Thursday, March 11, 2021

This isn't the ammo blog idea, but...

We were discussing ammo deterioration.  Quite a few people had an example of ammo that went bad.  

I'm not talking the ammo stored in a paper sack in the basement that floods all the time.  Properly stored in a upstairs closet sort of storage in a year round climate controlled house.  

Mine was leftovers from the 1950s.  But other had tell of ammo going bad less than 20 years old.  All corroded, lots of duds...

Can you guess the commonality?

It was .22, correct.  Huh.

Anyone else notice a propensity for their long rifle ammo spoiling?  If so, do you know what causes that, if I am noticing an actual 'thing'?

4 comments:

Marty said...

The duds in my past have mostly been .22LR but that is also the oldest ammo I have in storage. Even the ancient .20ga paper shells still functioned. The BANG was more like a pop though.

Ratus said...

I remember an article from the early '90s that talked about .22 rimfire as being not suitable for long term storage vs centerfire ammunition. I believe that they gave it a shelf life of only six months in less than ideal conditions and a couple of years at the top end in perfect ones.

I believe it is probably a combination of the priming compound and how it is packaged.

Even non-bulk .22 rimfire was packed in direct contact with cardboard, which unless it is specifically intended for archival use, is somewhat acidic.

I think the plastic packaging of CCI was only started in the early '80s.

I haven't seen anything definitively published by a manufacturer of rimfire ammunition on shelf life.

The Neon Madman said...

I still shoot CMP .22 that was made by Remington in 1995. No problems.

Bob said...

Have some Remington HV .22 that are close to 30 years old and spent most of that time in an ammo can in an unheated garage. Fired some of it in a Ruger Mk4 with temps in the 40s. Looked like the bolt wasn't going back far enough all the time for reliable feeding, could have been the lube slowing the bolt down. With temps in the 50-60 range the ammo worked fine in a Ruger 10/22. CCI from the same time and stored the same worked fine in the MK4, at the higher temps. Have cleaned and relubed the MK4 and will try the Remington again estimated temp in the 70s.