Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Vintage ammo fun

A bud gave me a sack of cast off ammo, bits of stuff he no longer had guns for. In the mess was a few loose 45's & a couple half moon clips. First look saw old rounded primers & the the year stamp 18, nah, must be 81. Nope, that was upside down. Sure it was 18 when I saw the 17's. Notice the heavy case cannelures to keep the bullet from being pushed down in all of it. Not to mention the staked bullets in the REM UMC loads, 3 per shell. They sure didn't want the bullet to move in the case.
Steel jacket bullets as well, the Rem's being gilding metal plated(I read that) About 30 minutes in a vibratory tumbler. All dated in the time frame of the introduction of the 1917 Smith & Colt revolvers that would use it.

I'll not be shooting it.

Super cool.

When I bought my first S&W 625 I didn’t get any clips with it. I went to a gun show and a guy had a half dozen of those with 1918 vintage ammo. I think I paid him $3 each for them and the first thing I did was shoot the ammo up!

I had some of that ammo before. I had several hang-fires with it, AND it's corrosive-primed. Of course, that was all they had back then, but it surely encouraged good cleaning practices.

I see at least one cracked neck.

God knows I shot up a metric sh*t ton of WWI .45 ammo in my life. 50 years ago it was like shooting 70's-vintage stuff today. I remember buying a shoebox sized container full of WWI .45's an .30-06's at a show. It all went bang, and the bonus was the '06 stuff was mostly tracers. The red tips had been cleaned at some point and looked like Ball ammo. Lots of fun in the local quarry, at night......

As stated, clean the bejesus out of the gun if you shoot any of it. Hot water is your friend.

Thanks for the heads up about the primers, I'd forgotten about that. But won't be shooting them, as my reloads will keep me going.

Hell, I've got a spam can or 45 from the 50's or 60's I'd love to see inside of, but don't have the heart to break the key off the lid, & I don't need them. But yeah, if younger & struggling for ammo money, I'd break into it in a second.