Old Ammo
- Thread starter russp1
- Start date
Old ammo
For what it's worth, US and German made military ammo from the 1930's all seems to shoot like it was made yesterday, given reasonable storage. It might be corrosive but goes bang reliably. I fired tons of cal. 50 in the Army made during WW2 in Viet Nam, and well into the 70's and 80's.
British ammo, particularly .303, I don't care by which British commonwealth country it was loaded, England, Pakistan, India, South Africa, etc it seems like the primers get lazy after 20 years or so. Hangfires are not rare along with the occasional outright dud. (You really do need to wait about 15 seconds to make sure!) Some are less than "click-boom" and you only really notice them when the Vickers gets arrythmia. Radway Green or POF British primers seem to not be as long lived as US or German, no clue why.
For what it's worth, US and German made military ammo from the 1930's all seems to shoot like it was made yesterday, given reasonable storage. It might be corrosive but goes bang reliably. I fired tons of cal. 50 in the Army made during WW2 in Viet Nam, and well into the 70's and 80's.
British ammo, particularly .303, I don't care by which British commonwealth country it was loaded, England, Pakistan, India, South Africa, etc it seems like the primers get lazy after 20 years or so. Hangfires are not rare along with the occasional outright dud. (You really do need to wait about 15 seconds to make sure!) Some are less than "click-boom" and you only really notice them when the Vickers gets arrythmia. Radway Green or POF British primers seem to not be as long lived as US or German, no clue why.
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