Old 12 Gauge ammo

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Hey Guys!
My daughter was over tonight and brought me a box of some old 12 gauge ammo.
I would like to try and get an idea of how old it is. A couple of boxes seem quite old...others no so much
Anyone have any ideas as to the age of any of it.
I placed a shell from each box so it can be seen except for the small box on the left. It is still sealed and I did not want to rip it open.
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Thanks!!
 
idk when cil stopped making ammo but I have some imperial hulls that are at least from the 80's if not older(look just like the shell at the very top of that stack) some of that ammo looks a heck of a lot older then that the ones in the damaged box are paper maybe from the 50's
 
Hey, there's still a couple boxes of those Imperial high brass in the old man's shed! Right next to the bricks of Imperial 22lr and the .303!
 
Sometimes when I buy ammo, I mark the purchase date on the box. I have a box of those Mastercraft plastic shells, bought at Can Tire in 1974. They were $3.33/box for years. I have a full box of the Imperial plastic shells, also bought at Can Tire in 1977, $5.99/box. I also have a box of the Winchester Xpert plastic shells, dated 1974.
 
Thanks for the comments and info guys!
Most of the shells look like they would be fine to fire. Even the older Imperial rounds with the "Duco" finish...with the exception of the box in the bottom picture...Those hull seem to have expanded. The Cunuck shell are completely deteriorated.
I thought the Canadian Tire shells were kind of neat...don't remember ever seeing those, but I wasn't around firearms for many years.
None of the boxes had any prices on them.
Otto V...Thanks for the dates!
 
That Imperial Special Long Range is the diet dad's old A-5 use to digest with regularity
during bird season.
How he enjoined shooting them Chukars.
 
Nice stuff. Those old black box imperials on the left might be 1950's or 60's. I'd have thought the plastic rounds were 1980's. Maybe late '70's at the earliest. They're all still CIL rather than IVI, which happened sometime in the late 1980's I thought?
 
I was under the impression that CIL sold their commercial ammunition divsion to IVI in 1976, but I could be wrong. CIL did retain an interest in a plant that made larger caliber cannon ammo
 
liberal-hater said:
Those plastic shells are from the 60's and 70's. The paper hulls are from 40's and 50's I think, they are all non-corrosive primed. Their term was "super clean".
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My Dad used to have those 25 per Imperial paper in the closet when i was a kid and i was born in 57 so they're pretty old lol
i remember the rolled lip at the end :)
 
Nifty bit of ammo. I scored three full pristine boxes of 3" Imperial Special Long Range paper shells at Maple Creek last weekend. They are red hulls. The boxes each have a little sheet with tips related to hunting sitting on top of the shells. I shared one with my gun buddy Deanner. I keep the other two under my pillow with my other paper shotgun shells. :p

Its getting a little lumpy, the old pillow..... :D
 
I love the Imperial High brass loads. That's what my step dad used all the time so I have a few hanging around. They have lots of juice to get the lead up high :)
 
It's looking like I am going to have to keep those Imperial high brass loads all to myself. It would appear to me that perhaps they were in a basement with a floor that got a little wet at one time. Some of the boxes show signs of moisture and lildew on the bottoms. The cunuck loads are completely gone. The rest seem pretty good. The shells in the old Imperial box in the bottom pic seem to perhaps seem to have expanded a little, but won't know till I try to chamber them. Certainly all the plastic shells are good, but I hear the old paper shells have a better smell (??????).

kjohn:...pretty cool. No sheet with tips in these boxes..too bad.
I did notice that the deteriorated Canuck shells are black powder blanks. Found that kind of neat.....though the black powder seems to be no good anymore...very sad about that.
 
The paper shell that CIL made has a heavenly smell when fired. When I was a kid, I kept some fired hull in my bedroom dresser, and would have a whiff every once in a while. Unfortunately, I have no sense of smell now, but still love those old paper Imperials.

I can still hear my Dad fishing a couple of rounds out of the box when we were out "chicken hunting". :)
 
kjohn said:
The paper shell that CIL made has a heavenly smell when fired. When I was a kid, I kept some fired hull in my bedroom dresser, and would have a whiff every once in a while. Unfortunately, I have no sense of smell now, but still love those old paper Imperials.

I can still hear my Dad fishing a couple of rounds out of the box when we were out "chicken hunting". :)
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Ya dun sniffed yer nose taste buds into oblivion............. junkie............ :wave:
 
I still have some of the old paper shells that I shoot off once in a while, Ive never had a ftf yet with it. You have some nice old specimens there, Ive seen guys asking $5.00 for just an empty box at gun shows.
 
Production of the "Imperial - IVI" sporting ammo stopped about 1986 - the company was held by SNC Tec since 1980.
Starting in 1980, the Imperial boxes where the same black and gold as pictured but had "IVI" instead of "C-I-L". IVI produced the Imperial ammo for C-I-L starting in 1977 though.
C-I-L name did not come before 1927 - before it was Canadian Explosive Co. - and before WWII, C-I-L mainly commercialized their sporting ammo under the "Dominion" name. After WWII, they started using mainly the Imperial name. Pre-1954 usually have the full name "Canadian Industries Limited", not only C-I-L...
 
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