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Posted: 10/8/2002 5:23:08 PM EDT
| I recently purchased a Bushmaster rifle and am concerned about shooting surplus ammo. I have shot several hundred rounds of South African through the the rifle with no problems. I read in my manual that should I have a Kaboom with this ammo I'm SOL but shooting factory ammo may offer me some protection (ie. they would replace my rifle). Has any one had a rifle explode with factory ammo and did the manufacture replace the rifle as the Bushmaster manual implies? Thanks |
| They also say that you shouldn't shoot Wolf through your rifle either but I have thousands of rounds of it through my Bushmaster. I wouldn't worry about shooting the Surplus ammo. If you have a lot of extra money to piss away, or if you want super accuracy then just shoot the factory ammo. If you are going to plink and have to live on a fixed income, then surplus is the way to go. |
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All manufacturers recommend against shooting surplus ammo, and the reason is simple: There is NO way to know WHY the ammo was released as surplus. In MOST cases, it was surplussed because there was a problem with it. Exceptions are when the country no longer uses that caliber, or if they've deployed with it, and would rather sell it than ship it back home. While surplus ammo is rarely dangerous, it is also rarely first-quality ammo. -Troy |
What's your take on the Winchester M855 ammo that I always see for sale at the shows. It was made in 1996, do you think there were prolems with that stuff? I hope not, I have about 500 rounds of it/ |
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With the cost savings that you have with Military surplus ammo, you could easily pay for a new rifle should it ever (extremely slim chance here) kaboom. If you pay $0.11 per round for Surplus ammo, versus $5.00 per box of Factory blasting ammo, you will pay for an $800 rifle with the savings after 5,714 rounds. I highly doubt that Kabooms happen more often than 1:6000 rounds. If the Kaboom never happens, then you saved $800! Of course, we are talking about plinking/blasting ammo here. If you want to save money on hunting/match ammo, you must reload. |
The military doesn't get rid of (now) 6-year-old ammo if there isn't some problem with it. And there's no way to know what the problem is. It could be something as simple as it didn't meet accuracy or velocity requirements, or that it has ignition problems. Or it could have been left out in the desert for a couple of years due to a deployment. There's just no way to know. But, again, it WON'T be first-quality ammo. They don't get rid of first-quality ammo. You should always consider surplus ammo to be range/blasting ammo, not bet-your-life carry/duty/SHTF ammo. For the latter, only count on new-production ammo that you've stored properly. -Troy |
| But most of the stuff I've seen, like South African, Guatamalen, Danish (9mm) is mid 80's issue. I had assumed that it was just some military policy to get new ammo as it got over 15 years old or something. How would a government be getting rid of ammo this old because of a defect? |
Ok Troy and or anyone else, what do you count on for "the latter"? 
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Several reasons. Most militaries do their best to use their supplies in a "first-in, first-out" fashion, meaning they use the oldest stuff first. It could well be that they just recently started shooting the older ammo, and just now discovered problems with it, or that problems cropped up that weren't in evidence when the ammo was new. But more likely the reason it was surplussed was that it was deployed. That means that a quantity of ammo, in some cases whole shipping containers full, was taken out of storage and deployed in preperation for war use (lots of the surplus in the last 10 years was deployed for Desert Sheild/Desert Storm). Deployed ammo is generally not stored in ideal conditions, but more often left outside to bake in the sun. And the older the ammo, the more likely it will show some degredation. And testing of the various lots of South African show a very linear and noticable degredation as you go from newest to oldest. The point again is: there's NO WAY to know the condition of surplus ammo, so it shouldn't be depended on when your life is on the line, unless that is all you've got. Avoid putting yourself into that situation. Supersport, To answer your question, I depend on new-production Federal/Lake City XM193, IMI M193 & M855, Winchester Q3131 and Q3131A, Winchester Super-X, Hornady 75gr TAP, and Federal 69gr GMM. All of the above was bought within two years of production and stored by me in conditions that I control. -Troy |
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