Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Question regarding old ammunition

I have several boxes of Remington.348 Winchester ammunition on hand that are several decades old. Probably 1950s era; possibly even older. Would the brass be negatively effected over this long period of time? I am wondering if the ammunition is fired, would the brass remain satisfactory for reloading.

Not an expert.

Got a few boxes of yellow and red Silvertip pre « keep away from children » for almost nothing.

I took the bullets off, deprimed, annealed and reloaded with recent primers and powder.

Worked almost fine one neck split, rest where good for more reloads.

Note that I don’t reload hot

The only old ammo I've had fail is brass showing green corrosion. The brass body was pierced by gas upon firing.

If the powder inside the case has deteriorated and created corrosive acid, the brass will be affected. I've seen that a couple times. Some brass seems to get cracks in the neck or can body for no apparent reason as it ages. But, I've shot a fair bit of 40-50 year old ammunition with very few problems.

Thank you, gentlemen. It’s the possibly deteriorated powder that has me somewhat concerned.

If the rounds look good today; they likely will be fine to both shoot and reload. Of course after you shoot a couple you will know both answers.

I don't shy away from the old stuff (and mind you at age 70 my idea of old stuff differs from that of someone half my age). But, I'm respectful of it in that if it's the least bit dodgy looking I break it down for the brass, and may well start following that protocol for all of it.

What got me thinking that way was I recently acquired a 7mm Remington Rolling Block with a funky long chamber. Needing to create 7x57 brass with a .030" longer case body I hit upon the expedient of partially resizing 8x57's (to create a tiny secondary shoulder) until they just barely fit into the chamber. Plus it was a way to employ a small pile of old 8x57 factory ammo I found in my stash. First step: pull the bullets out of that 50's-vintage ammo whereupon I discovered that the pristine looking cartridges had a lot of green funkiness on the bullets inside the case necks and some were mighty hard to extract. (Powder was ok but got dumped of course.) Got me thinking about how that ammo would've acted had I shot it up instead of dismantling it.

Mind you, I routinely use old brass for a helluva lot of my shooting and my inspection/prep protocols haven't failed me. (I'll cry when a particular lot of Frankford Arsenal 1932 brass finally craps out.) But ancient loaded ammo? Well.....

I have fired decades old factory ammo (that looked in decent shape except maybe for verdigris) with no problems, including a 348

The only problem I've encountered with old ammo was a round from a box of .270 Winchester ammo that was probably at least 40 years old. It had been purchased by my stepfather-in-law when he was still living in his native Pennsylvania, but eventually he retired and move to the east coast of Florida, near the ocean, where it was subjected to salt air for around 30 years.

He decided to go deer hunting with me in Montana, and before the hunt shipped me his .270 (a Western Field, made on an FN 98 Mauser commercial action) with iron sights) to mount a scope, because he was 85 and couldn't see irons well enough anymore. He included the box of old ammo, and when I started sighting-in the scope, the case of of the second round cracked about 1/4", just in front of the case head.

Luckily the 98 action deflected the escaping gas and tiny bits of brass, and all I felt was a slight amount of gas on my left cheekbone. So I worked up a handload in new brass for him to use on the hunt....

Shoot it up. Remington factory ammo will be fine.

I shoot surplus ammo 80 or 90 years old without issue, though some ww2 brit 303 was developing hangfires.

Your ammo will be fine.

Very little experience with what I’d consider “old” factory ammo. For the sake of argument, I’d say pre-1960. I do have some yellow box .303 Savage that seems to work okay. I have a couple of boxes of Remington.25-20 with 60 grain HP “Mushroom” bullets that split the necks on firing, so I quit shooting them. Have a full box on my desk for decorative purposes. Also have a box of Peters .308 110 grain SP’s that someone gave me, I would date to early’60’s. Never fired any, don’t intend to.

Have some .303 military ammo that does the same thing. It's loaded with Cordite.

Yeah, I'm the guy who routinely fired away cases of dirt cheap milsurp stuff - WWI-vintage and older - back in the day. How about a case of Spanish-American War vintage 7mm Mauser ammo for $10? As I recall it all went bang and we used it to idly cut down a couple small trees. (It actually doesn't take a heckuva lot of shots to saw off a 6" diameter tree!)

I guess to keep it in perspective that ammo was about as old then as 50's stuff is today.

LOL, You bet, ammo is meant to be shot....even if you do have to carry tools to extract separated cases etc. I had some old 6.5 Swede that sometimes took up to 1 full second to go off after the striker fall...it is the very best offhand marksmanship training there is.

I have some 45 ball (WCC 70) and I fired some a few weeks ago and it was 825 fps and extreme spread 23 fps.

I wouldn't sweat it. You shoot that stuff unless it's encrusted with corrosion. You won't know if it can be reloaded until you have some fired cases in your hand. Clean them up, anneal them and see what happens.

For any ammunition, the two biggest enemies are dampness and temperature swings. For military ammunition at least, modern explosive storage bunkers with SA ammunition are almost always temperature controlled.

1970? Haha, I call that "new"!!

I was given some white box 303 British of undetermined age a while back. About 60% of it had split necks, even though the brass was not badly tarnished. I pulled all the bullets and dumped the powder into the garden.

Beat me to it!

I have some Winchester 30/40 Krag ammunition which is 1930's vintage. I fired four of them through my 30/40 Lee Enfield, and each one split lengthwise about 1/4 inch ahead of the web. Velocity was consistent at around 2450 and accuracy was good. I pulled the bullet on a fifth cartridge and everything looked fine. The chamber on this rifle is minimum dimension and there is little expansion. This brass just seems to be brittle. GD