I found a large 100 round MTM box with an assorted reloads for thec25-06 Remington.

Some were in Federal 25-06 brass, some in formed 30-06 and 280 Remington brass.

I cannot remember what rifle they were loaded for, but the ones formed from the 280 Remington would not chamber in a Ruger M77 HB.

Apparently they were loaded with ICI Nobel powder from the UK.

Some were loaded with Hornady 75 grain bullets, and some with Speer 100 grain bullets.

I fired one 5 shot group of each.

The 75 grain Hornady grouped just over an inch.

The Speers all cut each other in one large cluster.

Not bad for years old ammo.

37 year old reloads.

I shot up some 357 reloads that had a 1980 date on the box loaded with AL-7 last summer.

They all went bang with out any trouble.

Shot a nice 2 inch group off hand with my 686 six inch at 25 yards double action.

I've fired some original military issue 30-40 in my father's old Krag-Jorgensen rifle...over 100 years old!

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over 100 years old

And components have gotten a lot better since then.

When I retired from the Air Force and finally went back home and got the last of all the things I put in storage I found about 800 rounds of 223 reloads I had done up over a year or so (55 gr and H335 I believe) from about 1982. I have about 400 rounds left now and they all go bang and shoot like I remember they always did. I had them stored in one of the smaller ammo cans. I also found two of the (twenty round) yellow box Norinco 223 factory loads, that stuff was loaded a little hot.

Steve........

Thirty four year old anything is like new to me. Do not worry.
I have ammo and powder from 1943 that is perfectly good.

Yesterday I was organizing one of the storage lockers.

Found a couple of ammo cans from my teen age years. One full of H380 in the one pound cardboard containers with metal top and bottom. Another full of large rifle primers. CCI and Alcan.

I purchased this stuff from Walter Craig's shop in Selma, Alabama in 1965!

H380 was used in my 30-06 and Dad's 8x57 that was brought back from Europe in WWII.

Think I will load some up and give it a try.

There was a time not too long ago when ammo was hard to come by in a lot of calibers, especially in old Win. calibers and double rifle calibers and old ammo wasn't cheap...Most of it fired just fine no matter how old it was or how dirty it was...but not always as on occasion it had been mistreated I suspect and moisture was probably the varmint and it went click some of the time. I remember a buffalo cull hunt wherein I was lent a 7x57 Milsurp Mauser, metal was true rust blue or actually rust red and the stock was high custom grade drift wood!!!..I got a brown paper bad of green milsurp ammo..wiped it off as best I could on my shirttail and we offed it to a culling...They put me under a nice tree and said don't move from here, shoot what you see..
All hell broke loose soon after and buffalo came my way and it was click, click, bang, click click bang and by then I was behind the tree, as they passed, one fell dead at the tree and I got on top of him, so I could jump to the lowest branch if possible..It didn't last long and I was greatfull as hell..They showed and we tracked a bit an found 5 dead bulls, so none escaped but me...old reloads have never been popular since then..but it was a kick for sure.

If its sealed its more than likely good powder, same for the primers, but I wouldn't trust it for a hunt..the stuff you describe is probably worth more money than you think at a gun show or collectors gathering..Sell it all and buy new components, and put the rest in your pocket is my suggestion..

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I got a brown paper bad of green milsurp ammo..

Don't know what that has to do with old reloads stored properly

My brother bought a pre-64 Model 70 from the neighbor that had been re-barreled to 25.06 with about 200 reloads the neighbor had made up in the mid 1970's. He still uses that gun and the reloads for deer and antelope.

Back when I was a young teen just getting started reloading and shooting. An uncle gave me about 30 WWI '06, or very possibly .30'03 stuff with steel RN 240slugs.

We fired most at big hunks of shale and broke them up. About the 6th one just hissed at me! Plugged the bore.

Gunsmith put in a lot of hours with an electric hammer he said. Trying to drive it out. He'd given up and was going to "call the kid and tell him the guns ruined". He slept on it and next morning decided to give it one more try. After a few minutes it started to move and he got it out.

Gun showed no harm. He told me to "pull those things down and reload with fresh primers and powder." So I did. No further problems.
I haven't found 30 cal 240gr slugs since.

Uncle had kept them in a coffee can under his work bench in the unheated garage all those years.(?? til '59 or so) At that age, "ammo was ammo" I had no clue.

Damned sure didn't take long to learn that lesson!

George