Does old ammo go bad?

[po18guy]

I have a box of 357 shells that I bought in 1997. Sold the gun in 2001. Do these go bad or can they still be used?

I have surplus 45 ACP headstamped 1932 that fires as normal.

 

[gmerkt]

I agree with most of the other comments here, that is, chances greatly favor it being still good. Pistol ammo seems to age a bit better than old rifle ammo. But 1997 isn't all that old by the standards of most people I know.

A good crimp probably prevented that water intrusion. I wonder for semi-auto rounds like 9mm that are not crimped, if any water would have made it in.

Lots of 9mm have bullets seated with a sealer. Many are taper crimped even if you can't see it, repels water such as rain if not total immersion. I've picked up .380 and 9mm out in gravel pits that had been rained on, still fired.

Back during WW2, there were powders that were hurried in manufacturer, ammo loaded with some of these were unstable over time but by now most have disappeared. This defective powder would liquify inside the case, would corrode and start to leak. I used to buy batches of this a gun shows for very cheap to recover the bullets.

I did have some trouble with some old 30-06 rounds that I reloaded when I was first starting out 30 years ago. A high percentage of them had cracks in the necks. They were all fine back when I loaded them, but it was old GI brass that I didn't anneal and I guess it got brittle over the years. A lot of them I could just pull the bullets out by hand, so I salvaged the components on those.

This. Once a bullet has been seated in the mouth of a case, it places that part of the brass under tension. That tension remains until the bullet is fired. Or the brass fails over time through embrittlement from the tension. When new brass is loaded for the first time, it has the best chance for a long life. Once cartridge brass is reloaded, it starts to embrittle from being worked. Yes, annealing (actually heat treating) can relieve much of this but the process isn't completely reversible, in my experience. This is why I don't keep that much of my reloading work in finished ammo. Mostly, I completely prep the brass (which is the most labor intensive part of the work), then keep it ready. I only do the final loading shortly before I anticipate using it. This is only one reason I use this practice but a major one.

 

[ma96782]

Besides what was said about the naufacturing and/or reloading....
Storage conditions plays a big part in the answer to your question.

Aloha, Mark

 

[nammac]

I wouldn't worry about shooting 22 year old factory handgun ammo, as long as it appears to be in good physical condition, ya know, looks like factory fresh other than natural oxidation of the copper and brass.

I've got handloads older than that which I've shot with no problems.

 

[CLT65]

That's not old ammo; it's practically new. 1997 was only a few short years ago, right??

No? What?! Closer to a quarter century?! No...
Dang, I guess I am getting old......

 

[Flymph]

That's not old ammo; it's practically new. 1997 was only a few short years ago, right??

No? What?! Closer to a quarter century?! No...
Dang, I guess I am getting old......

I think everyone is surprised it's 2019 and we made it this far.

 

[Siglvr]

My grandfather passed away over 50 years back. My mom had grabbed some of his already old Reminigton 12 ga shotgun shells and took them home as she didn't know what to do with it. She never stored it correctly although at some point it was put into a plastic potato sack that had holes all over it and left in the basement. I took it out and it all fired fine.

 

[teflon6string]

Does old ammo turn bad? According to some, it's born evil. Mmmwahahaha...

 

[gmerkt]

My grandfather passed away over 50 years back. My mom had grabbed some of his already old Reminigton 12 ga shotgun shells and took them home as she didn't know what to do with it. She never stored it correctly although at some point it was put into a plastic potato sack that had holes all over it and left in the basement. I took it out and it all fired fine.

My first reloading efforts were 12 gauge shotgun shells. About 1974. I had a friend who liked to shoot clay birds. We'd go out to the desert and take turns throwing for each other. I can't remember what kind of loading press it was, a Lee or a Mec. It was red, I remember that. I didn't know there were different powder and shot bushings. I just used what came in the press. I reloaded with recovered shot from the pond at the Winchester shotgun field. I used Remington RXP wads in every kind of hull. At least I had shotgun powder, I think it was Red Dot. I got married that same year. We rented a house and it came with a dilapidated garage out back where I stored my 1955 Cadillac. Tight fit in a 1936 era garage. In a dim corner there was a little rickety bench made out of old wooden orange crates. I set up the shotgun reloading press there. So I cranked out a few hundred 12 gauge shotgun shells using hulls I picked up off the ground. Primers, whatever I had, I used. My crimps weren't very good at first but they got better.

Well, when you get married, your life changes. I no longer had the spare time or desire to go shotgunning with my pal so that activity fell by the wayside. Naturally enough, I wasn't using up the shotgun shells that I'd loaded. So I stored them away, eventually sold the press not long after. Every once in a while, I'd dip into that supply of my reloaded shells. Stored in shotgun shell boxes that other shooters had thrown away, of course. Everything concerning that venture was about thrift.

So to this day, I still have two or three boxes left. I fired some off in Everett on the shotgun field on Ebey Island one time about ten years ago. Every one of those crappy 12 gauge shells that I loaded as a know-nothing fired off. I'd been shooting small bore shotgun prior to that for a few weeks. Both .410 and 28 gauge. I'm skillful enough to do pretty well at that. Later when I switched to those 12 gauge shells, I was atomizing the birds right out of the throwing machine. The difference in payload is noticeable.

My shotgun is an old Remington 870 that I bought in 1970 when I was in the army. It came with a deer barrel on it but somewhere along the line I bought a plain 28 inch full choke barrel for it. That's what I use for downing clay birds.

So, back to the subject at hand. My 12 gauge reloads were improperly made 45 years ago, indifferently stored but out of moisture, and they still work fine.

 

[DizzyJ]

That Ammo is young!

 

[coop44]

I have shot 38 s&w ammo that had green bullets out of a top break revolver that had sat for decades. Worked just fine.