How long can ammo last?

It's pretty humid sometimes up at my place, so the brass starts getting cruddy and splotchy within a year. I usually shoot it up by then, so it's a non-issue for me.
 
I've never had good luck with keeping ammo for long periods of time. Somehow it always seems to "go up in smoke" within a few days or weeks at most
Click to expand...

That's been my experience also - just doesn't seem to have any shelf life at all. :rolleyes:

:D
 
I shot some milsurp 45ACP ammo packaged in 1944 from a Springfield XD yesterday and it all fired fine.. so provided conditions are right (not too much humidity, temp changes, etc), I'd say a long time!
 
This is a good time to rehash some advice about storing ammo.

1) Moisture is the enemy, whether it's in the form of humidity or leaking water. The storage environment should be protected from both.

2) Extreme hot and cold is IMHO not as bad as rapid temperature swings because changing temperature causes condensation.

3) Ammo should be kept in a reasonably watertight and airtight container, but not a particularly strong one- you don't want it to turn into a bomb in the event of a fire. :eek:

4) I recommend against cardboard containers unless they're kept in a watertight environment. Cardboard will wick up water and hold it like a sponge. :( The storage area may be indoors, but remember that roofs can leak.

All that said, ammo should last for decades inside an average modern American climate-controlled and leak-free home. :)

However, as other posters have also said, I dispose of my carry ammo and replace it at least once every ~3 months.
 
Back in the mid 1980s a friend and I shot his original .56-56 Spencer carbine with ammo that had been made, as far as we could tell, sometime between 1870 and 1890.

Storage conditions over the years were unknown, but the packaging didn't show any untoward signs of moisture, excess heat, sunlight, etc.

Roughly 70% of the rounds fired, and a few more were hangfires (less than 1 second, I'd say).
 
My father-in-law was a P51 fighter pilot...

...in WWII and told me that the US military routinely used ammo from WWI in the early days of WWII. I think he knew what he was talking about as he was a design engineer for Hornady before his death.
 
Shot ammunition from the 30's and 40's and they went bang everytime.Majority was corrosive so cleaning with soap and water is vital.Only problem i ever had was some Russian made 7.62x54 made in the early 30's.The powder and probaly primers were breaking down and ate through the side of the cases.
 
.50 BMG in Iraq, Afghanistan

From what I'm hearing, in the last couple years our guys have been shooting some .50 call stuff in their MA Deuces that was made WWII and before. That's second-hand, of course, so to be taken with a couple grains of salt. But there is no reason why it couldn't be true, based on known longevity of ammo.
 
I have a friend who tells stories of growing up in Russia in the early 1990s that when they were at their dacha, they would pick up bullets that were left over from the siege of Leningrad out of the plowed fields and toss them into campfires to watch them cook off.

Even after 50 years buried in moist soil that freezes and thaws, if someone were to clean one off and chamber it in a Moisin-Nagant, I'd still rather be standing behind it than in front of it.
 
All of my ammo over the years has performed as advertised. Sat on the self, sometimes for many years, just fine and then in a very brief period of time, the time it takes the firing pin to reach the primer, does not last very long at all!
 
Still firing shot shells and 38 cal ammo from the 1950's. This ammo was stored indoors with no special packing other than the boxes it came in. Works great so far.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top