I was just curious how long ammo that you load can set around and still be dependable and accurate? I have a couple of cartridges that are fairly uncommon and I want to start stock pilling ammo for. Would it be better to load a bunch of ammo for these cartridges and store them, or should I just stockpile all the components? Do powder and primers keep better in their containers and boxes, or do they keep better as loaded ammo? So I guess the question is, do components keep better, or loaded ammo, which has the better shelf life?
Thanks.

Have fired reloads from more than 20 years past.

Have and still use powder that is over 30 years old.

Have successfully used primers that are some 15 - 20 years old.

All things considered, think air and moisture are the major causes of powder and primer deterioation. Probably, the loaded cartridge would last the longest, especially those that have a full case of propellent.

Kept cool and dry, powders and primers will outlast your shooting years. I can't say whether components will outlast loaded cartridges, never had any around long enough to tell, but I tend to always want to reload with the freshest powder and primers in stock. I don't leave reloaded ammo stored for long periods of time.

Thanks for the info guys. I was kind of thinking that the loaded ammo might out last the components, as it is sealed after loading kind of? Of course I guess powder is sealed too if you keep the lid tight. I guess I shouldn't worry about it, as the rarest component would be the brass and loaded or not they will last. So I guess the question really is, if I load allot of ammo up, but don't shoot it very often will the ammo stay reliable and accurate? If I load allot of ammo up for these rifles, and I decide that I want to take it out and shoot it, or take it hunting I would like to feel confident about it. So kdub, you shot 20-year-old re-loaded ammo and it seamed just as reliable and accurate as any other ammo? I wonder how old some of the ammo on store shelves is? Ammo manufactures don’t put an expiration date on the box, so I guess as long as the ammo is kept dry it should always be dependable. Anyone have any thoughts as to loaded ammo shelf life and dependability? Thanks.

Kept cool and dry, powders and primers will outlast your shooting years. I can't say whether components will outlast loaded cartridges, never had any around long enough to tell, but I tend to always want to reload with the freshest powder and primers in stock. I don't leave reloaded ammo stored for long periods of time.

Here's a recent example. I have been bragging on a bunch of Herter's .223 ammo that I began using.
While they were very accurate, one out of twenty would not fire. even with the primer dented.
Anyone who know's of Herters, knows that I am dealing with ammo that could be 40-maybe even 50 years old.

The soft tip lead bullets were all powdery, because they were kept in an old building full of moisture. I pulled a bullet and the primer was green. The powder seemed ok but not the primer.
I guess when they say,"keep your powder dry, it's for a reason!"

FYI

Maybe if place the boxes of loaded ammo in plastic zip lock bags it would help seal out any moisture and preserve the loaded ammo. Any thoughts?

Maybe if place the boxes of loaded ammo in plastic zip lock bags it would help seal out any moisture and preserve the loaded ammo. Any thoughts?


WaterProof metal ammo cans.

Michael Grace

Maybe if place the boxes of loaded ammo in plastic zip lock bags it would help seal out any moisture and preserve the loaded ammo. Any thoughts?

Zip lock bags will work...just seal the end of the bag well...roll it over a couple of times and seal with scoth tape.

Ammo cans are fine...but we tend to go in and out of them pretty often. "Serving size" blastic baggies inside the ammo can seem a better idea.

Have had ammo stored under identical condiutons turn up bad...neck cracks mostly. Treated the smme way, stored under the same conditons for the same number of years, but some brass just cracks and others don't. Could be a brass differnce..could be a neck tension difference...but it's not all that uncommon after 10-15 yeas storage. Other loads are twice that and show no signs of cracking or other deterioration...just the luck of the draw.

I am still shooting ammo that was reloaded in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. It is stored in .30 and .50 caliber ammo cans and works just fine. I have shot military ammo from WWII that went off OK. On the other hand, I have seen ammo that kept in a damp basement that was tarnished and gave unreliable ignition and was pulled apart.

It depends how the ammo or components are stored. I pack primers and powder away in wooden cases and store it in a cool dry place. I just finished a can of Du Pont P-5066 pistol powder from 1966 and the reloaded .45 ACP rounds cycled the 1911A1 normally. All the besy...
Gil

I have some 7.62x25 ammo loaded in Yugo back in 1966 and it is unreliable. Got to drop the hammer on some primers twice, some three times before they'll fire. Have not figured out yet if they primers are too hard or if they have been corrupted. Condition of the ammo is shiny new w/o a hint of any contamination.

I also have 7.62x54R loaded in Czech way back in 1943 which is not only super reliable but highly accurate too. Condition of these cases is tarnished and dull.

That's factory military ammo however, dad just about finished up one of two boxes of .30-06 he loaded back in 1972. Remington primers, IMR-4350 & Sierra 180gr spitzers. Out of the 40 rounds, he took 28 deer and a few sight check shots over the years. Two more rounds left and he's determined to use 'em up on deer.

If you plan long term storage of loaded ammo, I suggest sealing it with lacquer (finger nail polish is not good, way too thick) best thing is to stop by an auto body shop and get a baby food jar of a quality lacquer auto paint they have left over from a job, usually they are more than happy to give it away. I prefer any bright colors so they are easy to see on the rounds. Very tiny pointed artist brush works best to ring the primer and case mouth after loading. Rounds do need to be completely de-greased before doing this.

As others said, storage is a concern as well.

I agree with al of the above.
Proper storage is the key to loong shelf life.hat is for both factory and handloaded ammo.
I did once,buy some old30/40 Krag military ammo that had cracks in most of the case necks. This probably had nothing to do with poor storage conditions.
Frank

Decades, if not centuries.

This is an interesting topic for me. I’m an engineer and have nine patents related to vacuum insulation, so I am pretty familiar with the problem of keeping water and air out of things. Basically, any polymer will have a limited ability to hold back oxygen and water vapor. The best polymer for oxygen is polyvinylidene chloride, commercialized as Saran (as in Saran Wrap). Polyvinyl alcohol is best for stopping water vapor. Neither is available as a bag that I am aware of and neither is particularly great at stopping oxygen or water over the long-term.

The best thing is metal. The ammo can, assuming no rust-through and the rubber lid seal is intact, is about as good as you will get without hermetically sealing the contents with solder or glass. If you want a plastic bag, you will need to get some of the multi-layer film used to bag coffee. This has at least one layer of thin aluminum foil included, and that does a really good job of stopping oxygen and water if it isn’t seriously pin-holed. I once had a roll of coffee packaging film that had two separate aluminum foil layers just to insure one would cover a spot if the other had pin-holed there. The fact the plastic was intact wasn’t good enough for the coffee packager.

The main thing is to get a desiccant into that ammo can to pick up any stray water. Buy either silica gel or calcium oxide (Dr-rite) with a color indicator to show when it has adsorbed water to its full capacity. Either can be placed in an oven to drive the moisture back out. Molecular sieves are even better, but not so readily available. You can put things in individual polyethylene bags later if you want to, after they’ve dried out, but if you just keep the desiccant fresh (re-bake it when it turns pink), it will do just fine scavenging extra moisture that shows up when you cycle the can open and closed.

Nick

Wolf brand .223 is packed 25 boxes (500 rds) in a heavy plastic sealed bag. I have assumed that it is satisfactory for long term storage in my basement. Am I wrong?

Like unclenick, I favor the GI ammo can with a bag of desicant inside. Glad to hear from someone who works with this problem provide a simple solution. Many thanks!

Marshall, no problem. We all presume plastic products to be moisture-proof. Advertisers have spent a lot of money getting us to think that way. And we haven't even discussed seals. I once put some cash in a Ziplock bag and stuck it in the pocket of my swimsuit, which, in turn, was under my wet suit. Resurfacing after a dive that went down about 70 feet, I found the zip was still locked but the money was soaked. What this tells you is that these plastic "zipper" seals will gradually breath as barometric pressure changes, pumping moist air in and out.

OldWolf, if your Wolf ammo plastic bags have intact heat seals, they will keep things pretty safe for a few months. This helps them survive shipping and transport, but you don't want to trust them over the long-term in a humid environment. Especially since you can’t be sure factory handling left the plastic free of micropinholes. Get good condition ammo cans or go to Walmart and pick up some large glass pickle jars big enough to hold the plastic bags. I like the kind with the replaceable rubber seals and wire clamps that compress the seals.

Don't open the plastic bags the ammo is in. Just put them into the jars or cans as they are with a desiccant. Over several months the moisture will permeate out through the plastic to the drier air around them that the desiccant creates, and from there into the desiccant. The rubber seals in the ammo cans and jars are not completely impermeable either, but they present so little area to the outside that the desiccant can keep up with their moisture influx for a long time; possibly years. The glass containers have the advantage that you can periodically check the color indicator in the desiccant without opening them.

The cardboard boxes inside the plastic bags will help act as a desiccant until their adsorption capacity is reached. (Adsorption is a molecular bonding, as opposed to absorption, which is a relatively weak capillary phenomenon). I once bought a case of foreign-made, Berdan primed .308 ammo that came 1060 rounds in a wood crate with heavy plastic around the cardboard ammo boxes inside. It had been kept too long. About 1 in 20 rounds had visible corrosion spots on the case necks. Randomly pulling the bullets with a collet type puller in a press revealed dramatically greater effort was required to loosen and pull some of the bullets than others; especially those from the corroded rounds. Those cases with corrosion visible had corroded through the necks to the bullets.

Unlike US military ammo, these rounds had no pitch on the bullets to act as a boundary layer to corrosive weld formation. In the end I pulled all the bullets, salvaging what components I could. It was an unpleasant lesson regarding ammunition of uncertain or vague origin. I’ve also had Portuguese .308 ammunition that showed pressure signs, even in the sturdy M1-A. Real NATO machine gun specification, I suppose. Be careful to test what you buy. I have nothing against established foreign brands, but am now wary of anything surplus that is unbranded.

Nick

Alot of overseas manufacturers "overdo" the packaging a bit so it is protcted from the elements on the way to where ever it ends up. I don't know if there is a shelf life because my reloaded ammo doesn't last long enough before it gets used up!
I do store my ammo in G.I. cans because it's easy and handy to carry.
Some of the ammo from WWI and before is still around at the gun shows I've been to and it still looks ok. I'd prabably shoot it.

. . . Some of the ammo from WWI and before is still around at the gun shows I've been to and it still looks ok. I'd prabably shoot it.

I bought a few rounds of some 1952 LC AP 30-06 at a show once. The vendor was taking them from containers that resembled giant sardine cans. They were hermetically sealed by soldering, and probably were flushed-out with dry nitrogen before they were sealed. (I don't think being the person applying the solder to a container of ammunition would have been my first career choice, but then, times have changeed.) These rounds look great because of that original storage system. I've never fired them, however, because I suspect they are corrosively primed. Just a collector's item.

Nick

Recently shot some 1943 issue (steel cased) .45ACP in the 1911A1. Had about a .02% fail-to-fire rate. The pistol has a lighter than usual striker hit, anyway.

This is something I have given some thought to. In practice, I do both. There are a couple of things that stay in the back of my mind.

One, with some brass, and you'll never know which, neck tension develops with a bullet seated and can crack prematurely if left long in a loaded condition.

Two, and this is a very practical consideration. If you get tired of reloading or change interests or whatever, it is easier to sell components than it is reloaded ammo, plus, you haven't given away unneccesary labor.

All things being equal, as long as you engage in proper storage techniques, loaded or unloaded should last equally long. That loaded powder and primer aren't any "safer" because most reloaders do not seal case mouths and primers against moisture.

I store my reloaded ammo in a vacuum seal bag figure if it will keep meat in the freezer for a year it'll keep ammo for generations!

I recently loaded and shot some .45 ACP Ammo with Unique powder that I bought in he early 70's. It worked fine but it didn't smell good and had some discolored flakes in it. Bought some new and will use the old for Fertilizer.

Keep it cool & dry and it will keep almost forever.
I have some powder I bought in the early 1970's, don't use it often, but it still shoots like it did when I bought it.
(I don't keep all of my powder that long, I just go through can after can of different powders now.)

Joe

I recently fired some .222 Remington that I loaded in 1960. It all fired. I don't know how accurate it was as I was just plinking but I didn't notice anything unusual about the accuracy. I guess the answer to the question 'how long will ammo last' is ...until you run out.