What do you make of this???

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snowman

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Just was reviewing the FAQ on Federal's website. Here is part of their answer to one of the questions:

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If stored properly there is a 10-year shelf life on loaded ammunition.

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That is a real jaw-dropper. Lots of us have fired ammo several times that old and it performs like new. Anyone have an explanation?

Andy
 
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I have one round of UMC for the .30-40 Krag. It is marked ".30 Govt." It has an enormous amount of lead ahead of the jacket. Probably older than anyone on the forum.
Saving it for Zombie Lenin if he ever gets loose. Expect it to perform well.
Also have some .30-40 Winchester with "round" (convex) primers. Fired a few. Went bang every time.
 
Modern non-corrosive primers do not keep as well as the old corrosive primers. The subject comes up quite often on the milsurp forums.
 
I scrounge old ammo at shows for guns that I only use for fun (range, plinking, pests...). I've picked up quite a bit of commercial .32 acp, .38 S&W & .38 S&W Long over the years and most of it does not have the child safety warning, which makes it pre-1962. I've had a few duds, but the vast majority of it works just fine. A few years ago I bought eighty boxes of commercially reloaded .38 Special wadcutter ($3/box) along with a Model 52. The ammo was contemporary to the gun (early 60's) and I've worked my way through well over half of it without a single misfire.

50 year old ammo wouldn't be my first choice for self-defense, but chances are it will work just fine.
 
To me that would be a shelf in a retail store with temperature and humidity fluctuations, exposed to open air and light. Even then, I think it's a bunch of hokum unless we're talking extreme conditions.

Stored in a dry, cool, and dark environment (especially in sealed containers) it's going to be good for a long, long time.

It's like the late senator Moynihan (notably one of the anti gun 'experts' of his time) saying one time that he was ' an old navy man' and "knew" that stored ammo deteriorated after two years and couldn't be counted on for use. His gun control solution was to attack the availability of ammo thinking that after a few years the presence of the guns would be moot.
And they actually vote for people like that . . .:rolleyes:
 
I've fired hundreds of handloads which I loaded way back in 1988-91 and all of them were fine. Ditto center fire factory ammo from the same period.

Some older rimfire ammo I've tried to shoot had become very inconsistent. Misfires, low velocity, squibs from 1990 Winchester Super-X and Remington Target. I ended up scrapping it.

All the ammo was stored in the same conditions, in sealed GI surplus ammo cans.
 
I think it's probably a lawyer-mandated liability issue.

If they said that ammo would last fifty-sixty years or more. and some poor schlub tried to shoot the bad guy with 40-year-old ammo, and had a misfire, his widow would sue the hell out of 'em.

So they say is good for ten, and if it works for you after fifty, that's just peachy. But if they say it's good for fifty, and it fails after twenty, that's not so peachy.

Kinda like the food on the store shelves. If you found a can of pork-n-beans on your shelf, with an expiration date of 2010 on 'em, would you throw 'em away? If so, why? They are probably still fine.
 
My guess is its a somewhat arbitrary number. Like most use by dates things are still ok after the date but it might not be its best.

Ive got lots of 40 and 50 yo ammo that seems to shoot just fine. Does it shoot like its brand new, I cannot tell the difference.

In a duty gun or a carry piece, maybe a hunting trip would I depend on this old stuff, probably not.
 
I have shot plenty of old ammo with hardily a problem. That dates back to WW1 era, to some hand loads I made in the early 70s and somehow got lost. Found the hand loads when I moved (2004) and decided to shoot them. (Target .38 with semi wad cutter slugs)No problems.

I even autopsied a couple rounds and they looked and smelled no different than current loads. They ALL shot fine, power level was acceptable along with good accuracy. Got many other examples but too lazy to post.
My conclusions

1 it's a lawyer CYA for liability purposes.

2 they want to sell you more ammo.

3 a good chance someone high in government bureaucracy "Recommended" that they say something like that to make people think old ammo was no good!
 
I fired about 200 30-06s headstamped USC Co 18 (U S Cartgridge Company, 1918), and all but two of them went 'Bang'; AFTER I had pulled the bullets, dumped the powder, annealed the cases to prevent neck splits, quenched them in water (!!!), and reloaded with the original powder and bullets.
 
I'm still shooting ammo manufactured just after WWll - works absolutely flawlessly! I'll be hunting Pheasants next week with Shot Shells older than I am (I'm almost 59) :) and my Lake City Arsenal M1 Garand ammo is 50+ years old and is perfect. Unless Federal is doing something to purposely taint their ammo, it too will last much more than 10 years.

Chief38
 
I have factory range ammo that is older than 10 years. It has been stored in dry confines, and consistently fires cleanly and without issue. I especially like using the ammo with the price tags from a decade ago ... it makes shooting much more cost effective.
 
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I've fired a lot of the older stuff with excellent results. In fact I ran across some 35 Winchester shells I reloaded in 1959, still had my Herters label on the carton. Dated & initialled. Loaned the rifle & shells to a buddy for elk hunting[Just got back tonight] All shot fine but no Elk. Heading back there in the AM, Wish me luck.
 
Fishslayer said:
Ummm... they're in the business of selling ammunition? ;)
Click to expand...



Sir,

-I understand that their business has been booming for some time, so that they are consistently behind in filling their orders.

-As I recall they have had considerable success in garnering government contracts for very large amounts of ammunition.

-As far as I know they have a solid reputation for making a quality product.

-As this thread illustrates, people who use ammunition know that the statement I referenced clearly is bogus, by a wide margin.

-Consequently, it would hardly seem necessary to publish what I and other shooters would consider a rather blatant falsehood in order to sustain/increase business.


In light of the above items I don't think my initial question casts a shadow on my level of intelligence, as your post seems to imply. Please pardon me if you didn't intend it that way, but that is the way it struck me(and I hope that I am mistaken).

Regards,
Andy
 
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