30 yr old ammo -- safe to shoot ??
- Thread starter albino rhino
- Start date
Well I have shot lots of old ammo over the years with no problem. As long as it looks to be in good shape and is factory ammo you should be just fine. You just need to be sure they are not some old mystery reloads from who knows where. Thats my 2 cents. If you don't want them feal free to send them to me and I will dispose of them properly for you 
probably. I have fired 303 military headstamped 1943 without any trouble. On the other hand I had some 1940's headstamped 8mm lebel that would either hangfire or not go off at all. I only tried three rounds of the Lebel and then left the rest for the collectors. So 30 years old isn't really that old in comparison.
Kimzter
Kimzter
I just burned up 128 rounds of 1943 9mm ball at the range yesterday. Not a hiccup. Last week I dipped into my stash of original .303 ball and fired some from 1923 as well as a large amount from 1940-45. Never had any problems with any of that either. I have had some hangfires or duds in the past with WW2 Italian Carcano ammo that looked like new, but the primers had deteriorated. A friend of mine had some old 8mm Lebel that had terrible hangfires as well, but those are the only two instances of "bad ammo" I have ever seen in many years of shooting old ammo. Apparantly some of the European mercuric primers can go bad after long periods of time, but like everyone said, if the ammo is clean and has been stored well, it will NOT be unsafe to fire. The other problem is reloads which Dwarf mentioned. If you don't want to shoot it, one of the lads who listed above will be only too happy to take it off your hands!
Al
Al
- Location
- In lalaland, that is Ottawa.
Old Ammo
No problem. I shot up a lot of very old milsurp .303BR loaded with cordite strands.
No problem. I shot up a lot of very old milsurp .303BR loaded with cordite strands.
I've never had issues with old ammo use it all the time ...only case I heard of was a guy at one of our clubs where im from shooting .45 auto loads from WW2, had two hang fires in a row, did the usal keep the gun aimed down range count to ten take it out sat the rounds on the bench to get rid of later, and then they closed the range to go check thier targets ...well didnt one of those old rounds go off while they were down there pretty much messed thier britchs..it had sat there for at least 20 mins. freaky!
