I have quite a few sized, trimmed and primed brass for my .338 that have been primed for a couple years. They have been just sittting there without the powder or bullet in them, exposed to air. They are inside in a temp controlled room. Will they still be good and dependable? I wanted to load them for an upcoming bull moose hunt here in CO. Thanks Ray

quote:

Will they still be good and dependable?

Yup

It will depend upon the environment in which they have been stored, just as if they were in the box.

If it is "oily" you may have poblems. If it was AC'd, dry and lacking oil or oily vapors, they should be fine.

I'd drop the hammer on about ten of them and see if they go bang. If so, no problems; if they don't go bang, then drop a hammer on all, decap, and recap and reload. Kudude

Caps "stored" in primer pockets are no more prone to failure than those stored in primer boxes. Don't worry about it.

Load them up and go for that moose.

Probably fine, primers are made pretty tough these days and sounds like they were stored well, but if it was me, I would just load up a couple of boxes of fresh stuff for a moose hunt or any kind of expensive hunt and leave the "maybe" and "probably" to the others..an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure IMO...

As resistant as primers are to intentional abuse, I'd say they're good to go.

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