Ammo storage and age

[XCC_RIDER]

With all the stock piling going on last year there's been a lot of posts on how long one can store ammo without it degrading.

Well, I finally found some of my old 22lr Ammo that isn't shootable anymore. I can only guess how old it is but considering it came from Sears I figure it's pretty ancient.

My FIL had a bunch of odds and ends ammo the he's had or found at a relatives house that he gave to me a few years ago and beyond it being in a crappy old plastic ammo can I have no idea of how it was stored during it's lifetime.

You can see the bullet corrosion at the shell casing that made it impossible to chamber in my pistol. Good thing it's the only box like this so I won't have to dispose of more ammo. I'm just shooting the oldest ammo first now to make sure it doesn't sit too long.

I'm sure ammo can be stored under the right circumstances to last a lifetime. Obviously these 22's weren't.

[Citadelgrad87]

[Notpc]

Hit them with a little scotch brite to clean them up a bit, and I bet they will shoot.

[jeremiah12]

Two years ago my wife's friend was cleaning out her grandfather's house after he had passed away. She found several boxes of .22 and gave them to me. They looked worse that yours. I cleaned off the gunk and shot them out of my old H&R revolver. They shot fine.

[sonofeugene]

Properly stored, ammo can last many decades.

[81turbota]

This!

[Maht_g]

[boopiejones]

Shoot it! I got about 100 rounds of 00 buck that had been sitting in my wife’s grandfathers garage in a paper bag for 50 years. Every single round went bang.

[Lucky Scott]

I shot some 1905 ammo thru my 1918 Mosin once. Worked just fine.
No issues at all.

[smle-man]

I had some .22 ammo in the same condition as the Sears ammo. The stuff on the bullet was so hard it had to be removed with an abrasive. After doing about three boxes of them I gave up. It wasn't worth the effort. It looked to be from the 60s.

[Svashtar]

[langss]

I wouldn't necessarily run it through a semi-auto, but a bolt gun or a revolver, I wouldn't think twice. I have also inherited some really old .22s and I will be following my own advice. As a side note, I have shot all types of old ammunition and very seldom did I ever have a problem. That includes 30-06 my father brought home from WWII.

[pennstater]

I have two boxes of that Sears .22lr ammo on my shelf that I'm looking at as I type. Opened them up, they look fine. I think I bought those when I lived in Downey, in the '70's. Stonewood Shopping Center on Firestone Blvd. Dang!

[sandiego67]

I had a case of shotgun shells that had somehow gotten wet and rusted. I wiped off what I could and shot them. They were fine.

[splithoof]

I have two boxes of that Sears .22lr ammo on my shelf that I'm looking at as I type. Opened them up, they look fine. I think I bought those when I lived in Downey, in the '70's. Stonewood Shopping Center on Firestone Blvd. Dang!

That got me to wondering about a few old 500 round boxes of Sears .22LR & Sears .22Long stored in a paper bag from an old friend of my dad; upon inspection it appears like new. I'll be offering it up for the youth who visit our club range.