Like Run said, I would worry far more about the lube affecting the brass.

[gwilliams2]

I've shot some boolits that I loaded back around the late 80's or early 90's after they had been "stored" for 12-13 years. I say "stored" because they spent many of those years in a south Georgia garage and a south Texas attic in your standard plastic storage boxes inside a cardboard box. These boolits seen many years of high humidity and extremely hight temperatures. Don't know what lube was used because I used comercial hard cast boolits back in those days, these were all 9mm and I do know that I used Trap 100 powder and every single one went down range without an issue.

[williamwaco]

I have a batch of .38 specials I loaded in 1972. They were cast from ACWW.
They still group 5 shots under 1.25" at 25 yards.


.

[facetious]

Hand loader mag. did a story on case splitting of loaded ammo years a go. Thy said it was from stress corrosion cracking. From what I can recall it is from exposure to ammonia. Thy said to wash cases in vinegar and water be for you reload them and not to store ammo with your gun cleaning stuff or any thing with ammonia


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Season_cracking

[rhbrink]

One thing that I have seen when pulling some boolits that have been loaded several years is that some lubes will take on a green hue, so I'm sure that the lube is pulling some copper out of the brass and over time it surely would weaken it. These were black powder lubes that were lighter in color so the contamination showed up real well. These cases had also been fired with blackpowder but the loads pulled were then loaded with that new fangled stuff, white powder? Looking into the case I couldn't see anything different as these had been fired many times and have used the cases since with no problems.

RB

[44man]

the lead isn't the issue.
what's in the lube can sure cause a problem though.
alox has a tendancy to create high neck tension [try wacking a few tumble lubed swc's from a revolver case]
some lubes contain salts,and some not done properly can contain glycerides.
Yes, some lubes are not kind to brass.
But I have had jacketed rifle rounds crack after time in MTM boxes. Brass itself can be a problem. These were annealed, formed, fire formed and annealed again before loading. They could not take the stress.
Then I have .44 cases fired over 40 times still going, many still loaded with cast for years. Then you can buy new brass, load and shoot right away to find a split case. The rest will never spit.

[JLDickmon]

biggest issue you would have is putting them back in an old style cardboard box where they're one up/one down, like a box of .22LR., and then leaving them on the dash of your car and leaving it parked outside all summer...
the ones stored bullet-up are gonna squib..

seeing as how none of the above scenario is all that likely..

[1Shirt]

IMO, if you store it in a fairly cool place I see no problem. Have some that is well over 10 years that shoots well.
1Shirt!

[.30/30 Guy]

About four years ago I shot some cast boolits that were loaded in the late 1960's without any issues.

[L Erie Caster]

Just shot some 150 or so 357mag with 158gLSWC loaded in 1985, and had no problems. Got some 550 or so to shoot next week, don't expect any problem with them either.

[glowe]

Thanks for all the replies. Another Question.
What's the best lube for long term storage?
Didn't think to ask this in the main question.

[fecmech]

I don't know what the "best" lube would be but the old NRA 50/50 lube was what I had on some 25 yr old.357 ammo. I had a couple hundred loaded that I fired a few years back that shot just fine.

[glowe]

I don't know what the "best" lube would be but the old NRA 50/50 lube was what I had on some 25 yr old.357 ammo. I had a couple hundred loaded that I fired a few years back that shot just fine.

Thanks

Greg

[dverna]

I used 50/50 lube when I cast 148 gr WC's for the 38 spl. I had rounds that were 30+ years old and I had a lot of squibs. I suspect lube killed the powder/primer. I would not trust old reloads if I intended to use that ammo for protection or hunting.

[MBTcustom]

My dad loaded several thousand 357Magnums with 200 grain RN boolits lubed with RCBS green lube in the mid 70's. I started shooting them up in 2005. Not a single squib load, and they all were very consistent. No split necks.

[Cherokee]

I've got some 38 Special cast boolit loads I loaded back in the late 60's. Back then I used a grease based lube called "Perfect Lube". They still shoot fine and no case splits. Now days I use White Label CR lube and would expect the same results if stored that long.