Ammo - too old?

[Bluehair]

Rooting around in the reloading room and I got to wondering if some of this stuff is even safe to shoot anymore. Talking about stuff I got from my dad when he died years ago, like WWII ball and old Super-x boxes. Last old stuff I shot was some WWII tracers and that was 30 years ago. Not sure I would shoot any more of them.

When do you guys think its time to haul it to the gun show garage sale? 100 years?

Bluehair
Splitting my time time between the winter and summer range......
May you live long enough to cash in those preference points. Amen

 

[RELH]

I am using H4895 and H4831 that my father in law bought in the early 60's from Hodgdon powder company that was military surplus. It is still good and gives top performance in my reloads.

RELH

 

[deadibob]

I still have and still occasionally shoot surplus 30-06 ammo from the 40's-60's. Lots of .22lr from the 60's and 70's. If anything it will just get weaker or not fire but all my stuff still goes bang.

You can tell when gunpowder goes bad in a can. It will smell rancid and have a red dusty powder to it. I've only had one metal can of 4831 go bad in my personal experience. I bought it in 1991, it spent several years living in a St. George storage shed. I discovered it was bad in about 2005. I expect it only went bad because of the excessive heat from the St. George summers in a storage shed. I doubt there are much worse environments than that for gunpowder.

 

[Comules]

I had some super old shotgun shells that didn't look good and decided to get rid of them and I called the local sheriff's office they said they would get rid of them for me
Just another idea if you decide to get rid of them

 

[Homer]

never ever surrender guns or ammo to ANY government agency.....NEVER!!!