How to tell the age of ammo and does it matter?

[newTexan]

I may be overthinking this...

Long story short a friend passed away recently and his wife gave me a bunch of his "gun stuff", mostly ammo. Among the ammo was some Winchester White Box 9mm 115gr in the "value pack" boxes of 100. Factory not reloaded. Had been stored on shelves in the closet of his "man cave" in the house. Visual inspection they look fine, but I'm pretty sure this stuff is relatively old. Maybe 10 years? I'm not sure.

Is there any way to tell how old this stuff is? Does it matter how old it is really? If it doesn't look odd or set-back or such, then does the age cause any safety concerns?

[Tex1961]

10 years ago. LOL…. That’s practically brand new. The key is how it’s been stored. If kept inside nice and dry it will be fine. I’ve got stuff make in the 30’s and 40’s that still works.

[03Lightningrocks]

10 years ago. LOL…. That’s practically brand new. The key is how it’s been stored. If kept inside nice and dry it will be fine. I’ve got stuff make in the 30’s and 40’s that still works.

I have fired ammo as old as 50+ years. Military surplus and civilian made rounds. I think you can check the lot numbers on the boxes of ammo to find out when it was made. Maybe someone here can verify this.

[puma guy]

I have .22 LR and .22 WMR ammo from the 1960's that I still shoot. I had a thousand or so rounds of .22 LR that was under 5 feet of water during a tropical storm that I dried and shot up in some plinkers. I don't think you'll have any problems with ammo stored in a closet.

[howdy]

I have some 30.06 WWII ammo that I bought from the CMP for my M1 Garand. It goes bang every time. I also have some surplus 7.62X54R ammo for my Mosin Nagant that also works fine.

[AF-Odin]

Like Tex1961 and Howdy, I have some stuff that is really old. Bunch of US and Korean .30-06 from the 50s and 60s, Brit .303 from the 40s, but the leader is Turkish 8mm Mauser with dated headstamps from the mid 1930s. I can pretty much guarantee that it was not in a truly climate-controlled storage, but apparently was kept dry all the time. So far, it all goes bang (and I have fired 100s of rounds). Also have some 20 Gauge shotgun shells I bought in the early 70s (buy it cheap and stack it deep) and they work just fine. As stated by many here, the real key is keeping it dry.

[txtaxman]

... Does it matter how old it is really? If it doesn't look odd or set-back or such, then does the age cause any safety concerns?

I have seen old ammo shoot just fine, but I have also seen a bullet dribble out of the barrel and hit the ground a few feet away. It seems that old ammo is unlikely to blow up, but it can be unreliable. My opinion is that one should use old ammo to practice or plink, but load his/her self defense firearms with factory fresh ammo.

[philip964]

All very good to know. Thank you.

Now, how long can you leave a magazine loaded and not worry?

Sorry I'm old I forget this stuff.

[Tex1961]

I've seen reports of guys shooting magazines that were loaded for years with no problems. But I personally would unload at least every 6 months...

[Rafe]

I could be wrong, but I've had it from a spring manufacturer in Houston (not magazine springs, industrial springs) that with modern alloys it's more about the frequency and degree of flexion than it is about holding a static position.

[The Annoyed Man]

All very good to know. Thank you.

Now, how long can you leave a magazine loaded and not worry?

Sorry I'm old I forget this stuff.

It’s the number of compression/decompression cycles and not storing them under compression that eventually sacks a spring. But the number of cycles it takes to do that is probably beyond the experience of most shooters. I’m sure that some competition shooters fire enough rounds during practice and matches to eventually wear out magazine springs…maybe even some on this board. But I myself haven’t ever had a spring sack out in any kind of magazine, including a couple of WW2 era 1911 and M1 Carbine mags.

[Malawler]

6.5mm Swedish Mauser dated 1938!

Like others have said; stored well=goes bang.

[Rafe]

All very good to know. Thank you.

Now, how long can you leave a magazine loaded and not worry?

Sorry I'm old I forget this stuff.

It’s the number of compression/decompression cycles and not storing them under compression that eventually sacks a spring. But the number of cycles it takes to do that is probably beyond the experience of most shooters. I’m sure that some competition shooters fire enough rounds during practice and matches to eventually wear out magazine springs…maybe even some on this board. But I myself haven’t ever had a spring sack out in any kind of magazine, including a couple of WW2 era 1911 and M1 Carbine mags.

I'll bet "compression/decompression cycles" is closer to the way my buddy in the industrial spring business phrased it. Even though I use Maglula's UpLULAs to charge just about all my magazines (except the dinky calibers), I've always figured it takes a lot longer to charge a mag than it does to swap in a charged one in an emergency, so I always have several extra, charged magazines for most everything, whether in the range bag, safe, nightstand, or MTM Caseguard box. I've never had a magazine fail due to a spring...at least as far as I know. Dirt in a mag, damaged feed lips, base plates popping off...yep. And of course some guns just don't particularly like some brands of magazines. I have changed out springs in mags just because I'd decided it was maybe time for their 100,000-mile service, but not because the springs no longer sprang.

That said, I also avoid cheap magazines. Had a humbling experience years ago in an "urban rifle" course I'd traveled to where a cheap, stamped-metal AR mag caused a FTF that bent the feed lips and jammed that thing in the rifle good and tight. I had to finish the CoF with sidearm only and was nailing friendly targets, whiffing the bad guys, and then running out of ammo before the CoF was finished. It took two of us afterward to successfully get the magazine and the stuck round out of there. After that, I stayed with Magpul for the ARs, Wilson Elite for the 1911s, and generally original manufacturer for things like Glock and Springfield. I figured saving a couple of bucks with a knock-off magazine didn't balance on the ol' risk/reward meter.

On topic, I was going to reply that I have milsurp 5.56 that was 30 years old and stored in unknown conditions that ran just fine...then I saw all you guys talking about stuff manufactured 80 years ago.

[clarionite]

Years ago I bought my son a 7mm Mauser with a lot of old ammo included. It wasn't stored properly and had some patina on it. We fired it all just playing around. We had 10-20% rate of FTF with the ammo. And were pretty careful to watch for squibs. But it was a fun day at the ranch just burning through ammo getting to know the rifle.

I have ammo that's 15-20 years old for my AR's that has been stored properly that I wouldn't hesitate to put into my rifles.

I probably need to start loading up magazines with it, it's been a while since we did much in the way of heavy usage at the range. Just too pricey lately.