Freshening Lake City M2 Ball

[garyjackso]

I just picked up 200 rounds of 1972 Lake City M2 Ball. Should I "break the bullets loose" by seating them a few thousands DEEPER ?

Thanks,


Gary

 

[SonOfGun]

Why? Lake City ammo is crimped. All you will do is peel copper off the bullet.

 

[Ifishsum]

i have fired older M2b than that with no problems whatsoever.

 

[1100 tac]

I agree with SOG, the crimp is an issue, also bullet sealant.

You could try a few groups to see how it does, but I would just shoot 'em.

 

[Unclenick]

That's just old enough that I would pull down five or ten randomly selected rounds to see that the powder is not deteriorating. You probably don't know its lifetime storage conditions. I would also look at and weigh the powder charges. If it is spherical propellant (WC852), and the weight is near 60 grains, it is slow WC852 that was not approved for use in the Garand, but only in machine guns. I've seen a lot of it go through Garands, but you want them in top condition or could bend the op-rods. If the charge of spherical powder is down around 54 grains or below, it is fast WC852 which was approved for the Garand. I've also run into inbetween lots of around 56 grains (LC 77), but they all had machine gun link marks on them and are at least a little hard on the old war horse.

The reason to check for powder deterioration is just age. The military only stockpiles double-base propellants for 20 years before replacing them. 45 years is used for single-base stick powders like 4895. If you have 4895, unless it was stored hot, it should be good to go.

The problem with spherical powders is that as they begin to break down, the deterrent coating is often destroyed first, increasing the burn rate of the powder, so it can raise pressure significantly before later breaking down enough to weaken the charge overall.

 

[Mobuck]

I've heard that trick of re-seating the bullet deeper to "break the seal" repeated several times. There's a possibility of the infamous "swollen shoulder" resulting from this process. Pulling and re-seating the bullets can be time consuming and sometimes damages the bullets. I don't have a good suggestion but if you do seat the bullets deeper, check chamber fit before using for anything beyond casaul target shooting.

 

[Unclenick]

I've done a lot of seal breaking by deeper seating prior to pulling the bullet. That makes the bullet dramatically easier to pull so you can then avoid distorting it any more than crimping already has. Rolling them on a flat surface and watching the crack of light under the side of the bullet vary gives you a pretty good look at just how bad some of them are in terms of crimp distortion.

You also see the mixed lots the bullets. The bases of the bullets below reveal that they weren't made on the same tooling. These all came from the same ammo can, with link marks on the cases.

What I used to do for short range matches is pull M2 down and blend and re-dispense the powder to its original average charge weight more accurately than it was originally done (about a grain of spread), then seat 150 grain Sierra MatchKings in them. With round spherical grains like WC852 has, it's hard to imagine it being possible to dispense with as much variation as they achieved, but they managed it. Most any powder measure you can buy will cut that variation by more than half with that powder.

 

[T. O'Heir]

1972 is not old ammo. The chances of it have issues or giving you any grief are slim. Shoot it.

 

[Unclenick]

I have in my basement the remains of a 1982 case of ammunition made by Sellier & Bellot for a South African contract back in the Iron Curtain days. A third of the cases are corroding through and when you pull the bullets from them, the stick powder inside is all oily in appearance and clumped together and smells acrid. Some of them, though, don't have that issue. All the deteriorating cases are in the right front corner of the wood case. Apparently that was allowed to get very warm for an extended period.

So, while you are right the odds are the ammo is OK, I would not be totally sanguine about it. Pull some randomly selected samples and check. It's cheap insurance.

The ammo is too old for the military, but they are conservative. Board member Slamfire had a post showing a Naval Ordnance experiment with fresh ball ammo. IIRC, it ran just under 50,000 CUP when test fired in a pressure gun. They kept half aside and stored at room temperature, but stored the other half at 140°F for six months. At the end of that time they pulled down half of each lot and swapped powder charges to eliminate the heat aged primers and bullets as factors. In their results, the powder kept at elevated temperature produced over 70,000 CUP pressure, while that kept at room temperature still produced under 50,000 CUP.

Storage history is very important to life expectancy of ammunition.

 

[Slamfire]

There are plenty of blowup reports with ammunition from the 70's, and ammunition made later. The US scraps about $1 Billion a year of old ordnance, which turns out to be hundreds of thousands of tons of old ammunition. Most of the mass scrapped is small arms ammunition, though there are plenty of grenades, missiles, artillery shells. You can read about the quantities of stockpiles, industrial demilling, from the reports at this website:

State Stockpiles

http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/weapons-and-markets/stockpiles/state-stockpiles.html

There is a lot of surplus ammunition that should have been demilled, but fell off the truck, and now is in the hands of the civilian population. We have not been taught that ammunition has a shelf life, infact, we have been taught otherwise, but the stuff has a shelf life, though it is very unpredictable.

A rule of thumb is that double base powder is fine for 20 years, single based 45 years. Storage in conditions over 86 F greatly reduce the lifetime of powder, storage in temps over 100 F to 120 F powder lifetime is reduced from decades into months/weeks.

Remington 700 Overpressure with 20 year old factory ammunition

http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=527519

I'm sighting in my Remington 700 BDL .270 / Nikon 3X9 BDC today, and I decided to rotate old stock ammo. In this case, brand new (20 years ago), 130 grain ammo by a well known US ammunition Company. I bought several boxes of this brand, same lot, back in the early 90's after I discovered how wonderful they worked on woodchucks.

So I'm firing my 2nd round... WHAM! My mild .270 rifle bellows and whacks me in the glasses, odd I thought, as my .270's never kick like that.

The bolt won't open. I mean it is JAMMED. So after 5 min of banging on the bolt with my hand (HARD),it opens Ok, now the bolt draws back hard and the brass feels like its WELDED to the bolt face. I had to use a leatherman tool to pry it out. Rim was damaged, blackened, primer floating around, etc. Bolt appeared ok (Thank the Good Lord for Remington's 3 rings of steel protecting me!), and after switching ammo and using newer stock, the rifle functioned and sighted in 100% perfect. Scared the hell out of me though! This was factory ammo too, not reloads.


Ok, so I called Remington (ammo was early 90's vintage 130 grain Rem bronze point). They only back their ammo for 10 years (expected shelf life according to Remington). Note* I kept this ammo in a cool, dry place, sealed in a US Military ammo can for the past 2 decades. I have ammo from the 50's and 60's that still shoots fine. I guess with gunpowder, it's like rolling dice.

So, I'm glad the rifle is a Remington, as it was strong enough to take the hit without any damage, otherwise it would be my dime (and hide). I had our armorer (LEO), check it out as well. The bolt face appears ok, and I pulled the firing pin, ok as well. Damn strong rifle.

That brass was warped near the rim, I hate to guess what the PSI was, I'm betting well over 80,000 PSI, given how stiff that bolt was to open. If I can get a photo posted, I will. Now I have several boxes of old .270 ammo to dispose of, as I'm not going to shoot it through my cherished 700 BDL anymore. At least the brass is still good and my right hand is still attached to my arm!
Time to go out and stock up on .270's!!!

Picher; Yes, bore was / is like a mirror. The rifle is a MINT early 80's BDL 700. No rust or pitting. She is one sexy rifle, it was love at first sight... The high gloss wood and rich, deep blue steel.... MMmmmmm!!!!

It was close to 90 on Sunday in Maine, and humid. The ammo has been stored correctly, but, after all, it HAS been 20 years or so. I know my knees are not the same as they were 2 decades ago, so I guess I can't expect the ammo to fair any better. It just caught me off guard, as I stock up on (and shoot), old ammo, and NEVER had any issue. I guess I need to rotate my supply more often...

HK Blown up with Brazilian Surplus

http://www.jerzeedevil.com/forums/showthread.php/90285-Gun-Blown-up

Hello gang i was just wondering if any of you guys have ever blown up a gun while shooting. I had the unfortunate luck of blowing up an HK-91 back around 1989. Me and a buddy of mine were buying cases of mil surplus from a company in ohio at the time in 1000 rd. cases. We had gotten a few cases from said company and never had any issues. Well the last case we got from them was from brazil cbc i believe it was. He called me and said he was having jamming issues with this ammo in his sar-48 bush gun. I told him well i'll go out with you and run some through my 91 it'll eat anything. Well the third round out of the 91 "BOOM" pretty scary it was.
I think you can have or get a bad round or lot of ammo with any manufacturer. That being said the ammo that blew my 91 up was military surplus from brazil. Thats the problem with mil surplus its put onto the market because its deemed not worthy of use for the military of said country.
So you get some good some bad you take your chances. But when your setting off small explosions with each trigger pull in your weapon anything can happen at any time with any manufacturers product.
Just be sure to wear eye and e
ar protection and good gloves are'nt a bad idea either. "-CENSORED--CENSORED--CENSORED--CENSORED- HAPPENS" you know, don't you just love that saying.
Be safe and have a great weekend.

http://www.usrifleteams.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=21886
Posted 17 July 2012 - 01:29 PM

'Tailgunner', on 17 Jul 2012 - 13:16, said:

I picked up some surplus ammo a couple of years ago and had a couple of hang fires. The hammer would drop and a second later the rifle would discharge.
After that happened a couple of times, I decided I wasn't going to shoot that stuff any more. So I took the ammo apart, thinking I'd at least salvage the brass. After I'd pulled all of the bullets and dumped the powder, I tried chucking the primed cases in a vice and then hit the primers with a pin punch and a hammer. I found that some of the primers would "pop" but others would just sizzle and smoke. I'm pretty sure those were my hang fires. It was an interesting experiment.

The last surplus ammo I had looked so bad that I never fired any of it. Like you, I took it apart. The powder was clumped together. The base of the bullet was green with corrosion. I decapped all the brass, burned the primers and powder outside when burning rubbish, and sold the brass and bullets to a scrap company. Recouped a very small amount of initial price. That was the last time I got fooled on surplus ammo crap.

My guess is that most of the foreign countries that are selling surplus goods to the USA, don't care much about how they handle or store the items, as long as it gets on the shipping container and they pocket the purchase price, they are happy. Caveat emptor is Latin for "Let the buyer beware." It especially applies to surplus goods that have a shelf life. Where was it stored? How was it stored? What temperature? Subjected to water or salt air? Exposed to a structure fire? How was it transported? Etc. etc...too many unanswered questions. A deal that is too good to be true, usually is too good to be true.

http://www.thehighroad.org/showpost.php?p=7756780&postcount=6

Although it's remotely possible that a defective load (very unlikely if factory ammo) or poorly stored ammo that had deterioated. I had some H450 go bad and an "accuracy" load from a .30/06 w/180gr bullet locked up the bolt and removed case looked like a belted magnum...... but gun was unharmed.... primer was blown however and pitted the bolt face...... I pulled down the rest of the ammo and powder "stunk" like vinegar and inside of cases were turning green from acid corrosion..... Ammo had only been loaded 6mos earlier... and powder looked and smelled "ok" then.

b] HXP at Perry . . .[/b]

http://forums.thecmp.org/showthread.php?t=115939

HXP 77 was the culprit. I won't shoot that stuff. A whole bunch of heavy bolt handle lifts in the 03 matches when it was issued at Perry. I have fired a lot of HXP 70, 72 & 73 with no issues at all, 03's and M1's.

Tombguard, What Ceresco is implying is that while HXP 77 ammo exhibited frequent and sometimes severe issues (excessive bolt lift force, dismounted op rods, duds, hangfires, etc.) there is the concern that other lots will have the same issues but with perhaps lesser frequency. If a manufacturing process doesn't have robust QC practices, more issues are lurking out there like snakes in the grass. I am not saying that you should avoid HXP ammo - I'm just saying that one should be aware that systemically the issues might extend beyond HXP 77 ammo

In the 2007 Perry matches it was '88 dated ammo that gave a lot of 03A3 fits on opening. I keep the saved round I had in rapids beside the silver medal I earned with 29 rounds. Believe me when I tell you it was locking those bolts up TIGHT. (As in roll out of position and beat them open.)

Stiff Bolt Handle on SC 03a3
http://forums.thecmp.org/showthread.php?t=92269&highlight=high+pressure+greek

Took my SC 03a3 to the range a week ago, shooting fairly good groups at 100yds (~2MOA) with unsorted HXP. Had a problem though - occasionally the bolt handle would be VERY difficult to lift open. Never had that before with new production ammo, other sessions with HXP, and never had a problem when dry-firing (snap caps, etc). Didn't break anything evident, and everything APPEARS to function correctly. The brass all looks like I expect (There is some minor pitting in the chamber which shows on the brass, but does not effect extraction), it just felt like I needed a hammer or a crow bar to lift the bolt handle sometimes (but not always). Any ideas as to what is going wrong

Typical HXP problem. It will often be hard to chamber some rounds as well. I had 3 saved rounds in 2006 at the Western Games 1903 match when round 7 could not be extracted from the chamber and no one had a BFH handy. A wooden mallet later helped extract the round. That was in a pristine M1903 Remington with a perfect chamber. All other ammo I feed it functions perfectly. I have a 1903A3 that also has issues with HXP. About 10-20% of some lots are very long in the shoulder. I have a couple rounds that won't chamber in a 1903 at all. It almost looks like I put a No-Go gage in the chamber.

If it is only when you shoot HXP new ammo that is your problem and your answer. It's a problem that has existed with a great many bolt guns since the very first day that CMP began selling HXP ammo and has been much discussed in this forum and others for several years (and see, even today). It was a common complaint among shooters for years at the regional CMP Games and the Nationals when CMP was issuing HXP as the required ammo to use. As I stated before, in 2006, if you walked the line in every relay of the 1903 match you would see shooters having to slap bolts closed and struggle to get bolts open. Many saved rounds in rapid fire were the result and the reason for the many complaints for several years.

I doubt there is a single thing wrong with your rifle or anyone's rifle that is experiencing this problem with HXP in bolt guns. If other ammo feeds and extracts without problems you have the answer already. The long and short of it .....no pun intended....is the ammo, not the rifle. HXP brass is some of the greatest re-loadable brass out there but, it often sucks the first time around through a bolt gun. Nature of the beast.

Chilean 75 kaboom on IMBEL

http://www.falfiles.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=142685

Jeter's right,.....-CENSORED--CENSORED--CENSORED--CENSORED-ty brass. '75 Chilean is notorious for blowing up rifles. This one was freshly built, in spec and headspaced(fortunately not mine). It took approximately 60 rounds to find the 'bad' one. Shooter was relatively unharmed; just a few nicks and cuts. Probably has a world class flinch now. Barrel and bolt looked OK, carrier was not recovered(as in 'no one could find it'). I would not want to be in the way of a carrier that was departing the area at such a speed as to become lost.

*Note* Do not fire Chilean '75.

I wasn't present at the festivities, so I don't have pics of the barrel, etc. I was told by my gunsmith that the barrel was used in the rebuild on another new receiver, as was the bolt, so those parts were undamaged. The extractor was gone of course.

The Chilean '75 has brittle brass that tends to let go, dumping full pressure into the action. I've seen several FALs, HK91's and MG42's destroyed by this ammunition. The picture below(bad as it is)is of a different case,......not the case that destroyed the Imbel pictured above. It did destroy an FAL and I was present at this event. Pretty much the same but without the destruction of the receiver ring; receiver was bulged open at the magwell and the magazine bulged and blown out. Bolt and carrier remained in the rifle, but the topcover was blown off along with the extractor. Again, barrel

 

[F. Guffey]

Freshening Lake City M2 Ball

Not trying to decide but there is a recurring thought, if I pull down the Lake City ammo in neat little bundles of 8 rounds each I would have over 5 pounds of powder. I have absolutely no interest in shooting the ammo because of the armor piercing bullets.

I did pull down 450+ 7mm Remington Mag. and 257 Weatherby Mag rounds. The ammo was loaded between 1971 and 1973. Some of the powder was as good as the day the cases were loaded, I had to dig powder out of other cases, on other cases the color changed. I dumped the powder into one jug and did not separate. No, I have no intent to use the powder.

I have loaded rounds with powder that had a Railway Express shipping date of 1966, I am waiting for the water to recede, to do that it has to quit raining.

F. Guffey