Do shooters of surplus ammo ever check for signs of excessive pressure?

Smokeless powder has compounds that effect it's burning rate, as these compounds get older, they deteriate allowing the powder to burn much faster than it was designed to.

If it is true that deterioration takes place, than alot of the compound must have deteriorated in the surplus ammo by now, which could conceivably cause excessive pressure.

What do you think, it would be interesting to know if it is happening, yes?

From my understanding, deterioration isn't much if any problem at all in powder that is not left open to the atmosphere.

Loaded ammo is somewhat sealed and tends to have a long shelf life. Some say indefinate, but I don't know that for sure.

There is still WWII surplus ammo on the market which works fine. The main concer with ammo that age is the type of primers that may have been used as some are corrosive, that is why you may have heard about corrosive ammo.

This ammo is still useable but the barrel needs to be cleaned ASAP after use.

the Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP) did some pressure testing of surplus .30 Cal M2 ball.  Check the link.

www.odcmp.com/Services/Rifles/pressure_testing.htm

EOD_Guy  Thanks for the link, I still enjoy rolling my own, it's therapeutic to boot. He hehe.

It proves once again everything you hear/read is not necessarily true, although you would think the lower gas pressures between the chamber and the port could conceivably cause problems in some rifles.

I don't have first hand info, but I have heard that proof rounds(usually 3 or times the normal pressure used to test firearm so that they don't blow-up) have been accidently released into the commercial market.