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Hi,

I was wondering if I carry my CCW weapon with premium ammo and practice with the el cheapo ammo, and that CCW ammo has been around in my pocket since the 1990's, will it expire over time and fail to fire when needed?

Thanks,

Unless you've been soaking it with oil, good ammo will fire many decades after manufacture. (And even if oil-soaked, it's still likely to work just fine.)

I understand the cost issue, but when it comes down to it, your life may depend on it working, so AT LEAST on a yearly basis, you ought to fire your carry ammo in practice and replenish it with fresh stuff. (A fresh box of ammo per year isn't much.)

What HankB said. I have been told certain lubricants, such as WD-40, can inert primers. Smokeless powder can go bad, too. Bullets and case rims can get damaged or set back from repeated chambering and ejection.

On the other hand, I read of one account of someone in the late 20th century acquiring Turkish/Ottoman 8mm Mauser ammunition dating from World War One, and only one out of fifty failed to fire.

I believe it would be a good idea to use up the ammunition dating from the 90's and replace it with fresher ammunition that you have tested/proofed in your gun, partly for peace of mind and partly to refamiliarize yourself with how the carry ammunition performs in your gun.

I had some Corbon in my Bersa 380 that had to be at least 5 years old
It still went boom

I have reloads that are 20 years old still shoot great.
Found some old CCI primers too bought in 1983 and they worked also.

One of the jokes about Mosin Nagant's is - You dig your ammo out of a farmer's field in Ukraine and it works just fine. I've gone through lots of ammo from the 30's & 40's in Curio & Relic rifles and never had a problem. Some of it looked pretty nasty and the smoke smelled like it was packed with a 50/50 mix of gunpowder and cow dung.

That said, for a CCW siderarm, swap it out once per year and you should be fine. No need to make this stuff more complicated than it needs to be.

HankB wrote:Unless you've been soaking it with oil, good ammo will fire many decades after manufacture. (And even if oil-soaked, it's still likely to work just fine.)

I understand the cost issue, but when it comes down to it, your life may depend on it working, so AT LEAST on a yearly basis, you ought to fire your carry ammo in practice and replenish it with fresh stuff. (A fresh box of ammo per year isn't much.)

I agree.

Another factor that causes ammo to degrade over time is exposure to high temperatures.

This is Texas. Summer comes every year.

A factor of greater concern, though, is the damage to the case rim that happens every time you clear the chamber. If you run your fingers around the rim of a round that has been been through this process several times, you'll find nicks and burrs on it. Eventually the rim may be damaged to the point that the extractor will slip off of it when the round is fired, giving you a failure to extract / double feed stoppage that won't be of any help in a gunfight.

I strongly suggest firing every round in the magazine every 6 months and replacing with fresh ammo. As HankB said, it's not that expensive - quite likely cheaper than a single oil change on your car. Failing to do so is like mountainclimbing with a worn climbing rope. It might work, but then it might not.

Ya gotta figure what your life is worth and spend accordingly.

During college, I tried to save as much as I could on ammo.

I purchased some 45acp made in Soviet Russia during the 1920's. The cases were gray steel or aluminum and most had mild rust... a few had holes in the case. At $2 per box, I was saving $9+.

I shot them all. Haha. They fed fine through my XD45.

I still have a few odds and ends of various self-defense .45 ACP loads that I bought in the early 90s... Some Corbon, some Black Talons, etc. I shot some of the Corbons couple of years ago. It worked fine. I also still have a few rounds of Corbon's personal defense 44 magnum load left too. All this ammo has been stored in a dry ammo box, so it is in good condition, so I'm not a bit worried about it's safety. I suppose that if it had been carried in my pocket all that time, it could have gotten crusty looking, but I'm sure it would have been OK. The first rounds I ever fired from my dad's old 1911 were a couple of magazines of ammo that had been stored in various garages since WW2. the copper jacketing had a greenish tinge to it, but it fired just fine. Of course, I had to clean the gun thoroughly after firing it, since it was most likely corrosive ammo.

IMO you need to be used to shooting your carry ammo any way. Will $50 every year or two kill you? 'cause it might save your life. I buy some fresh stuff, and shoot what I carried previously. Load my carry mags with the new stuff and carry on.

Not too long ago I put a few hundred rounds of .223 down range. Not sure how old they were, but they were supplied by the Air Force and each pouch of a bandoleer held 20 rounds... It all fired, but it did smell pretty terrible.

I bought a bunch of 8x56R when it was dirt cheap, all of it was stamped with nazi marks from 1939. Fires 100% (big kick tho!)

Had some pakistan .303 from the 60s-70s wasn't worth a flip. Might go bang or might go pffffffffft and bang 5 minutes later.

The only old ammo I've had fail to fire was some .22LR subsonic that granddad probably bought around the time I was 5. I shot - well, tried to shoot - it when I was 30.

I've shot .38Spl that was almost certainly pre-WWII and looked like it shouldn't even fit in the cyilinder. No FTFs. .45ACP that had been in a mag since the 70s ran fine too, including the mag spring being fine after >30 years of compression.

Bullwhip wrote:...Had some pakistan .303 from the 60s-70s wasn't worth a flip. Might go bang or might go pffffffffft and bang 5 minutes later.

Thanks, Bullwhip. Your experience should be widely circulated among shooters. Many do not know the difference between a hangfire and a misfire, and I have more than once been accused of meddling when I attempted to point this out to someone who, after a FTF immediately racked the slide, letting the unfired round fall where it might. Once upon a time I was curtly advised that "This is a Glock, not a flintlock, hangfires do not happen with modern handguns, and this was the way I was taught at a combat course." Naturally, when someone is in fact shooting back at you it is a different ballgame, but the fact that an event may be "rare" does not mean that it will never happen.

Elmo

b322da wrote:Thanks, Bullwhip. Your experience should be widely circulated among shooters. Many do not know the difference between a hangfire and a misfire, and I have more than once been accused of meddling when I attempted to point this out to someone who, after a FTF immediately racked the slide, letting the unfired round fall where it might. Once upon a time I was curtly advised that "This is a Glock, not a flintlock, hangfires do not happen with modern handguns, and this was the way I was taught at a combat course." Naturally, when someone is in fact shooting back at you it is a different ballgame, but the fact that an event may be "rare" does not mean that it will never happen.
Elmo

What would be the consequences of a hangfire of an ejected pistol round during a practice session compared to the consequences of not quickly fixing a malfunctioning gun during a gun fight? I've had hangfires before, around 35 years ago with some old 250 Savage ammo. I've had literally hundreds of misfires since then and my first priority is always to get the gun back up and running. I don't ever make the mistake of training incorrectly in practice and hoping I'll do it correctly in a fight.

As to the original question, it's not age that can cause problems with carry ammo, it's things like sweat, pocket lint, being exposed to rain or humidity and being loaded, unloaded, chambered, ejected, etc. that can cause problems. As other have said, shoot up and refresh your carry ammo twice a year.

Gringop