Came across some older (ca. 1983) ammo and was wondering if ammo 'gets old?' Remington 357 and Remington 38 Special +P. They weren't stored any special way, but always indoors. Just curious if there's an expiration date on ammo?

There is no 'rule' as to when ammo is too old.

I shoot a lot milsurp rounds and the old corrosive rounds seem to hold up better than the more modern non-corrosive rounds.

I've shot rounds over 50 years old that shot well and others that were only 30 years old and barely made it out of the barrel.

If you do try these, use caution and make sure that all of the rounds do actually make it out of the barrel.

G'luck.

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" I don't recall, senator."

I just shot up a box of 50 military issue .45 acp's with a headstamp of 1943, worked fine. It depends on how they were stored over the years.

That stuff is new if stored properly.

Thanks. I'll take them out to the range later and see what happens.
S

I buy old ammo whenever I can get it cheap and use it at the range (if it's not collectable). 1983 isn't that old. If the boxes and cartridges look OK, they're probably fine. Pay close attention for squibs and discontinue using it if it's not consistent.

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"I also cook."

Back in the late 1960's an outfit I was working for came across a large amount of 30-40 Krag ammo put up by Winchester for the Spanish-American war. (1890 or thereabouts). We were selling the intact boxes of ammo as collectors items. Before selling the loose stuff from broken boxes as plinking ammo, we test fired about 50 rounds at random. A few case necks split, but it all worked just fine.

Storage of that ammo left a lot to be desired. Cardboard boxes in wooden crates left in warehouses.

I recently shot some .45 Ball ammo that was WWII surplus. It looked ugly but it shot just fine and was fairly accurate too.

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Freedom is never free!!
SWCA #3437

Most American ammo from the major commercial makers and military is practically hermetically sealed. The bullets are sealed with tar-pitch and primers were sealed with lacquer. Peters used to use the term 'OILPROOF' on their boxes. I've fired ammo from the '20s on up. Stuff from 83 should be good for another 100 years.

These threads alway amuse me. We sometimes even have posters who want to know if their carry ammo that's a year old needs to be rotated out.

Others sometimes ask how to safely dispose of it, having heard it may have become unstable.

American produced commercial ammo is good almost indefinately. I kind of hedge on that one because I don't trust ammo made in the 1800s. I certainly wouldn't want anyone shooting at me with it, but when it gets beyond 100 years, and is black powder and maybe mercuric primed, I think it probably should be retired as collectible.

Corrosive primed ammo probably should only be fired by people who know what they're doing. Not because its undependable, but because the gun needs some special care afterwards.

I had a bunch of WWII .45 ammo, still in its original magazines, each wrapped in oil paper. My dad died and left it to me. From the 1980s and into the 1990s I just fired it a few rounds at a time. The ammo functioned flawlessly, and so did the military mags.

In my illspent youth, we owned and shot 8mm Mausers. The guns were cheap, and so was the ammo. We'd been advised by our all knowing elders to never fire any of the stuff with Arabic headstamps, etc. And as ally teens, we ignored the advice and did as we pleased. It wasn't all that old, much of it 20-25 years. It all fired just fine.

I'm a hoarder. From way back. I've still got a bunch of 22s from the 1960s. I don't fire much of it. Its my accuracy standard in my favorite 22 from that same era. It sold originally at a place called Klein's. Its got price stickers still on it, too. Some 66 cents, others 67 and some 69 cents a box of 50. Premium, top shelf stuff, Remington hollow points. Its more accurate in that one rifle than most brand new ammo.

When I was a youngster, I really liked going with my dad when he went shooting. When we were away from my mother, he became kind of liberal with watching me. I was allowed to amuse myself in the dirt, picking up fired and a very occasional loaded round. I remember my favorite was the WW and Xpert ammo with the chrome (probably nickel) cases. It even had some very well formed letters on the rimfire heads. I thought it was cool (today it would be child abuse because of the lead salts from the priming compound, also why I'm so dumb today.) When dad died, I somehow inherited a couple of boxes/remnants. Still got them, and occasionally fire a round or two, just for fun. And when I used to find ammo at yard sales, I bought it. Still good.

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Dick Burg

These threads alway amuse me. We sometimes even have posters who want to know if their carry ammo that's a year old needs to be rotated out.

Others sometimes ask how to safely dispose of it, having heard it may have become unstable.

American produced commercial ammo is good almost indefinately. I kind of hedge on that one because I don't trust ammo made in the 1800s. I certainly wouldn't want anyone shooting at me with it, but when it gets beyond 100 years, and is black powder and maybe mercuric primed, I think it probably should be retired as collectible.

Corrosive primed ammo probably should only be fired by people who know what they're doing. Not because its undependable, but because the gun needs some special care afterwards.

I had a bunch of WWII .45 ammo, still in its original magazines, each wrapped in oil paper. My dad died and left it to me. From the 1980s and into the 1990s I just fired it a few rounds at a time. The ammo functioned flawlessly, and so did the military mags.

In my illspent youth, we owned and shot 8mm Mausers. The guns were cheap, and so was the ammo. We'd been advised by our all knowing elders to never fire any of the stuff with Arabic headstamps, etc. And as all teens, we ignored the advice and did as we pleased. It wasn't all that old, much of it 20-25 years. It all fired just fine.

I'm a hoarder. From way back. I've still got a bunch of 22s from the 1960s. I don't fire much of it. Its my accuracy standard in my favorite 22 from that same era. It sold originally at a place called Klein's. Its got price stickers still on it, too. Some 66 cents, others 67 and some 69 cents a box of 50. Premium, top shelf stuff, Remington hollow points. Its more accurate in that one rifle than most brand new ammo.

When I was a youngster, I really liked going with my dad when he went shooting. When we were away from my mother, he became kind of liberal with watching me. I was allowed to amuse myself in the dirt, picking up fired and a very occasional loaded round. I remember my favorite was the WW and Xpert ammo with the chrome (probably nickel) cases. It even had some very well formed letters on the rimfire heads. I thought it was cool (today it would be child abuse because of the lead salts from the priming compound, also why I'm so dumb today.) When dad died, I somehow inherited a couple of boxes/remnants. Still got them, and occasionally fire a round or two, just for fun. And when I used to find ammo at yard sales, I bought it. Still good.

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Dick Burg

It all worked just fine. I asked because I didn't know, now I do.

I'm beginning to take this thread personally?
I already know I'm "too old", but I do so hate being constantly reminded of the fact!

A lot has to do with how it has been stored. I was once given 1500 rounds of 38 wadcutters that had been stored in a damp basement for 15+ years, going from hot environment to cold environment. Cardboard boxes were damp, mildewed and falling apart. All brass and lead was tarnished. All but about a dozen fired fine. Of that dozen squibs, one stuck in the barrel.

My only caution I would suggest is not to use old poorly stored ammo in any speed drills like double taps. Point is, just in case you get a squib round that sticks in the tube, you don't want to send another one after it.

You are old and you still work?? Right?

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S&WHF 366

Last year we were cleaning out a storage closet at the sheriff's office and found two cases of .38 Special ammo dated 1968. We've been taking it to the department range to practice with (many of the deputies carry J-frames for BUGs) and we've gone through about half a case without any issues at all.

My wife was recently at WallyWorld and as good wives do, was checking on ammo availability. She was engaged in a conversation with the friendly young clerk when an all-knowing nimrod butted in, stating "Well, all these people buying up ammo are nuts - they don't know that it all expires after awhile..."
She had a hard time not laughing in his face......
We still kid about looking on the boxes for an expiration date.

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Ret'd LEO
SWCA #2275

While closing out the estate of my parents this year and the estate of a late aunt and uncle a couple years ago, I came across a pretty wide range of ammunition, most American, the rest European, in a variety of calibers. Uncle Huke had brought most of it home after WWII, but some was old hunting ammo, made here, in the 1930's. My dad brought home smaller quantities from his service in the Navy in the Pacific.

I went to a bit of trouble to clean the cartridges up. They had been stored in open crates of other odds and ends, in unheated garages, winter lows reaching zero frequently at night and daytime highs topping 100 degrees a dozen times each summer. Kept pretty dry and our regular humidity is quite low.

I rounded up rifles and handguns to shoot this hodgepodge of material. I had guns for everything except the 20MM stuff, most mine, some borrowed, some who brought a gun so they could shoot it with my old ammo.

This stuff all pre-dated the end of WWII.

It all fired reliably. Some 8X57 rifle ammo took two strikes from the firing pin to discharge but that was the only problem. Lots of smoke compared to current loadings. They all had plenty of energy to cycle the self-operating weapons.

The largest quantity if ammunition of a single type was USGI .45 ACP ball. They were steel case, from the Evansville Chrysler ammo plant made in 1943. I had several dozens boxes of 50 of those. The cardboard boxes had gotten wet and pretty much disintegrated, leaving the cartrdges corroded to varying degrees.

I tumbled these .45's in hot soapy water to remove the shreded cardboard and it's accompanying mouse turds. I tumbled them in walnut hulls after that. They remained somewhat disclored and a few had some minor pitting.

I shot all the .45 ACP ball ammo in one session, using a mint Remington Rand 1911-A1 a deputy sold me. The ammo all shot and cycled the handgun just fine. I shot each 7 round gunfull into a paper plate at 25 yards and rarely lost one strike off the edge of any plate. Ignition seemed consistent.

When returning a Mauser K-98 to the owner who loaned if for the test, the owner was pleased to hear that all of the 8X57 ammo fired well and with powder. He referred me to a mutual acquaintance who had some even older cartridges for us to test.

A short trip brought us a nice lunch of German bratts and some other Teutonic treats before he produced a very nice Winchester 1917 and a near-mint 1903 Springfield. He then dragged out some 500 .30-06 cartridges, made by various armories, some dating to 1914, but most dated in the early 1920's. Many had been stored in cartridge belts and pockets and had corroded a bit with green crud sprouting all over. I tumbled these in coarse sand until most of the green was gone and then in walnut shells. I discarded about 15 or 18 rounds whose brass looked like too much metal had been eaten away to shoot it safely.

We shot all of the 500 rounds of .30-06 in two afternoons. Every round fired on the first try. Every bullet struck the humanoid portion of the B-27 target we placed at 50, and then 100 yards. There were a few dozen with split case bodies and necks, but no hangfires at all.

I like to shoot the FN-FAL rifle and its variants; at one point, I had 14 of them, plus a CETME, an HK-91 clone and an M-14. So, of course, I shot up a lot of milsurp foreign-made .308 Win/7.62X51ammo. During the late eighties to the early 2000's, importers brought shiplods of it, and other surplus cartridge, into the U.S. I bought Spanish Santa Barbara, British Radway Green, Austrian DAG, Germen MEN, Portuguese FM, Australian, South African in crates of 800 to 1,260 rounds per case. A lot of this was headstamped 30, 35 years earlier than I got it. It came from all over the world and the cartridge crates, plus the cardboard boxes and plastic sleeves they were in, took real beating. Many crates showed extreme weathering. Some had termites get inside the wood crates and then invade the plastic "battle packs" that held 200 rounds in 10 paperboard boxes. This ammo came from all over the world. The packaging showed it had taken a beating and got rained on, snowed on and baked in the sun for 30 or 40 years, and it is just fine, not degraded. It has all fired for me.

The oldest cartridge I shot was a .45 Colt cartridge with a copper case and internal priming (the case shows no hint it has a primer, examined from the outside) filled with black powder. This had to be a late 1880-1890 product. I thought about shooting it in my Schofield First Model, but since I don't know how old black powder could act, I shot it in a borrowed Ruger Redhawk instead!

All this occurred over the last 10 years. Most of the rounds were at least 65 years old. The .30-06 was 91 and 82 years old, while the .45 Colt was probably more than 100 years old. I wish I had tons more of it to shoot.

I also had the experience of carrying handgun and rifle ammo in the trunk of my police vehicle. I kept track of what sidearm each deputy who worked for me carried, and assembled loaded magazines for each. I got enough of the department's issue ammo and filled at least 2 magazines with 9mm Luger, .357 Sig, .40 S&W, 10MM Auto, .45 ACP and a couple of M-16 30 rounders with 5.56. I then used bubble wrap and nylon strapping tape to make a pouch for each magazine. If a deputy was pinned down and running out of ammunition, I hopefully would be able to throw the bubble-rapped magazines to them.

I carried the magazines and my O.C. pepper fogger in a zippered gym bag in the trunk of my Crown Vics or in the cab of my F-150. It was sarcastically labled "PARTY FAVORS."

Those magazines were carried in the trunk of my various Crown Vics and the cab of my F-150 from July, 2003 until July, 2009, when I shot all of them up and drew a supply of fresh cartrides. I chronographed a few of each batch, and they shot as fast as they did before riding around in a cop car for six years, none of the time garaged. Those 90 2.23 rounds shot just fine, as well. Six years of hot, cold and the bashing and vibration up and down Salt Lake County's horrible streets didn't damage them at all.

Black powder MAY degrade with age and become less powerful, but modern 19th and 20th century ammo seems to last as long as we could hope for.

My department still has us use up our old duty rounds during a training session annually and issues us a new ration of fresh ammunition "just in case.'

I really don't think that modern loaded cartridges have a shelf life of much under 100 years, generally, if the storage is at all reasonable.

I've shot .45 ACP ammo from the 70s that worked just fine.

I found out that my DCM 03A3 and TW54 made a good combination. I actually won a club match back in the 60's with that combination. Years later, I got a couple of boxes at a gunshow. After a couple of sighting shots, I put 3 into a group a little over 1/2 inch. (yes Bucky, at 100 yards!). So, not only will that old stuff go bang, it can do pretty well accuracy wise.

I've heard that the only things that will change the properties of modern smokeless powder is high heat over a long period of time and moisture.

Moisture can rarely enter into the inside of a factory sealed cartridge- even those stored in a humid basement for 50+ years will likely be just fine. Unless of course, they happen to be paper shotgun shells.

Heat isn't the normal kind- even being out in an attached garage likely won't change it or even in your car during a hot summer, but if you find cartridges out in a wreck of a car that has been sitting in Death Valley for a time, I probably wouldn't shoot them, as smokeless powder exposed to high heat (150F+?) gets more powerful and unstable over time.

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Lost it all in a boat accident

I inherited some boxes containing miscellaneous old rifle ammunition. Much of the stuff is for calibers I don’t have and will not be getting. One particular lot was 7MM Mauser: headstamp: DWM 1936. I decided to pull a few bullets (bullet is long jacketed soft-point). They pulled very hard, most split the necks, inside is green “stuff” looks like corrosion. It’s not flammable any longer.
But for the rest I have fired lots of old 50’s .45acp, including steel, it all worked as intended. I still have some 1952 .30 cal, some of the first lots after the Military went non-corrosive; it also works exactly as intended.
As Dick says the stuff is sealed tight.

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Ipsis Rebus Dictantitbus

The ol' "cool, dry place" thing is a good guide when it comes to ammo storage. Some stuff from the 80s can be unserviceable if it was kept in a garage in a humid environment, and some from WWI can work fine if it was stored under better conditions.

I'm currently shooting a thousand rounds of old 308 ammo from broken down M-60 belts manufactured in '65, and it works great.

Over the past six years I've been working my way through several thousand rounds of 38 special +P SWC that were manufactured sometime in the seventies. They were stored loose in an old army ammo can that had a good rubber seal and was kept in a closet. Untouched for many years. No issues so far.

I just opened a factory sealed can of Red Dot my dad gave me. This can has to be at least 35 years old but looked like it had just come off the shelf. Loaded up some 38 Special just to see if it would work, started even under minimum and worked up, and they all went bang just fine.

As long as the cartridges aren't green or corroded it's good. Most of my supply is over 20 years old...

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NRA Benefactor Member

Smell old powder. Your nose will tell you if it's good or not.

I was given about 2/3 lb. of old Hercules Unique from circa 1970. If had the sweet solvent smell, but a little mustyness. It was just starting to spoil, but most of it had good color. I loaded a buzzillion .380s with that can of powder and it all shoots great.

Your nose will tell you what's going on.

OK we know that old ammo that has been stored reasonably well will shoot. But what does it do to the guns? Until the early to mid 50's, US military ammo was manufactured with corrosive primers. I don't know when commercial manufacturers dropped corrosive and mecuric primers. Guns have to be cleaned according to the standards of the time period of the ammo, which means, in most cases, washing the bore and action with soap and water. Cleaning with modern solvents will NOT remove the corrosive and mecuric residue and will ruin the bore.

As for powder, I still have some H110 that I bought 35 years ago. I read somewhere that prior to Hodgdon labeling H110 powder as "Newly Manufactured" it bought WWII surplus military powder and repackaged it, so my H110 is probably over 65 years old.