Quote:
Originally Posted by Rpg
My uncle obtained the Ford dealership in a southwest colorado town in the late '50's.
While doing some remodeling, he discovered a package in one of the walls.
It contained 2 boxes of 22 short ammo along with the dated (1917) shipping lable from Montgomery Wards to a long deceased resident of the town.
Uncle couldn't resist opening one box of ammo and trying it. Worked just fine.
Last year I sold the ammo and lable, but not untill after I tried a couple rounds from the open box: worked fine.
So the shelf life of 22 ammo is at least 99 years.
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The most common priming composition used prior to the mid-1920s was chlorate-based. Mercury Fulminate primers died out by the turn of the 20th century due to very short shelf life and other problems. The US Military continued to use chlorate primers until the early 1950s (except in .30 Carbine) primarily because it had a long shelf life reliability under all storage conditions, long after almost all US civilian ammunition had switched to lead styphnate priming. But it does rust bores if the gun is not properly cleaned after firing. Properly stored lead styphnate priming is probably as stable as chlorate priming. I have fired lead styphnate-primed ammunition (both rifle and handgun) from the 1930s which was still 100% sure fire.