Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Unfired Brass Life

G'day,

This question is open to all. Does unfired brass have a shelf life? I have several lots of brass that would be well over 10 years old and never fired. Would this brass harden with age compared to newly manufactured cases? Would it need annealing due to sitting on the shelf for so long? I tend to buy bags of brass in the not so popular chamberings when I see them and store them until needed.

Also, I have 100 .250 Savage cases that were fired once and stored for about 10 years. I noticed the other day that quite a few have split in the neck. Does the once firing process affect the shelf storage life? If going to store fired brass for a long period would it be beneficial to anneal it before storing it?

Thanks for your thoughts.

Metallurgy is not my thing but as long as it doesn't rust or oxidize there is really no reason for it to go bad. I have plenty of brass here that is over 10 years old. I would clean inspect and reload. I would imagine it will harden to some extent over time but annealing would soften it and begin process anew. I would not worry about firing 10 year old brass that was stored properly.

I'm surprised to hear that once fired brass has split necks after a few years of storage.

Good luck and shoot straight

Bob

https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbt...rass-cracking-in-storage-box#Post9337186
A previous post of mine that deals with this issue.

I certainly hope not....been gathering “stuff” for 40+ years for TEOTWAWKI! The crap that is on the horizon.....I thought would have happened years ago. I “prepped” a few decades early! memtb

Gregor: I think the distinction between loaded brass and unfired empty brass as Elvis specified is important. I loaded a bunch of 7mm TCU LC brass and stored for a long time. A significant percentage had cracked necks when fired. The same lot of LC brass stored unloaded had a lower % of cracked necks. I believe neck tension to be a factor.

I have seen this more with loaded ammo. These were stored in a garage and the extreme temperature variations I believe accelerated the "age hardening" just the expansion and contraction due to temperature variations. Disclaimer I am not a metallurgist and this may be a crackpot theory of mine. What really will wreck brass is if there are corrosive chemicals in the air like ammonia or acids. I have thrown out boxes of brass that had exposure to corrosive contaminants and now try to keep all my ammo sealed and in temperature controlled areas. With better storage I have not had any issues so far.

I am curious why annealing can not reverse the hardening? Does the metal go through other changes like oxidation as it hardens?

I have several hundred WWII military .30-06 brass that I still neck up to .35 Whelen....maybe 10% split on me doing this but I've had relatively new brass split as well.

If you have 10 year old brass.....use it...if you incur splitting, it's likely not from age but would have split day-1....anneal it and you should be good to go.

I use ‘06 brass that was made in Denver in 1942. Also some brass from the Twin Cities about the same time period.

In fact I’d venture most of the ‘06 brass I use is much older than the 10 years that you’re writing about. If I buy a rifle that is chambered for a cartridge I didn’t have before, I often will buy new brass (unless I get a “good” deal on used. In my experience though brass can last a very long time.

I rarely load brass to maximum pressure, except maybe I’ll match top loads in reloading manuals for cartridges such as the ‘06, because those pressures are low in comparison to say the 270 or others.

There are a variety of factors that can cause brass cartridges to crack, the alloy they are made out of, work hardening, proper annealing during manufacturer and after sizing as required, how much it expands on firing, how much it is sized after firing, exposure to corrosives (can be from primers, powder, storage, etc).

I would not expect un-fired virgin brass to crack. Some once fired brass can experience neck cracks in time, and some will be perfectly fine after several firings with no annealing.

If your goal is to get maximum life out your brass, you should definitely anneal it.

If you are experiencing neck cracks, break down the brass and inspect it. Years ago I was given some 6.5X55 reloads and found a few of the cases had neck splits. I broke down the remaining rounds and found many of them had copper corrosion in the cases even though they appeared fine externally. I don't know anything about the history of the rounds and hence what caused the corrosion but the entire batch was tossed.