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Rotating auto carry ammo out to range ammo?

4K views 19 replies 11 participants last post by  romeofoxtrot 
#1 · (Edited)
I fire off my service ammo in the magazine in the pistol first at about three months. Checking the ammo in the carrygun for damage and setback inspection at every unload &reload. At this point I fire off that magazine and replace it with a loaded back up mag and after being in the carry gun about 3 months I rotate it out to. Maybe over kill,but I allso rotate the top rd to the bottom to avoid set back. I only load and unload the carry auto maybe 5 times a month and thats if I shoot it with practice ammo or it needs to be cleaned and relubed. I don,t load and unload everyday or I would change out ammo once a month or as needed by wear&setback. Keeping it simple I only keep two auto,s loaded for defence the rest are wheelguns and there easy on ammo with no setback or loading damage. They only get new ammo every 6 months or if the heat and humidity show damage to the ammo. No Barney Fife here with one green bullet! ,Nickel cases seem to weather better.
 
#2 ·
I rotate all my ammo even for revolvers. I generally use a one year rule. When I buy a box, I date it and rotate the cartridges about every three months or so. At the end of the year I like to buy a new (hopefully improved) box and then shoot up the old. I have never had a cartridge fail to go off but there is always a possibility. Even at the expense for premium ammo, this is cheap insurance.
 
#4 ·
I guess I'm the odd man out... I never replace ammo unless it has been kept in a car or the like for an extended period (and then rotation out really isn't needed)... Such replacement just isn't needed...

Two things have persuaded me rotation isn't really needed... the first involves some ammo my grandfather bought in 1916 or maybe 1917, it is Remington .45acp with a 1916 head stamp. In late 1917 he loaded eight seven round magazines (some of the magazines he had bought new with the gun in 1912 at the grand sum of $1.40 each) to leave with my Grandmother when he left to serve in the Marines in WWI. (there is a fairly interesting story that goes with the gun/mags when during WWI a man broke into my grandfather's house, but I digress.) Anyway, I wound up with my grandfathers old commercial 1911 and his ammo and magazines. A few years ago there was some discussion about magazines wearing out as a result of being left loaded... so those magazines loaded in 1917 seemed a good way to test the theory... plus with the original ammo it was a good chance to see the effect of age on ammunition in magazines. To make the whole thing short, the magazines worked fine (I emptied one and cleaned/lubed it and left the other one as it was.) Every one of the 90+ year old rounds fired and was as accurate as least as accurate as new Remington ammo. There were no stoppages either FWIW. Remember too this ammunition was stored at least 35-40 years without air conditioning in the deep South.

The other thing that convinced me was some ammo I had put in my car as reserve for one of the 1911s I carry in the car. I forgot it was stuck in one of the little compartments in the car until I sold the car three years after putting the ammo there (ammo was about 10 years old when I put it in the car.) Anyway, when I sold the car we found it and took it out. I decided to take the ammo to the range and even after 3 years in a hot car in the South it all shot just fine...

So that convinced me, ammo rotation isn't really an issue (nor leaving ammo in mags.)

FWIW

Chuck
 
#6 ·
I think longevity can be a maybe/maybe not issue,Chuck. I agree that some mighty old stuff goes bang fine, but I was once told by a mechanical engineer friend of mine to avoid using older brass in high pressure rifle loads because brass does get brittle with age. I once had a batch of 1958 Frankford Arsenal otsix National Match brass and every case I had split just from having a bullet seated in it, and it only took a year to do so.

On the other hand I've used a ton of 1944 Turkish 8mm ball and it did just fine. I guess another facet of the discussion is that us old LE types are just a little paranoid about stuff like that and tend to keep on using formal training procedures long after we retire. I too have fired some mighty old ammo that went bang just fine, but a lifetime of being required to rotate it out regularly is a hurdle I can't seem to get past.

JP
 
#8 ·
I think part of how well ammo holds up is how well it was made to start with.

Quite a few years ago I stumbled on a rather large quantity of 30-40 Krag ammo that the AF was going to destroy, so I offered to destroy it for them :D

This ammo dated to the WWI period with head stamps from 1910 to 1918 and made by Winchester, Remington, USCC and Frankfurt Arsenal. I shot a good bit of it in a 1898 Krag rifle with good results... except that most of the case necks split on ammo made by USCC and Win. Didn't have much problem with Remington or FA, though there was an occasional split neck with those.

Because the ammo was both mercuric and corrosive with erosive powder I decided to pull the bullets (old "tin can bullets") and just re-use the brass and dispose of the powder and old primers (the powder made great fertilizer in the flower beds.)

I continued to have split necks when I re-used the brass. A friend suggested re-anhealing the cases, which solved the spliting problems like magic.

So, one factor in my view is how well the ammo was made to start out... clearly some makers produced better quality Krag ammo than others... and this is doubtless true of other ammo as well...

Also, I think problems are less common with lower pressure handgun ammo than higher pressure rifle ammo...

Anyway, my thoughts...

V/r

Chuck
 
#7 ·
I rotated resolver ammo fairly regularly back before my round guns were deemed unsuitable for defense. One thing Paul pointed out was I needed to do likewise with the speed strips.

With autos I basically burn off all the carry mags at least twice a year at time change. Once a round has been chambered it goes into the range pile. Inspection, rotating, whatever doesn't work for me.

I use second-tier JHP for carry that I get cheap enough to use for range ammo anyways if need be.

The Remington/UMC from wallyworld has been reliable for me.

Old ammo with corrosive priming will stand up to long storage way better than the new stuff. Thats why the military was so slow to change over.


Regards,

Pat
 
#10 ·
You would be flabbergasted at the ammo the US military still has in storage, with most just waiting till the day it can make it to the demo pit. If you could still find the weapons system for it, it would work. Yet due to weapon systems not being around, it gets classed for destruction, or demil. Recent upgrades in manufacturing allows for lots of ammunition to stay around so that the explosives inside can be reused i.e. 155mm, 8in. 175mm 500lb, an 750lb bombs. These can be infused with high preassure steam an the Comp-B comes out like mollasis to be dried into flake for use later in other types of weapon systems. All most all your explosives now days is of two types, TNT based or AMATAL based. Nothing more than a little basic chemistry changes the sensitivity of the base material. Old Cannon powders are reused/remanufactured to use in rifle/machinegun powders. Nothing really new out there.
 
#11 ·
I had a chance to look at some British stuff a few years ago, and was surprised (though in retrospect should not have been) they still had lots of ammo with cordite propellant in it... cordite is of course not very modern... ;)

While it may now be gone, until a few years ago at least, the Navy had LOTS of silk bags full of stick type powder intended for use in 16", 14" and 12" guns... probably has been re-used by now...

V/r

Chuck
 
#12 ·
Even though all of the 16" guns are out of service, the US Military maintains several thousand rounds of HE, an AP shell's, along with new replacement barrels an powder just in case we decide to pull them out of mothballs again. The old Capital ships are still a force to be reconed with. The russians hate them cause the only way to sink one now days is to nuke it. Modern torpeados, anti-ship missles an such are meant to damage or sink aluminum hulled ships. Every time we bring one out of mothball's they are the first country to rattle their sabers about it.
 
#14 ·
When I carried a revolver I typically rotated my ammo on a yearly basis, although with modern ammunition I don't know if that's really neccessary. I doubt if most of us really work in an environment harsh enough to make it neccessary, but it is cheap insurance. Issued work ammo gets rotated every six months. With semi-autos the overall condition of the round determines its rotation. If the round starts to look too beat up or set back is apparent it gets rotated to the range box. Honestly, I don't see a lot of set back and overall condition is more of a factor. My carry guns don't get unloaded on a routine basis, only for range work and cleaning so that undoubtedly has something to do with it. They put back in the safe loaded and come out the same way. If I see set back it's usually with the 1911 as the feeding cycle is pretty hard on the round. With other weapons I've never encountered it.
 
#15 ·
Actually, I never thought about set-back being exclusive to 1911's, but the only rounds I ever recall seeing pushed back in the cases were .45 ACP. I've been trying to remember which pistols they were used in, and it would have had to have been in my 1911's; the Sig 220's were too recently acquired, and I don't think I've had any other .45 ACP except for an EAA CZ clone that I didn't shoot all that much. Also, the rounds that I recall as most likely to set back recently have been the Blazer Brass burn-up stuff. I wonder if this has been anybody else's experience. Interesting!
--Ray
 
#16 ·
Other more modern designs usually position the round higher in the action and closer in line with the bore. They also usually incorporate the feed ramp into the barrel itself. The 1911 does niether of these things and has a rather complicated feedway geometry, with a barrel throat and feedramp that are independent of one another among other things. All of this makes the pistols feeding cycling pretty abusive on the rounds. I'm sure it can and does happen with other guns, but in my battery the 1911 seems to be the real offender.
 
#17 ·
I'm really bad about not keeping up with what's how old and needs to be shot up when. I do check for set-back. Another issue though has come up recently that I had never really noticed before: I had some Winchester SXZ Personal Protection 115 gr 9mm and some old Corbon 115 gr 9mm -- all brass cased -- that had been kept in magazines in leather mag pouches for a while. When I removed the mags to use the pouches for another caliber, I noticed some crud on the brass cases of the top 9mm rounds which had been in contact with the leather at the bottom of the pouch; one was the Winchester and the other Corbon. I emptied both mags, and some of the other rounds also had that same material on them. I just cleaned them off and put them all aside to fire up at my next range session. I wonder if they would be just as effective despite having had that crud on them. An acquaintance of mine who is a guard for an armored car service, told me that they used to carry Corbon in their Sig mags but stopped and went to nickel cased ammo because of some kind of corrosion problem that made them very hard to unload from the very tight spec Sig mags. Sounds like some problem with brass vs. nickel cases. Anyway, I'm intending to replace all my carry ammo that is brass cased with nickel cased. Anybody know what that crud is?
 
#18 ·
"That crud" is corrosion.

The natural tanning process for leather frequently uses solutions made from tree bark or even leaves which is acidic. The leather absorbs this and can corrode brass and even steel if left in leather long enough. While a corroded cartridge will usually go bang the corrosion on the shell casings may cause mis-feeds if it is bad enough, - or worse ruptured cases.

If the ammo is badly corroded, why use it and risk a ruptured case just to save tuppence on ammo?
 
#19 ·
We have a BIG gun show here 5 times a year. I try to replace all of the ammo I have for "serious social purposes" at least every other show. As was said earlier - even at the price of premium ammunition, it's cheap insurance. And I certainly place a higher value on my life than the cost of a few boxes of ammo.
 
#20 ·
Thanks for the information about what that stain (at best) and build-up (at worst) is on those rounds that have been in contact with leather for too long. Certainly I won't consider such ammunition for serious carry. I had never thought before about that green gunk that collects on the brass fittings of my leather rifle slings as being corrosion, since it can be relatively easily cleaned off, but I suspect that is corrosion as well.
 
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