40 year old reloads shot like new!

[avogunner]

Well, 38 years old to be exact.....
When my buddy got out of the Corps in 1983 (not too long later we married sisters so he's my BIL now), I sent him on his way with 100 of my .45 ACP reloads. He was going home to Massachusetts and I wanted to make sure he had something to put in his beautiful Colt Commander. Long story short, he got married, had kids and promptly forgot about these and stored in his wet, dank, basement. Fast forward to this summer, we were up visiting and he said "do you want these back?". His range there doesn't allow lead so of course I brought them home. Well, looking through my records, I loaded them in April of 1983 with Speer swaged 230gr lead and Bullseye and after all that time in his basement, they looked fine. In the back of my mind, I knew they would shoot just fine and later at my range they did. All functioned perfectly and a casual observer wouldn't have thought anything unusual about them.

289744

I'm sure there are others here that have shot older reloads......I'd love to hear about them.
Semper Fi

[jlm223]

That's good to know! Enjoyed reading your thread.

[CastingFool]

FWIW, my 12 ga target reloads work fine, even though they've been in my basement since 1984. I stopped shooting skeet looong time ago

[Duckiller]

I may have some 30/06 loads from before 1965. My father and an uncle took my Swedish Mauser carbine and gave me a spoterized 03A3. They were sure I couldn't get 6.5x55 ammo in California. had a good supply of ammo. May have gotten some more in 1968/9 when I got out of the Army and went back to California. Do have some Sears 12 ga 5 shot from early 70's.