I was just wondering if primers can go bad after severay years? A guy that my dad knows just gave me a bunch of primers and brass from when his dad used to reload. From the looks of these i would say that there prolly about 30 years old. A lot of them were bought from a local store here that closed prolly 25 years ago is how i am getting the 30 year guess. Also price tags are still most of them. For example a 1000 roung box of federal 210's were $8.10 and come in a red and black box. There must be at least 7 or 8 thousand primers here, would be a score if there still good.

I have some 8 1/2-120 winchester primers that are about 20yrs old and they are fine.
Load a few and see if they pop.
I have shot ammo that was made during ww2 and the primers were 40yrs old and they all fire,
If they were stored properly I see no reason not to use them.

I'm betting they are just fine.....give them a try and see.

I have shot a lot of old primers and had no problems. I even bought some from a gunsmith at about 1/4th the cost of new.

Load them up and shoot em

Thanks guys ill give them a try.

You could always try a few in empty cases, they don't need powder and ball to work

I checked some with a hammer a short time back , Probally not real safe though

Primers that have been well cared for, i.e., stored in a cool, dry environment, have given me good service after a couple of decades storage. I recently located some brass made back around WWI, and all I did was anneal the necks since brass can age harden and it worked fine. I would avoid primers made previous to or just after WWII as these may be mercuric. With modern primers so inexpensive, there's no need to go through the hassle of cleaning out the corrosive residue left my mercuric primers.

I have primers from my granddad that are probly about 30 years old, they're all non-mercuric non-corrosive, and they work fine. From what I have heard from people who have worked with primers and the like is that they are incredably hard to kill. One could soak a primer in oil or water and when it dried out it could still be good.

I've shot 20 year old primers without problem. Try some and if they seem erratic they'll make one hell of a bomb with an '06 case full of smokeless crimped around a fuse and a lot of duct tape.