Years ago I bought a box of assorted 303 ammo from someone on the EE.Bought it mostly for the brass. There were commercial boxes and plastic bags with mixed headstamps.I shot the ammo in the commercial boxes (all new ammo, all boxes had been partially used) without ny problems. Finally got around to the IVI rounds. A few had FMJ bullets but most had round nose soft point bullets.Two rounds had apparently been fired (firing pin indent on primers)but were duds.I pulled the bullets and powder came out as a lump( like I would expect wet powder to look). Charge weighed about 25g. Powder was very small grains a bit like W748. I plan to pull the rest of the bullets , deprime and start from scratch. This ammo does not appear to be reloads (appearance of brass inside and out) and appearance of primers. Any theories as to what the story might be?
???Ranger IVI hunting ammo,deactivated???
- Thread starter big bear
- Start date
- Location
- Western Manitoba
I had read that "heat" is a very bad thing for the powder in ammo - like much above room temperature. A correspondent has lost 8 pound jugs of powder, due to that - the powder "broke down" and went "bad" - so no reason to think same can not happen within a cartridge case. Sheds, especially, can get stifling hot, inside, in summer - no doubt takes its toll on any ammo stored in there.
Unlikely and not without some obvious signs of it doing so. What do the clumps look like? What about the powder in the cartridges with light charges?
Are you sure all the powder came out of the case? If it got wet that powder could stick to the case like crazy.
