Changing out your carry ammo

[Marshal Tom]

When in LE, I always advocated changing out our carry ammo twice a year. We used to shoot it up during qualifications and then issue new. Due to the ammo shortage and current costs, I have not been doing this with my carry stuff. for instance, I have had the same SB Gold Dot .38's in my M&P 340 and the speed strips for several years!!! I think if would be OK but it does make me nervous! Same deal with the 147gr HST's in all my .9mm carry guns. What do the rest of you do?

 

[minconrevo]

My usual rule of thumb is change out every 12 months. Don't always do that; it has always performed normally when shot in practice. I am more concerned about ammo carried in a hot environment, such as a vehicle. Even it has also performed normally when shot up in practice.

 

[lkabug]

I tend to switch out every 6 months by shooting at the range. But these days I make sure I have fresh replacements on the shelf. Doesn't make sense to replace year old ammo in my carry gun with year old ammo from the shelf.

 

[hyena]

I don't even keep track of it, or worry about it. I have yet to have a cartridge fail to fire due to age.

 

[bigwheelzip]

My semi-auto EDC gets only the chambered hollow-point round fired when I target practice, to avoid re-chambering pushback.
I'll occasionally empty the ammo in the gun's magazine, and wipe off verdigris oxidation from the rounds.

Sent from my motorola one 5G using Tapatalk

 

[heeter3]

Like you Marshal tom I always changed my duty and backup rounds every six months when otj.So as a matter of habit and training about every 6 months I shoot what's in my gun and in my speedloaders or strips 18 rounds total (even though I carry a couple or three of 5 shots in my rotation).I too however have never had a factory round fail no matter how old they may be.

 

[Lowa]

I can't even find my SD ammo at stores. I guess it's fine if you are using sub-par stuff. I use 357 barnes vortex. Anything else just doesn't cut it from a snub

 

[max]

I don't worry about it.

 

[paladin42]

I learned two things from Massad Ayoob when I took his training courses...

1) the powder in the cases will become finer and finer because of the movement when carrying. Because the powder has a finer granularity, it probably will not shoot to the same point of aim as it did before.

2) many people will clean their handguns by spraying WD-40 on it and then wiping it off. Some even spray the cartridges in the weapon. WD-40 will kill primers.

 

[white cloud]

I had a speed loader of .38 WW FBI loads in my glove compartment for years. It gets pretty hot here. I decided to do a science experiment one day and shot this ammo. It worked great so I don't worry about this much. If I carried an autoloader I might worry more.

 

[Valmet]

I tend to change out mine every six months or so. Over the years I’ve gleaned that it seems to be the norm.

 

[AlHunt]

1) the powder in the cases will become finer and finer because of the movement when carrying. Because the powder has a finer granularity, it probably will not shoot to the same point of aim as it did before.

Very good food for thought about the powder. At SD distances it probably wouldn't matter about POA vs POI but now I wonder about the burn rate changing due to any retardant coating being scuffed off. I wonder if it might cause pressure spikes?

Imagine a healthy charge of something similar to Blue Dot or H110 burning at a rate like Bullseye.

Here I was thinking "What, me worry?"

 

[sigp220.45]

I had a speed loader of .38 WW FBI loads in my glove compartment for years. It gets pretty hot here. I decided to do a science experiment one day and shot this ammo. It worked great so I don't worry about this much. If I carried an autoloader I might worry more.

There used to be an FBI requirement that every Bu-car had to have a 50 round box of ammo in the glove compartment. It was an inspection item, so before every inspection some poor sap had to gather everybody’s keys and check, and then initial and date the box.

One year I had a great idea and volunteered to be the poor sap to check the boxes. Then I went to the PFI and told him I was supposed to replace all the car ammo with fresh. He probably knew what was up, but gave me a hand truck and 150 boxes of 9mm and .38 Special.

At that time in my so-called career I was still burdened with a remnant of ethics so I didn’t just keep the new ammo. I swapped it out and waited for a call to return the old stuff, which never came.

Over the years I shot up all that ammo, some of which was dated back 10 years. It had been in cars in blazing heat and frigid cold. It all worked fine.

I generally shoot whatever is in my carry gun if I have more in my range bag. If not, I don’t worry about it.

 

[Old cop]

We were issued fresh carry ammo annually during my career & I’ve kept to that since retirement, until recently. It’s difficult to find any .38 so my stuff is about two years old. When I cleaned out my locker in ‘97 there was a lot of .38 that’d been there for years & every round fired w/o a problem. Same w/some of the .40 I’d acquired.

 

[jeffrefrig]

I'm just glad you guys were in a position where you had to change out your ammo every year. You didn't need to use your gun while on duty, which kinda means that I didn't do something stupid to give you a reason to shoot me. If you didn't ever have to shoot anybody I'd say you had a good career. Unless you're like that Tackleburry gun nut from the Police Academy movies!

 

[STORMINORMAN]

Well, for a while Budweiser had an ad campaign touting the "Born on Date"...

Of course their delivery drivers were already tasked with insuring that retailer stock was within their normal expiration parameters, but it got customers to actually read the dates on the cans... They calls it creating BRAND AWARENESS, grasshopper!

If the ammunition manufacturers were really concerned with anything beside lot numbers, there would be another page of WARNINGs about expiration dates, storage concerns and the like in every box. And the ads: just imagine how the ads would need to be constructed?

The concept of shooting your regular carry ammunition and replacing it with fresh upon a schedule (or even just "occasionally"?) surely makes sense to me... Other than 22s I can only remember a few actual factory DUDS in the last decade, and neither seemed to be anything other than a dud primer. After I took them apart. Both fired normally when the primer was replaced.

Is there an anecdotal disastrous episode or experience out there...? Of course.

Cheers!

 

[Racer X]

Just something to ponder. Think of the pallets of ammo cans sitting outside, in the sun, over in the Middle East for months or years before they get fired. I've been involved in testing weapons systems where we heat soak "items" for hours at 165F, or chill them down to -60F for hours, then make them go "bang" while still hot or cold.

Propellant designed for certain storage parameters gets tested under those conditions.

If those 5.56 rounds work after months in Saudi Arabia, in the sun, on the tarmac, and it still works, our glove box in a sealed vehicle on a hot day is about the same. Why would it be any different?

 

[CB3]

Forum member Rastoff (who seems to be MIA for a while) made a great suggestion that I follow. When I go to the range, I shoot the top two rounds in my carry magazine(s). I then put that expensive self defense ammo back in my range bag. To go home I load my spare mag in the gun. At home, I empty the carry mag, put two new rounds in the bottom, and load up again.

I shoot monthly so my carry ammo gets changed at least annually. My storage conditions at home are a lot more favorable to preserving ammo than what happens to the ammo I EDC, so even though the newly loaded ammo may be as old as what’s in the gun, the “fresh” ammo contributes to an overall sense of greater confidence.

If I didn’t have a sufficient stock of carry ammo, I wouldn’t worry. Rather than fretting about the ammo aging, I believe cycling the same two top rounds while unloading and loading the gun puts more wear and tear on those rounds, so just rotating self defense ammo in mags can extend service life in the gun quite a bit even without firing.

Revolvers are different, and probably easier on ammo than semi’s. Like others, I have fired ammo that is many decades old without failures. Decent storage conditions and not much movement will usually allow ammo to last decades and still be reliable.

 

[kaaskop49]

In the previous posts, very little has been said about EXAMINING the ammo you're changing out or loading in your gun. In my home, the guy in the mirror recently loaded 6 R-P 125gr JHPs in his HD for the trip home. At home, he discovered one round with the primer loaded sideways. Oh my. Many years before, he loaded a W-W service round w/o checking in his off-duty gun. The top/front of the rim was cut improperly and the gun would have jammed if needed because the round did not seat properly.

You really got to look...

Kaaskop49
Shield #5103

 

[Green Frog]

I guess the old FBI issue (1979 MFG) I keep in my Model 60-4 should be replaced, but dadgum! It works so well and looks so mean!
Then there’s the JHP stuff in 32 S&W L in my little transitional 32 I frame snub…it’s only about 20 years old.
Froggie