Shelf life of primers

[Blitzkrieg]

WW2 and prior ammo is almost all mercuric primed and will eat your bore if you don't clean it in the right manner, immediately. This is why you see sewer pipe bore surplus weapons

Three types of primers

mercuric

salted (like modern east block ammo) need to clean soon, not as bad as mercuric

modern non corossive

 

[mpmarty]

I'm still using a bunch of Alcan MaxFire primers from 1960 (bought 50,000 of them when Kennedy got elected).