ammo life?

[cant shoot straight]

if you load up a mag full of home defense load's,naturally because of cost your not going to fire these off the next time you pick up your weapon so how long should you leave them in the mag .without firing them or changing them? kind of a silly question i guess but it wondered thru my head.lol

[ArchAngelCD]

You should have no problem leaving the same ammo in your Mags for 6 months to a year.

Someone I know actually shot a magazine full of .45 Auto ammo that was loaded in the Mag during WWII. All the rounds went bang and the Mag actually fed them all after over 65 years. That's an extreme case but I've hear of that happening many times.

[6904]

if its kept cool and dry.......75 years?

issue is if your constantly changing rounds , as in removing your chamber round over and over, you want to once a month, or week depending on personal preference, place your chamber round at the bottom of the stack. and throw a new round in the chamber, the actual round after racking into the barrel alot can be pushed down into the casing, and cause issues.

every month or so check all of your mag rounds for dings, dents ect in the casings, or corrosion, if it looks bad, toss it to the range bucket and replace.

other than that you should be fine just leaving it in the mag for well forever, i've fired .32 colt rounds that were left in a H&R revolver since 1923 and they went off just fine :-)

[m1gunner]

The only ammo I have seen deteriorate after being loaded for an extend time was buffered 12 gauge buckshot left in a pump magazine (tubular). The constant compression and movement from handling opened the crimp and buffer material littered the inside of the shotgun.

Bottom feeder mags are fine to leave loaded, but discard rounds after several chamberings.

[stantheman86]

I have fired thousands of rounds of 8mm Mauser from the 1930's. All of it went off just fine.

My Dad has a 586 that had LRN .38's that had been loaded in it since the early 90's and I took it in the backyard and fired all 6 of them with no issues.

A guy at the range was shooting blackpowder .45 Long Colt rounds from the 1880's, and all of it went off. BP is more stable than smokeless, in fact I think it gets more volatile with age. I would have thought those rounds were collectible, but he found the 1878 Colt DA with a half box of rounds in his uncle's basement and just fired them.