Hello there - here's one for the fellow-aged.

I've been looking at fitting a scope to one of my 0.280 Ross rifles and yesterday I had a look in the two boxes of original Ross cartridges that have been quietly minding their own business on the ammo shelf for the past 25 years. To my horror, the primers on 4 of the cases appear to have corroded from the inside. In fact the one had a drop of liquid in the radiused corner.

What's going on?

I think that I'm going to pull all the heads, destroy the powder and "kill" the primers. After de-priming, I'll tumble the cases and reload with new powder and primers - probably replace the copper tube bullets too.

I've been using cases that I form from 8x68 brass (it's a far better match than the 375 H&H).

cheers edi

Edi, I don't have an answer for you, but wanted to piggy back on this topic. I have some old 9 1/2 magnum primers that my father purchased in the late 70's. How can you tell if they are still good? When are they too old to use? I know primers aren't expensive, but this is more curiosity than anything.

Hello Jethro - I have some Berdan primers that are probably over 65 years old - they go bang every time. Guess one would need check velocities.

WWll 0.303 British ammo goes bang, 1930 12 bore ammo goes bang. Some Jugoslav 8x57 military ammo of 1956 that I bought cheap misfires 4/10. The k98 forum admits to that stuff being suspect. I faced with a long session of de/repriming.

I was surprised to see the exudation/corrosion on those four primers as I had never come actoss it before. I examined the cardboard box just in case there was something there that might be the cause of the problem - couldn't see anything that matched the position of the affected primers.

The cartridges are headstamped WRCA so if it was a factory problem it would have been observed in any number of other Winchester cartridges.

Just one of those mysteries.

To my knowledge priming compound doesn' possess a "sell-by" date. Does anyone out there know if this is true.

thanks edi

Hey'
I was recently given several boxes of reloaded shotgun shells,and 2 boxes of Alcan primers.These go back a long ways.The ammo shot fine,so I used the primers,when reloading.I quess primers have a long shelf life.
1geejay
www.shooting-hunting.com

I too have used very old primers at times over the years with only one batch of 100 large pistol that had some bad ones, but not all. For average hunting or shooting around home I wouldn't worry, if I was paying big bucks and going a long way, I wouldn't take the chance, especially if I was going to a place where something could eat me.

It's not your primers!!! The acid in the powder, left over from when it was made, finally has "won" and is eating the hell out of the inside of your cases and leaking out around the primers. Seen it many, many times.

Don't even think about using that brass unless you like to see through plastic eyes.

If you are lucky, you MIGHT salvage the bullets --although bullets that old generally do not shoot well.

Sorry to be the bearer of Bad News.

BTW: the U.S. military generally assumes a primer shelf-life of about 20 years. But, they test periodically from the ammo-lot to confirm. From a civilian standpoint, even if a primer is 100 years old, don't stand in front of the gun when the cartridge is "tested."

Paladin

Hello Paladin - thanks for your reply. It makes a lot of sense. I started my working career in the laboratory of an explosive manufacturing set-up.

Our tests on the almost-final product were mostly aimed at checking that all traces of acid had been completely rinsed out of the "soup".

Why the importance of having no acid? Well -it's just that eventually things become a little unstable - and then random events can trigger an explosion.

My thinking is steadily hardening to unloading the rounds, examine the cases and if they appear to be undamaged, tumble them and reload with new components.

cheers edi

Your post brings to mind a little story that happened a few years back - somewhere in the late 1960’s as I recall. My brother and I, along with another friend, opened a can of 30 cal ball ammo, the kind that was packed in fabric belts to be used in the old Browning machine guns. This stuff was all headstamped "1916" and I believe it was all "FA" but don’t recall for sure. Anyway, it had been in the can so long the gasket had set up like cement and we had to beat the lid off. All the ammo looked clean and bright and we loaded part of it in M1 clips and every round fired and functioned through the Garand’s we fired it in. Don’t recall what we did with the brass but ’06 was pretty plentiful then so I imagine we threw it out. Just another case to add to the thread.
I have also heard of rimfire cartridges from the Civil War era being fired but have never seen this first hand. So I guess the advice about standing other than in front of the muzzle when testing old primers is sound advice.
"Shoot straight, shoot safe and shoot a lot!"
Regards,

How effective are the old primers though? Do they lose any of their capacity to ignite all the powder as they age? I have rarely had problems with them actually going off, but just wondering if they are still as good as the new ones.

Stole this:

Mercuric primers - Primers, usually Berdan type, that have priming compounds containing fulminate of mercury. The trouble with Mercury Fulminate primers is that elemental mercury is released on ignition, and amalgamates with the Copper in the brass, causing it to become brittle. This cannot be prevented, neither can the process be reversed. In the Age of Blackpowder, this was not a problem, as the fouling of the BP absorbed the mercury before it could get into the case metal. It became a problem with the higher pressure smokeless loadings.

Corrosive Primers - Primers, usually Berdan type, that have priming compounds containing Potassium Chlorate, producing Potassium Chloride on ignition. Potassium Chloride is as corrosive as Common (table) salt (NaCl).

Is it reloads? If so then are they old, see above!
Are they loaded with Cordite? Nasty stuf!
Did i help?
Henrik

Just for the record, I loaded the old Remington 9 1/2 magnum primers in my 300 RUM and shot them through a chrono. I then used Federal 215's with the same load. Speeds were nearly identical (within 20 fps). Guess that answers my question.

Edi - I think I'm with Paladin here. I've shot some mighty old ammo and loaded some mighty old primers with no problem...but I've never seen anything leak.

I think your risks involved here outweigh any possible value. Frankly, I would pitch the stuff and not do anything to it.

[ 10-31-2002, 03:20: Message edited by: Pecos45 ]