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Being a shooter instead of a collector, I fired a box of WWII vintage 38 Special one day, some random person drove up to the range, handed it to me, and left. Every one of the 50 rounds went bang and hit the targets I was shooting at. I did make sure the gun got cleaned well afterwards but ammo has a close to indefinite shelf life if well stored.
I have heard about the lead free primers having more duds after ten years, but I don't load or shoot those. |
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I shot two bricks of Remington 22lr that we're stored in a filling cabnet.
They all went bang but a few I had to check if they made it out of the barrel. Date of purchase was 1980 and I shot them in 2013. If 22 lr can last that long center fire cartridges should last 50+ years. |
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Back when .22 bricks were as rare as Unicorn horns, I stumbled across 2 boxes at my local place. A neckbeard immediately descended upon me with sausage fingers, flannel wings, plumbers crack, greasy hair and smelled of mold and sweat. "Hey buddy.....You buyin dat?" "Well, I was thinking maybe I should, I haven't seen any in at least two years, even though I'm sitting on enough but I shoot a LOT of .22." Well, ya know dere, dat the ammo companies are startin ta load it wit powder dat only lasts two, tree years at most." "In that case, I'll take it. Even if I don't shoot it after hearing such a bullshit story, it will still be worth it  "
That guy gave me a sneer and huffed off 
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Aluminum Styphynate primers ( used instead of lead styphynate or DDNP) have about a 10-15 year “shelf life” allegedly, but I don’t know if it’s been used long enough to make that claim.
The “lead-free” craze started about 15 years ago—I remember it as a selling point of the FN 5.7x28. Aluminum styphynate wasn’t used 20+ years ago, but potassium chlorate was mixed with lead styphynate or mercury fulminate, which is where “corrosive” primers came from. My point is that ammo before WWII was mostly lead styphynate until the “lead-free” craze about 15 years ago. Don’t worry about shelf-life unless your ammo is suffering temperature fluctuations and freezing, or high moisture. |
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Quoted:
Haha, no. Keep it dry, cool, and don't jostle it around like crazy and it will last longer than 10 years, easily. Federal wants to sell more ammo. Now if they mean 10 years in a mag in your carry gun, I'd believe that. But ammo stored in ammo cans with desiccant in a cool closet that doesn't change temperature a bunch.....yeah, I no believe it. |
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Quoted:
Aluminum Styphynate primers ( used instead of lead styphynate or DDNP) have about a 10-15 year “shelf life” allegedly, but I don’t know if it’s been used long enough to make that claim. The 9mm has given me occasional misfires, though I haven't shot any in the last couple of years. Need to try the 5.7, just to see. The 9mm produced a lot of mis-fires with my 9mm AR, even when it was fairly new. Apparently it doesnt like a very healthy strike. |
| That pic sums up the world we live in perfectly. |
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LOL. NaCl ain't pink. "Uncomtaminated"? It's contaminated AF with FeO (ferrous oxide, that's rust to me & you) which is why it's pink.
Great example of government regulation making zero sense. |
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Quoted:
It has. I have some Clinton era 9mm practice ammunition, as well as some 5.7 x 28mm SS195, which, if not 10 years old, is very close. The 9mm has given me occasional misfires, though I haven't shot any in the last couple of years. Need to try the 5.7, just to see. The 9mm produced a lot of mis-fires with my 9mm AR, even when it was fairly new. Apparently it doesnt like a very healthy strike. Quoted:
Quoted:
Aluminum Styphynate primers ( used instead of lead styphynate or DDNP) have about a 10-15 year “shelf life” allegedly, but I don’t know if it’s been used long enough to make that claim. The 9mm has given me occasional misfires, though I haven't shot any in the last couple of years. Need to try the 5.7, just to see. The 9mm produced a lot of mis-fires with my 9mm AR, even when it was fairly new. Apparently it doesnt like a very healthy strike. I didn’t buy much frangible, but I figured if 5.7x28 went the way of the GyroJet, i’d rather have components than not. |
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I've shot 8mm and 7.62x54r that was buried in Budapest or somewhere else in Eastern Europe in the late 40s, dug up and sent to the US out of a Mosin and 98k, they usually go bang, and are just as hot as they should be.
None of 'em ever failed after a second hit. Likewise I've fired .257 Roberts loaded in the 1950s and 7-30 Waters not much younger. No problems there either (less problems than the military stuff TBH). Now the new stuff (the lead free) I'm leary about, and I always shoot the lead free stuff first. |
| I have some 1917 and 1918 headstamped .30-'06. Just for giggles I checked a couple of them to see if they would still shoot. They did fine. The only real issue is that the annealing process of the day left something to be desired and you'll see a neck cracked in one every now and then. As far as I can tell, this ammo was loaded during the Great War, stored for 25 years, and then sent to the Pacific Theater in WWII where my grandfather came to possess it. It came home with him, was tossed in an unheated, un-insulated closet for 60 years, and then was acquired by me. Not exactly ideal storage conditions. |
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Y'all are looking at this the wrong way.
In today's environment, we should be doing everything we can to perpetuate this myth. All the dumbass gun grabbers will be smugly telling themselves that American patriots' ammo supplies will be useless in a decade. Then when CW2 kicks off, surprise cockfags, it's all good to go! 
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I'll just relate this little anecdote and then run and hide. In 2005 I bought some WWB Q3131a (IMI) and it was popping primers every 5th round and it was flattening the F out of those that didn't pop. I returned it to Winchester and they replaced it with WWB .223, because 5.56 was too frightening to send to a scumbag peasant civilian, such as me. I found 500 rounds of the same Q3131a about 3 months ago (same lot), I shot it all and I had no popped primers and the primers all looked normal after firing. It has been stored in my basement since then. What happened? My theory is that the powder lost some of it's oomph.
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Quoted:
Some clown on one of the Pacific islands pulled a case of Jap 7.7 out of a sunken ship and it fired just fine. Don't aske me where I read it but I did read it somewhere. Quoted:
Quoted:
Sure, under water. Don't aske me where I read it but I did read it somewhere. |
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My dad had ammo (.22 shorts) on the shelf in his closet he squirrel hunted with up to 5 or 6 years ago. The had a little sticker on the box that said, "Tennessee 1 cent tax". He bought those in 1965 when we lived in Murfreesboro.
I've shot HXP in my M1 head stamped 1969. I've shot reloads I ran across in my attic that had been up there for just over 25 years and the darn attic is hot as hell in the summer and frosty cold in the winter. All the powder and primers stored up there for 25 years was still good, too. I've used all the primers and most of the powder in the last 8 years (except the WW powder that never performed with the IMR powder when I bought it in the early 80's, still have a partial can of 748 and 760). |
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Quoted:
I'll just relate this little anecdote and then run and hide. In 2005 I bought some WWB Q3131a (IMI) and it was popping primers every 5th round and it was flattening the F out of those that didn't pop. I returned it to Winchester and they replaced it with WWB .223, because 5.56 was too frightening to send to a scumbag peasant civilian, such as me. I found 500 rounds of the same Q3131a about 3 months ago (same lot), I shot it all and I had no popped primers and the primers all looked normal after firing. It has been stored in my basement since then. What happened? My theory is that the powder lost some of it's oomph. |
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Quoted:
Rubbing alcohol.  Quoted:
Quoted:
I've heard of salt having an expiration date. There isn't much that surprises me anymore.
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