How old is too old? (military brass)

[Bert2368]

In the batch of mixed .30-06 brass I recently got from a forum member are Frankford Arsenal marked cases, going back to 1928... After I got over the discombobulation of finding that some of my 260 pcs. of brass described as "maybe unfired" are old as my dad, I wondered- Where do you all draw the line? I've reloaded plenty of WW II vintage .45ACP and '06 brass without issue. At what point do you call a piece of 1x military brass too old and take it out of the reloading supplies? And what's your reasoning on why?

[DIRT Farmer]

I have some 1918 that I was given 40+ years ago that I still shoot. The problem is the old style priming from what I have read. These have been used with the 10 grn Green Dot load and anealed wrong from what I have been told. For what it is worth.

[Bert2368]

I understand that mercuric priming and smokeless powder make for a brittle case that won't last- AFAIK, .30-06 wasn't loaded with mercuric primers for the US military? All the military primer compositions I've seen were chlorate based up untill they went non corrosive in the 50's.

Any other metallurgical reasons to take brass cases out of service?

[376Steyr]

IIRC, Phillip Sharpe wrote about having trouble with military ammo from the Great War; the necks would crack on firing. The cause was traced back to ammo having been stored in stables, where the ammonia in the horse urine would attack the brass. I suppose this could be a possibility for any brass produced prior to WWII.

[uncle joe]

all the environmental issues aside, I had some live rounds in 45 acp from the early 40's that shot like gangbusters. must be like sex no such thing as to old

[Larry Gibson]

I've shot a lot of older ammo that dated back into the '20s when testing pressures of 7x57, '06, 7.72x54R and 8x57 milsurp ammo but won't do it any more. I now pull the bullets and powder and load them into WW or Norma cases which gives a very close psi measurement to the original cases.

I've been shooting the Turk 8x57 from the late '30s without problems the last 10 years but have down loaded most of it. The problem with older cases is that it does get brittle, especially if not annealed correctly at manufacture. That is what I have found with most all of the milsurp earlier than '35 or so. I even had some old Rem-UMC 8x57 ammo that gave serious problems. The cases, on firing, split from in front of the extractor groove through the web releasing gas into the action. I quit firing those after 2 shots (not smart enough to quit on the 1st).

That's where I "draw the line", at around 1940 or so. Even then I would not fire the original primers (corrosive) if they are there. I would also anneal the case necks if I planned on more than 1 firing. If the cases are berdan primed and reliably fire I would use a very light cast bullet load but would test a few f them first to ensure that the cases do not split in the case web or body area. Split necks don't hurt anything with such light loads.

Larry Gibson

[felix]

must be like sex no such thing as to old

Yep, you are lucky indeed to have your normal hormone production continue unabated. For the rest us old foggies, one of these days the doc will have the ability to run a total hormone checkout and the means to make fine tune carburator tweaks for all of them according to your body's needs as been pretermined as excellent years earlier by previous scans. ... felix

[Char-Gar]

I have some FA 01 to 04 30 US (30-40) cases still in service with light cast bullet loads. I have hundreds of 1920's commercial WRA 30 US still in service.

[nicholst55]

I recall reading in Hatcher's Notebook that a lot of the WWI-surplus .30-'06 ammo was beginning to split at the necks - some without being fired, by the time WWII came along (or before). That was one reason that the Mr. Garand's new-fangled self-loading rifle had to be a .30-06 - the one billion rounds of WWI surplus ammo on hand at the time!

I've stumbled across a few rounds of pre-war .30-'06 ammo that I thought nothing of shooting at the time (early '80s). I wouldn't shoot it now, both for safety's sake, and the collectability of the stuff.

[JeffinNZ]

I am using Canuck DI-Z .303 boxer brass of 1943 vintage. BETTER than the modern stuff.

[beagle]

I've shot loads of 1917 vintage .45 ACP in 20 round boxes back a few years in a M1917 Colt. The cases in some cases had neck splits but annealed, I think they would have gone another couple of times. That stuff was corrosive as all get out and I stopped messing with it as I had better stuff./beagle

[desi23]

I've reloaded a lot of really old brass, some 30-40 krag dated to 1901 and a bunch of old UMC 7mm mauser. Most of it came to me as loaded rounds which I pulled down, cleaned and annealed the case necks and installed new primers. Fired brass got a careful inspection, cleaned and annealed (some of it had been loaded before). It's worked ok but a careful inspection is always in order and "if in doubt, throw it out" or at least in the recycle bin!

[MtGun44]

I shot hundreds of rounds of 190X vintage UMC 7x57 in a rolling block in the 1960s. Still have
the brass but it is mostly retired, but sometimes is used for light loads now days.
Occasionally get a neck split and may ty to anneal it one day.

Bill

[Frank46]

I have some WWII '06 that occasionally gets fired, also some Israeli 8mm dated 1955 and some IVI canadian brass in 303 but can't remember the dates. Plus some FA50 7.62x51 brass. I will say that some match shooters prefer the '06 match made brass made in the '60's I know it shoots well in the garand and springfield. The early M118 7.62 match brass seems to be good stuff as well. Place I got the M72 match ammo always had plenty but the M118 stuff was hard to get. Still thing I have about
20 boxes loaded M72 somewhere. I did buy a bunch of surplus pulled down '06 match brass made in 1967 and I get good case life with it. Hi-Teckammo still sells it when available. Frank

[Harter66]

I shot about 150 of LC 42 about 15 years ago . Some of those cases have 15+ full power cycles with just an anneal and a trim. Today I might balk at pre-40 loaded ammo but can't see any issue with preped annealed pulls or even fired for that matter.

Use your best judgement as the OSHA guy said there's no good comon sense just uncommon good sense, use it!

[KCSO]

In researching 45-70 B/P loads i loaded and shot a lot of FA 82 to FA 92 brass and I still have some of it. None of it that was unfired when I got it split cracked or failed in any way. I did anneal the brass before reloading it and some of the cases were fired 5 times each. BUT cases that had been fired and not properly cleaned seperated near the base and were discarded as the mecuric priming ruined the cases.

[gnoahhh]

Very early .30/40 (and some '03 and '06) ammo was loaded with mercuric primers which are pure poison to brass causing the grain structure of the brass to crystallize. It was also the source of rapid throat erosion in a lot of rifles. When the Ordnance dept. realized that the mercury in the primers was to blame, they switched to a chlorate compound. That primer was known as the FA-70 primer (from Frankford Arsenal) and was by all accounts a very reliable/uniform primer (though corrosive in it's own right) and was used for all U.S. small arms ammo up until 1952 or so. Cases fired with that primer were/are quite safe to re-use. Interesting side note: all U.S. .30 Carbine ammo from day one was loaded with a non-corrosive small rifle primer (and ball powder). German WWII 8x57 ammo was loaded with non-corrosive primers but the typical steel cases don't lend themselves to trouble-free reloading. Foreign (non-German) 8x57's were universally loaded with corrosive primers.

I heard that the reason so many WWI '06 case necks split was that they short-cutted the case neck annealing process to speed up production.

Anyone shooting up 70-100 year old U.S. military ammo should rethink what they're doing from a fiscal standpoint (the stuff is mighty collectible), not necessarily from a safety standpoint. That said, I wish I had back all of the old stuff I blithely shot away back in the 60's and 70's. A case (20 boxes as I recall) of 1927 National Match M1 Ball ammo comes to mind!

[jonk]

I found a bag of about 800 30-06 cases sporting original unfired primers in an antique store. Guy had pulled half of the bullets and reformed to 8mm with a rough trim, other half was still 06.

These dated from 1904 at the early end (making it a 30-03) to 1942 at the LATE end.

The original primers all fired fine.

I still use the brass. I have lost maybe 10 percent in 10 years of shooting to natural attrition.

If original loaded ammo I wouldn't shoot it but considering it was pulled down and half already chopped, I had no historical qualms about shooting it. In fact, I used some of it that had been reformed to 8mm brass to take to camp perry this year- got a silver medal with it too. Most of what I took was original 32 National Match brass. Remember it still had the original primer when i got it......so it got to Perry after all, just 78 years late!

[bowhunter]

I have remington umc brass in 30-06 that i have reloaded many times. I got it about 25 years ago and it was old then, a lot of deer have fell to that old brass. Every now and then i get a split case from fatigue but modern brass will do that two when loaded a lot of times.

[leadman]

I fired a bunch of 7.65 Arg. mauser ammo that was very old, can't recall the exact date. Also fired a bunch of the Austrian Steyr 8mm ammo that had Nazi markings on it, was dated 1938 IIRC.

All shot fine, but the Steyr ammo had a brutal recoil, was firing off the hood of my truck and it would lift me right up.

[Crash_Corrigan]

My Grandpa stole a lot of munitions and weapons during the war. This was discovered on Thanksgiving weekend '57. We were having breakfast in the large kitchin when a string of loud gun report blasted us out the door to seek the gunman.

Twol hundred feet away, in the delapidated Duck House we found Grandpa and his still smoking BAR. He had fired a full magazine full at a hapless herd of deer. Eight we PRT. We followed a blood trail and found numbers 9 and 10. They were alive but gravely wounded. We put them out of their misery.

We spent the next two days gutting and cleaning and butchering those 10 deer. We worked in shift of 3 at a time and got it done by early Sunday afternoon. Then the Spanish Inquisition took place with Grandpa as the suspect. My Mom and her two younger sisters tore him a new one that afternoon. We soon found ourselves in the basement (hand dug) and Grandpa unlocked one of three cold storage rooms that had been dug out from under the house. Each room was 20' x 15' and had a steel door with a monster lock from the old days. The key weighed almost a pound. He opened the door and we were all very surprised at all the illegal stolen that were neatly stacked up to the ceiling and you could not fit a 10 lbs bag of sugar into that room. It was packed solid.

14 Bazookas, cases of bazooka ammo. Cases of M-1's, Carbines, Thompsons, Reislings, .45 ACP pistols and trench shotguns all packed in waxed paper with straw and 12 in a case. The Garands came in cosmoline and that paper and all were new. Never fired. Ditto for the rest. The other two rooms had crates and crates of ammo and grenades. I pilfered two cases of grenades for fishing and about a dozen crates of 30-06 Ball ammo packed in crates, steel ammo boxes each held 4 bandoliers of ammo in clips and six pouches on each bandolier. Ergo each bandolier would transport 48 rounds of hard hitting and accurate ball ammo for his M-1. I also grabbed a case of M-1's by taking only one rifle from the bottom of the case. The missing weapons would not be discovered until the guns were disposed of.

Over the ensuing Winter, Spring and Summer all the ammo and weapons were gone. I think they kept a case of .45's and some ammo. That year we had an expensive outdoor pool installed and bought a new Ford tractor. They also got a color tv and one of them towers for you TV and our reception improved maybe 200%. This was followed by a kitchin rennovation, new appliances and a dishwasher. Micro waves had not yet been invented. We are talking here about 1958 when I was 15.

Anyway I dragged those Garands around all over the country since 1957. If I get desperate for money I just sell one off and I have been getting very good money for them recently.. Everbody like them but only a few really appreciate them like I do.

I still have a lifetime supply of Garand ammo all of it made in '42 and '43. Grandpa had been fired in late '43 for taking book on the job. In the meantime his middle daugher became a cop and eventually retired as a First Grade Detective in the late 70"s. Her husband also retired from the NYCPD, he had been a Sergeant. The youngest daughter married a returning veteran of WWII who had been shot down over Poesti and his B-24 got shot out of the sky. He then survived two years in a POW camp. HE was a healthy 6-1 and 230 when he joined the army. When he got home to the states he weighed less than 90 pounds. It took him over a year to get back to 220 lbs. He ended up having a coronary whilst driving and he drove the car to the right up onto the grass. He turned off the motor and lights and quietly and alone died. He only passed in '76 but that was well before his time. I cannot help but believe that the stress of the POW camp and the bad food and other miserable conditions that he had to endure until his release had taken years of healthy life away from him. His wife survived another 43 years after his passing.

I have been shooting that old military ball ammo from '42 and '43 without any issues. I have a ton of saved brass and many crates of ammo for the years to come. I have reloaded some rounds with my cast boolits and I have experimented with paper patching for the Garand along with a bag full of reloading changes from boolits to power etc in order to find a good loading.

The Garand is a fine weapon the only real issue is the lousy two stage military trigger on it. I would love to be able to do a trigger job on this rifle...........

[Mooseman]

That just brings Tears to my eyes....

[Bert2368]

Reminds me of "the box car".

http://www.thepriceofliberty.org/08/08/11/absolved.htm