Shelf life on loaded ammo

[Tlewis81]

Is the powder gonna be bad if u load up a lot and store it ? Or better to load it up as u go....more concerned with rifle ammo since i got a great deal on 8lb of powder

[rebs]

I just fired some rounds that I loaded back in the mid seventies and they were fine. Shot without a problem and still very accurate.

[lamarw]

^^^^ Exactly

I even have shotgun shell from the Mid-70's that are still fine.

Especially if the round or shells are stored in a temperature controlled environment like your home.

If you are going to only live another hundred years, you should be good to go with the loads you roll this weekend.

[Dufus]

I agree with all that.

Two years ago I shot 2 deer, a hog and a turkey with ammo that I loaded in 1976. One shot one kill on each of them.

I normally don't keep it that long but was invited last minute and ran across that stuff when digging through the stash and decided to use it. Glad I did.

[schmellba99]

Generally speaking, as long as your store your ammo in good conditions (indoors, relatively constant humidity and temperature, not exposed to any chemicals that could degrade the ammo, etc.) it should last a long time.

That being said, it's not uncommon for powder to go bad either. Odds are not all that high that it will, but there are documented cases where everything was done right in terms of making and storing the ammo, but the powder simply began to degrade and went bad.

There are a couple of posters on here that are much more knowledgeable, and one or two it seems that think you should shoot everything you load within a 5 or 6 month window so that your ammo doesn't go bad. I personally think that is a bit excessive as I'm like the others - I've shot ammo that was 30+ years old without any detrimental effects on my equipment or myself and without any noticeable issues with the ammo.

[Unclenick]

In 1993 I bought a crate of 1982 manufactured (by Sellier & Bellot) 308 147 grain FMJ ammo to haul off to Gunsite for a class because it was Berdan primed and cheap and I wouldn't have to worry about recovering the brass after an exercise. About one in ten barely cleared the muzzle. Others seemed to shoot OK. Accuracy was abominable. Fortunately, I'd also shipped a bunch of handloaded match ammo to use when it counted most, and with that, was able to wind the shoot-off at the end of class.

After shipping the remains of the lot home, I pulled them down. Many were poorly sealed and I good wiggle the bullets. The stick powder looked fine in some and in others looked oily and stuck together and wouldn't pour out of the cases. Presumably it was a double-base powder that had lost some of its nitroglycerin to the surface as the nitrocellulose broke down.

Read the current thread on powder storage for more information.

[1100 tac]

I recently found a few 357 target loads that I loaded in the mid 70's, shot fine.

[Shooter2675]

I have shot some 30-30 ammo from the 80s with no problem. The price was incredible, I cannot remember the exact price, but I think if I saw some for that price I would buy all the store had. I have also fired some surplus 7.62x54r from the 1960s/1970s, and I've seen guys shoot ammo from the 1950s, sometimes with hang fires, but that is normally because of the crappy ammo quality.

[Ole Joe Clark]

Shot some .243's recently that I had loaded in the mid seventy's, (last century) that shot good and were more accurate than I can hold.



Have a blessed day,

Leon

[mikld]

As the consensuses seems to be; nomrally stored reloads will last decades. The oldest reloads I have are some .44 Magnums w/Unique loaded in '96. Still shooters. If the components, primers and powder are not corrosive, they should last as long as the brass cases...

Mostly, my reloads rarely get over a year old or the max. is usually no more than two, but I occasionally ferget some reloads...

[45YearsShooting]

People are still shooting WWII ammo. I heard that some civil war muskets that were found loaded still fired.

[T. O'Heir]

Shelf life on any loaded ammo depends entirely on how it's stored. Cool and dry with constant temperature and humidity levels being best.
Only primers can be corrosive. Powder is not.

[F. Guffey]

I do not load that far ahead. I have pulled down 450 belted cases in 7mm Remington Mag and 257 Weatherby during the last year. I did not load the ammo. A wild guess would indicate 10% of the 450 rounds would not fire because of caked powder and corrosion between the bullet and case neck.

Before I shoot any ammo I shake the case to determine if the powder is loose. In the big inning I shot cheap 8mm57 ammo. Too many of the cases had a condition called delay fire meaning some it it did not fire after hitting the primer for as long as 10 seconds. I find nothing entertaining about chambering a round and pulling the trigger without knowing what is about to happen.

F. Guffey

[spacecoast]

I found a nearly full can of 2400 from the early 1950s, used it and the rounds shot just fine.

[Unclenick]

Originally Posted by 45YearsShooting

People are still shooting WWII ammo. I heard that some civil war muskets that were found loaded still fired.

Black powder is a whole different animal. It can, indeed, last indefinitely if properly stored. Smokeless can't, though.

I know of someone who has fired late 1920's M1 Ball successfully. I also know of someone who burst a Garand firing military ammo made between WWII and Korea. Once the ammo gets very old, it's a crap-shoot. The biggest wild card is temperature variation in storage. A fair amount is known about deterioration at fixed temperatures, but if the storage temperature varies a good deal, that accelerates breakdown.

So, when you buy surplus ammo, do you know how it has been stored; always?

Board member Slamfire has accumulated a lot of information on this topic. He has documentation of Navy tests in which ball powder broke down by destroying its deterrents, first and foremost, resulting in powder with a faster burn rate. If he sees this thread, I'm sure he can contribute to it.

I own a lot of surplus ammo I bought long ago, in addition to that bad lot described in my last post. Some Portuguese 7.62 and some old M118. Both seem to shoot very "hot" compared to other ammunition, so I've started pulling them down and replacing the powder rather than shoot the original loads. It just isn't worth it.

Incidentally, I communicated with S&B long ago about that lot I described in my previous post to try to get more information about it based on its lot number. But they said all records from the "iron curtain days" were warehoused in paper form and not accessible, so they had no way to find out what the deal with it was. They told me that back then they were ordered to make whatever a customer asked for if the quantity was large enough, so it could have been anything. These turned out to have corrosive primers, something that S&B never even catalogued.

[kerreckt]

I shot about 100 rounds of 45acp loaded in 1918. This was about 10 years ago. No failures. I still have about 300 rounds still in original boxes.

[Average Joe]

That ammo will outlive you.

[Jim243]

^^^^^ An't that true. I only started reloading 12 years ago, ask this again in 30 years from now when I am 102, I will then be able to answer you, MAYBE!!

LOL, stay safe.
Jim

[polyphemus]

A couple years ago I shot one hundred WW2.45 AUTO never gave it a thought.
Just like butter.

[Shimpy]

I just fired some rounds that I loaded back in the mid seventies and they were fine. Shot without a problem and still very accurate.

Yep, me too. I have 44 mag loaded in 1973 and they shoot just like they did over 40 years ago.

[Slamfire]

I can see how myths in the shooting community have been occurred due to the lack of technical knowledge in the shooting community . The primary problem is most of the information the shooting community receives is from the popular print press. And gunwriters, unfortunately, have the tallest pulpit, and yet are the most ignorant of creatures. There are no educational or background requirements to be a Gunwriter. The most educated had Journalism degrees, most are simply men who carried a gun on their hip and killed things for a living. The greater the death toll, the higher their credibility within the shooting community. It is a simple matter for Gunwriters to philosophize on issues great and small about which, they are totally clueless and have no understanding , because none of them have an education or background in chemistry or physics. Each Gunwriter can add his favorite embellishment to the story, and in the process, intentionally or otherwise, the community of Gunwriters build an entirely false narrative around the fantastical worlds they weave in print. Over time, many of their falsehoods, repeated and reprinted ad infinitum, morph into “physical fact” for the shooting community. Their stories acquire a life of their own and become part of the popular culture; their factual foundation is no longer questioned, much less critically evaluated.

First of all, understand that gunpowder has a shelf life. This is contrary to expectations of shooters who assume that they and their hoard of ammunition will last forever, but unfortunately, all things come to an end. Gunpowder is a high energy compound that is breaking down to a low energy compound. Gunpowder is breaking down from the day it leaves the factory. Our gunpowders are either nitrocellulose or nitrocellulose & nitroglycerine. The nitroglycerine is there basically for the energy boast. Because nitroglycerine attacks the double bonds on nitrocellulose the lifetime of double based powders is less than half that of single based. Stabilizers are mixed with the nitrocellulose/nitroglycerine as a sacrificial compound: stabilizers soak up the nitric acid gas that is created when nitrocellulose deteriorates. When the stabilizer gets low , gunpowder is extremely unstable and unsafe. In quantity it will auto combust and the burn rate is irregular. Burn rate instability has and will blow up firearms.

A good rule of thumb is that single base powders will last 45 years and double based 20 years. Like all rules of thumb this is wrong more often than it is right.


Federal says their ammunition has a ten year shelf life:

Federal Ammunition :

http://www.federalpremium.com/company/faq.aspx

What is the shelf life of ammo and storage?
Store reloading components and ammunition in a cool, dry place, protected from direct exposure to sunlight. If stored properly there is a 10-year shelf life on loaded ammunition.

If you think this is BS, buy Vista Outdoors, and warrant your ammunition for as long as you want. This will probably cost you around $1 Billion, and if you had $1 Billion in pocket change rolling around, you probably can afford advisors who would tell you what a stupid thing you were doing.

Gunpowder only gets worse with age. Some of it goes bad in less than a decade:



I have written extensively on the lifetime of gunpowder, and let me say, the short version, is that it is very unpredictable, but it is not infinite.

Saw an interesting CETME malfunction at the range today
http://thefiringline.com/forums/show...08#post6234108
August 1993 reloads. Anyone shooting older.
http://thefiringline.com/forums/show...23#post6146123

Pulling some 30.06 M2 1940
http://thefiringline.com/forums/show...61#post5443961
How long will smokeless powder keep?

http://thefiringline.com/forums/show...1&postcount=26

Loading gunpowder in the case in some attempt to make it last longer is based on fallicious ideas and will cause more expense in the long run. I think it is better not to load cases with gunpowder and have them sit on the shelf for years or decades, because when the gunpowder goes bad, and it will, it will ruin the case. Gunpowder outgasses nitric acid gas and that will attack your brass.

This was loaded in Nov 2002 with surplus AA2520 and fired in 2015, almost all of the cases loaded experienced case neck separations or cracks.



Deteriorating gunpowder caused malfunctions in my Garand. The previous case ejected but left the case neck in the chamber. The next round ran into the case neck left in the chamber.



This is ammunition I loaded about 10 years ago with mid nineties N140. Lots of cracks in the cases due to nitric acid gas attacking the brass.




You will read posts by shooters who believe that unsealed gunpowder won't go bad. This is false. Gunpowder is deteriorating in the case or can whether or not the seal is broken or the bullet removed. Refreshing the humidity in the case or can is probably not the best, after all, water is polar covalent and attacks gunpowder, but still I think it is best practice to sniff your gunpowder hoard, and sniff at least every year. You want to detect the point at which the gunpowder goes from that nice ether smell to a neutral smell. And you want to detect the bitter smell of red nitric acid gas. You want to inspect your stocks for deterioration. You should shoot up your gunpowder, shoot it up before it is decades old, and shoot up the oldest stuff first. You do not want to have gunpowder in your house that fumes red nitric acid gas, and then, autocombusts and burns your house down!




Old Powder Caused Fire!

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=788841
________________________________________

First, sorry for the long post. Second, if I didn't know the people this happened to I would have a hard time believing this, I'd probably call this BS. I hunt at a property owned by someone I used to work with. All I have is his email address. I have been trying to contact him for several weeks via email. He lives over an hour a way and I hadn't tried to catch him at home yet. I finally got hold of him the other day. He apologized for not getting back to me sooner, but he had a house fire and had been dealing with that since the beginning of the month.

I drove there today. There was a trailer set up for his family to live in while the house gets restored. His wife was there when I got there. I asked her what happened. I couldn't believe her answer. Apparently my friends brother gave him about 15 pounds of gun powder for reloading about 10-15 years ago. It never got used. Sorry, I don't know what kind of powder it was. Their daughter just got out of the shower in the room next to where this powder was stored. She heard a WOOOOSH sound and came out of the bathroom to find the place in flames. It started where the old powder was stored.

Luckily, they were able to keep the fire down for a few minutes with an extinguisher and the fire dept responded in about 5, but there was some serious damage. I saw the spot where the powder was kept and the floor all around it charred, the rest of the place sustained heat and smoke damage. They were lucky they were home and someone got on this almost immediately or the place would have been a total loss. The BIL had some more of this powder at his home, he dumped it outside and lit it off. I'm sure he didn't know it would have made good fertilizer.

There was no other suspected cause of this fire than spontaneous combustion of this old gun powder. Has anyone heard of old un-stable gun powder just going up like this? I've got probably 20 pounds of powder in the next room and I'm sure many of you have more than that. After hearing this, I'm going to make sure it all gets used or at least smelled now and again if it sits for a few years. Green grass beats a burned home!

[F. Guffey]

And for about the fifth time I have had powder heat up in plastic containers. All of it came in cheap milk looking containers that were never designed to survive heat and atmosphere pressure changes. The heat and pressure change fatigued the containers.

F. Guffey