I got a couple boxes of older factory ammo from a guy and several of the rounds have a bluish grey corrosion on them. Not completely, just speckling.
I'll shoot them for the ammo but would also like to reload the brass.

How do I clean this up? I wiped one down with an oily cloth and it came right off but left the brass discolored.

Perry

Tumble it over night, if the discoloration doesn't "buff out", don't worry about it.

that is copper oxide.

So buff it out with tumbling? Live rounds?

Perry

Discolored brass is no issue.
And tumbling ammo is something I routinely do, however it is frowned upon because those people who attract bad luck, might have some. If you are one of these people, then shoot it first. Then tumble.
I, however, do not worry about that.

Or just wipe it some with 4/0 wool.
that's the quick way if not many.

At least that will show if it started
to etch the metal. IF it is, pull it down
or get rid of it.

George

quote:

Originally posted by georgeld:
Or just wipe it some with 4/0 wool.
that's the quick way if not many.

At least that will show if it started
to etch the metal. IF it is, pull it down
or get rid of it.

George

That's what I do if I only have few of them

quote:

Originally posted by perry:
So buff it out with tumbling? Live rounds?

Perry

I guess I spent too many years in Missouri, and have taken on their position of "show me". I have tumbled loaded ammo several times and nothing bad occurred, and in my mind never will. If this is a misconception, please offer proof.

quote:

Originally posted by perry:
So buff it out with tumbling? Live rounds?

Perry

No,tumbling will "buff out" the brass as much as it needs to be buffed out. I don't tumble live rounds.

You have to use different (coarser) media then, but tumbling will definitely do the job.
Again, do not do this or anything else I say; some guys just naturally attract disaster.

NEVER use brass polish, specifically brasso, as it will harden the brass

quote:

Originally posted by dpcd:
Discolored brass is no issue.
And tumbling ammo is something I routinely do, however it is frowned upon because those people who attract bad luck, might have some. If you are one of these people, then shoot it first. Then tumble.
I, however, do not worry about that.

Thank you guys!

Perry

You need to post a picture for use to evaluate. For very old ammunition I would recommend pulling a bullet, dumping the powder, and seeing if there is corrosion inside.

such as:


\







Now the dominant group think on this forum is that gunpowder and ammunition is immortal. And the big baboons really beat me up in this thread: Reloading distaster http://forums.accuratereloadin...231084262#7231084262 Only proving that they are ideologically and medieval stupid. But, gunpowder does deteriorate, it outgases nitrogen dioxide, which in the presence of humidity, converts to nitric acid gas. Both of which corrode brass. The corrosion you see on that five year old 7.62 X 54R ammunition is from gases coming out of the deteriorated gunpowder on the inside.

And if the gunpowder has deteriorated to the point that you see case corrosion, not only would I not shoot the stuff, I would only keep the bullets, because the cases are most likely ruined.

Like this pinhole.

Thank you for the documentation sir.

quote:

Originally posted by Fury01:
Thank you for the documentation sir.

You are welcome. There is a lot of entrenched stupidity and denialism about the lifetime of ammunition and gunpowder. Many believe gunpowder, and thus ammunition, lasts forever. The inprint press reinforces this BS, but then, it is what the shooting community wants to hear. So what is wrong in giving people what they want, even if it is bad for them?

The thing is, gunpowder deteriorates, the rate of deterioration is unpredictable, but the results are predictable. You can see the corrosion caused by nitrogen dioxide and nitric acid gas, and that ruins cases. Deteriorated gunpowder will also blow up guns, because the pressure curve is unstable. And lastly, bulk deteriorated gunpowder will burst into fire.

All of this was denied in the thread I referenced, which shows how entrenched the stupid crowd is on this forum, but people ought to know what to look for, and what deteriorated gunpowder will do. Like, burn your house down while you are sleeping. Or blow up your rifle.

All depends on how the ammo was stored.

I have had thousands of rounds of 7.62x39 ammo given to me which was corroded.

The primers were in a bad state.

I have pulled all the bullets off - ammo was from different manufacturers.

I put all the powder together - mixed,

Then used all of it for practice rounds around our range, in .222 and .223 Remington.

Worked like a charm.

Was also given thousands of 8x57 ammo.

Very old, but in wooden containers which had metal containers inside them.

These were made in Egypt 113 years ago.

I pulled the bullets, and used the powder for several cartridges.

Again, worked very well, no trouble at all.

I have had my own reloads corrode over the years like in the photos above.

And I think this was due to the old RCBS sizing lube - the very sticky one.

Not really sure, but that is what I think caused it.

If it will wipe clean with 4/0 steel wool, its good to go, if not just toss it..a few lost cases isn't much of a trama...

The recent recall of western 4064 powder of specific lots seems to indicate that quality control of manufacturing has something to do with powder life / stability.
I have three containers of this powder that look and smell fine and dandy. However the company warns this powder is unstable and should not be used.

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:


I put all the powder together - mixed,

Then used all of it for practice rounds around our range, in .222 and .223 Remington.

Worked like a charm.

Was also given thousands of 8x57 ammo.

Very old, but in wooden containers which had metal containers inside them.

These were made in Egypt 113 years ago.

I pulled the bullets, and used the powder for several cartridges.

Again, worked very well, no trouble at all.

Interesting experience.

As the owner of this site, I assume you set the group think of the forum, intentionally, or unintentionally.

I don’t know your attitude towards risk, but having loose 113 year old gunpowder in bulk, and then mixing the stuff with other lots, is very risky. Basically what you know is clock time, and that nothing bad has happened to date. But I am going to say, you really don’t know the quantity of stabilizer left in that 113 year old powder, and unless you own a pressure gauge, you don’t know what the pressure curve is doing.

I don’t know all the relevant characteristics to test in gunpowder, nor do I understand why there are so many test methods in Mil Std 286. Readers can look up Mil Std 286, Propellant, solid, sampling, examination and Testing and then tell me, what all those tests determine. For example, this one picked at random

Method 208.1.3 Nitrate esters SCOPE 1.1 This method is used for determining nitrate esters, such as nitroglycerin, in propellants containing no other component in admixture which can be reduced by ferrous Ion.

So what decision is made after after determining that no component in the mix can be reduced by a ferrous ion? But the fact of the matter is, there are a lot of characteristics about solid propellants that the experts can test, and make some determination, but I don't know how they use all that information.


I do understand why propellant was heated to 150 ˚ F, but it took time to find the reason:

1973 Picatinny Arsenal report AD-763-879 Prediction of Safe Life of Propellants states

Recently the NATO countries were in need of an evaluation procedure that would assure acceptor countries that propellants received from others would have a proven chemical stability for a given period of time when stored at ambient conditions. After many stability tests were reviews and evaluated through the conduct of round robins to insure that strict analytical agreement could be realized among world wide participating laboratories, the above mentioned method for the determination of available stabilizer content was accepted, with the establishment of suitable cut-off points. It was assume that if a propellant withstood a heating period of 60 days at 65.5 ˚C., without undue depletion of available stabilizer content, then that propellant would have a proven chemical stability for 5 years storage at ambient conditions



Anyone remember smokers? I worked in the era when everyone was allowed to smoke at their desks, and the smokers always denied that smoking was bad. They always had some story about an Uncle, a relative, who smoked two packs a day, and lived to 90, or 100 years. Smoking was beneficial. You know, few of the pack to two pack a day smokers lived until 60. I read of a genetic study, the scientist was looking for an immortality gene, and because smoking was too harmful, it seemed like a great idea to look at the DNA of 80 year old+ smokers. Unfortunately, there were too few smokers that age to make a statistically sound study, so the best the scientist could do, was find 80 year olds who used to smoke.

Now your 113 year old ammunition, when it was new, this Naval Battleship blew up:

There is an account of a WW1 British Battleship blowing up, but figuring out why the magazines blew is always a bit hard, after the fact
HMS Vanguard http://www.gwpda.org/naval/vanguard.htm

From Wiki:

Although the explosion was obviously a detonation of the cordite charges in a main magazine, the reason for it was less clear. There were several theories. The inquiry found that some of the cordite on board, which had been temporarily offloaded in December 1916 and catalogued at that time, was past its stated safe life. The possibility of spontaneous detonation was raised, but could not be proved. It was also noted that a number of ship's boilers were still in use, and some watertight doors, which should have been closed in wartime, were open as the ship was in port. It was suggested that this might have contributed to a dangerously high temperature in the magazines. The final conclusion of the board was that a fire started in a four-inch magazine, perhaps when a raised temperature caused spontaneous ignition of cordite, spreading to one or the other main magazines, which then exploded.

The propellant management guide https://www.osmre.gov/resource...tManagementGuide.pdf has a section:

CHAPTER4 NAVY GUN PROPELLANT SAFETY SURVEILLANCE 4-1.BACKGROUND.

Technical Manual Safety Surveillance of Navy Gun Propellant, Policy and Procedures,31August1996, is the best source for detailed in formation beyond the scope of this chapter.

a. The history of the Navy propellant surveillance program is very similar to that of the Army. Established at Indian Head, Maryland during the immediate post-World War I period, the Navy program was physically and technically a virtual twin of the Army program, which was begun just months later than that of the Navy in the year 1921. The oldest physical remains of both program's early days, the large, circular propellant heat chambers, appear to be built from the same design, during the same time period (1940-1941). Neither set of chambers at Indian Head.

Nor at Picatinny are the original 1920's-vintage structures, which were based on steam heated chambers which proved to be insufficiently reliable.

b. Auto ignition of propellant in the powder magazines aboard ship has caused the loss of many warships from the navies of various nations, most losses having occurred in the first few decades of the 20th century. The risk of unstable propellant aboard ship was so great that, even after more effective stabilizers were introduced during the second decade of this century, close monitoring of all the fleet stocks was considered essential. In fact, prior to 1963, each activity and ship had its own testing oven and was required to run a 65.50C surveillance test for 60 days each year on every lot of propellant in stock. Propellants in many configurations which would be considered safe for use by the Army (such as propellant loaded into fixed rounds) were and are routinely condemned and destroyed by the Navy as too hazardous to be aboard ship, where even a minor deflagration can cost the lives of the sailors and marines aboard, such as that which occurred in the powder magazine of the USS KEARSARGE, killing 10 sailors.

c. Information necessary to assure the safety of Navy propellant stocks(and the vessels upon which they are stored) is provided to the fleet as well as storage installations (Navy coastal and SMCA locations) through the monitoring and testing of all existing Navy propellants. The Navy Gun Propellant Safety Surveillance program produces this information through its two programs, the Master Sample Program and the Fleet Return Program.


The gunpowder used in large caliber weapons is slightly different in composition from rifle powder, the grains are larger, the burn rate slower, but it is all based on nitrocellulose. And it is the nitrocellulose that is breaking down, the day it leaves the factory.

Dec 2003 Propellant Management Guide:

Stabilizers are chemical ingredients added to propellant at time of manufacture to decrease the rate of propellant degradation and reduce the probability of auto ignition during its expected useful life.

As nitrocellulose-based propellants decompose, they release nitrogen oxides. If the nitrogen oxides are left free to react in the propellant, they can react with the nitrate ester, causing further decomposition and additional release of nitrogen oxides. The reaction between the nitrate ester and the nitrogen oxides is exothermic (i.e., the reaction produces heat). Heat increases the rate of propellant decomposition. More importantly, the exothermic nature of the reaction creates a problem if sufficient heat is generated to initiate combustion. Chemical additives, referred to as stabilizers, are added to propellant formulations to react with free nitrogen oxides to prevent their attack on the nitrate esters in the propellant. The stabilizers are scavengers that act rather like sponges, and once they become “saturated” they are no longer able to remove nitrogen oxides from the propellant. Self-heating of the propellant can occur unabated at the “saturation” point without the ameliorating effect of the stabilizer. Once begun, the self-heating may become sufficient to cause auto ignition.

I used to consider it remarkable that the shooting community is totally ignorant of all things related to gunpowder lifetime, until I came to the conclusion, that the shooting was actively ignorant on this topic. The community just does not want to know, and angry denial is very common. All sorts of anecdotal claims, but nothing on understanding the chemistry, thermophysics, or phenomena. In the angry denial thread I referenced, I did ask the group what was the essence of the immorality of gunpowder, so we may bottle it and get rich, and no one addressed that. Maybe they did not understand the question. Fighting the desired world view of the shooting community is pointless, and profitless, so industry reinforces the Agnotology, and tells the community what it wants to hear. That is, ammunition is immortal, and so is gunpowder.

If wishes were fishes, then all dreams would come true.

The Propellant Management Guide was written for Department of Defense personnel in a class room setting. These are individuals perusing a career in ammunition surveillance. They are being made aware that gunpowder deteriorates, and that the deterioration is unpredictable, and therefore their job is to constantly monitor, measure, and get rid of propellants that show deterioration. There is no discussion about whether propellants deteriorate, it is taken as a fact that they do. And the guide presents a short list of auto combustion events, to emphasis the seriousness of the job:


During the period 1984 through 1997, seven propellant auto ignition events occurred at U.S. Army Materiel Command (AMC) installations.

1. 1984: Lake City AAP
IMR powder that was only 5 years old autoignited and the above ground magazine & its contents were destroyed. More than 100,000 lbs of powder deflagrated.

2. 1984: Lake City AAP
The same lot of IMR powder, a fragment quantity isolated and saved for critical production testing, autoignited two months after the previous fire. Only a small quantity of powder was lost, but another magazine was destroyed.

3. 1985: Blue Grass Army Depot
The local-stocks storage magazine use for demilitarization activities contained high explosives material as well as unmonitored M10 propellant powder. Autoignition of the powder and its resulting deflagration gradually ignited the other energetic materials present. The earth covered magazine and its contents were destroyed.

4. 1987: Lone Star AAP
Benite was stored in a heated magazine so that it could be temperature conditioned prior to loading into production items. The building became overheated which accelerated the rate of decomposition of the benite to a point that autoignition occurred. The structure and contents were lost.

5. 1989: Hawthorne Army Depot
8-inch, 55-caliber propelling charges loaded with single-base propellant autoignited in an earth-covered magazine more than one year after the Navy ordered the lot destroyed due to low stability. The magazine contents of 30,715 lbs of various propellants were destroyed, and the magazine was heavily damaged.


6. 1996: Red River Army Depot
Expulsion charge assemblies for large caliber artillery rounds, each charge filled with only one ounce of M10 propellant and stored 250 to a box, autoignited. The earth-covered magazine and its contents were totally destroyed.

7. 1997: Hawthorne Army Depot
M9 flake propellant bags that had been removed from 81MM mortar rounds were bulk-packed and placed into long-term storage. A container of unstable propellant auto ignited, and all 20,000 lbs of propellant inside the earth-covered magazine were destroyed. The magazine was severely damaged. Value of contents lost was more than $3,000,000, while the cost to repair the magazine was $164,000.

d. Accidental auto ignition of propellant occurs at other than Army facilities, too. During the same time period as the incidents above, propellant self-ignition accidents have occurred at Navy facilities and at privately owned industrial storage sites. If you consider the number of accidents versus the limited number of locations that store artillery and small arms propellants, you begin to realize that the chances of having an accident happen at your installation are not as unlikely as you may have imagined

This paper is from an agency that is conducting propellant testing

Field-Portable Propellant Stability Test Equipment
by Elena M. Graves

https://alu.army.mil/alog/issu...pellant_stab_eq.html

The safety of ammunition stocks has been improved with the development of field-portable propellant stability testing equipment, which allows more ammunition samples to be tested.

The U.S. military has stockpiles of ammunition, new and old, that can present safety hazards. The primary ingredient of the propellant used in these rounds, nitrocellulose, can deteriorate with age and become prone to autoignition. To avoid the destruction that could occur from the self-ignition of this propellant, the Department of Defense (DOD) has established a program for testing ammunition stocks to determine the thermal stability of the nitrocellulose propellants they contain.

History of Nitrocellulose

Shortly after French chemist Theophile Jule Pelouze nitrated cotton in 1838 and created the world’s first batch of nitrocellulose, potential users recognized that it could be a dangerously unreliable explosive. Practical use of nitrocellulose began in the mid-1840s with the advent of Christian Shönbein’s improved manufacturing process. However, its use was short-lived because of frequent explosions of the impurely processed batches. It was another 20 years before Frederick Abel of Britain produced a good quality, commercially viable nitrocellulose known as guncotton.
Unlike black and brown powders, the new nitrocellulose powders had the desirable characteristics of being relatively smokeless, powerful, and nonhygroscopic. [Hygroscopic items readily absorb moisture from the air.] However, they still decomposed at an unreliably fast rate, causing so many accidental explosions in storage and among gun crews that black and brown powders remained the favored gun propellants on land and sea through the end of the 19th century.

Nitrocellulose-based powders finally replaced black and brown powders in the early 1900s, first at sea in the world’s navies and then on land. Since reliable means of stabilizing the nitrocellulose propellants had not yet been developed, these powders were still in danger of decomposition and, thus, instability. Devastating accidents, like those aboard the French battleships Liberté and Iena and the Russian Imperatritsa Mariya, lent urgency to the search for an effective stabilizer.

Propellant Stabilizers

As nitrocellulose-based propellants decompose, they release nitrogen oxides. If the nitrogen oxides are left free to react in the propellant, they can react with the nitrate ester, causing further decomposition and additional release of nitrogen oxides. The reaction between the nitrate ester and the nitrogen oxides is exothermic. (It produces heat.) Heat increases the rate of propellant decomposition, and the exothermic nature of the reaction may generate sufficient heat to initiate combustion.

Stabilizers are chemical ingredients added to propellants at the time of manufacture to decrease the rate of propellant degradation and reduce the probability of auto ignition during its expected useful life. Stabilizers that are added to propellant formulations react with free nitrogen oxides to prevent their ability to react with the nitrate ester. The stabilizers are scavengers that act like sponges, but once they become “saturated,” they are no longer able to remove nitrogen oxides from the propellant. At this point, self-heating of the propellant can occur unabated and may reach the point of spontaneous combustion.


Propellant Stability Testing

Propellant auto ignition accidents continued to occur after the introduction of modern stabilizers during and after World War I, but at a vastly reduced frequency. Most early propellant powders were stabilized with diphenylamine or ethyl centralite. Later 2-nitrodiphenylamine and Akardite II also became common stabilizers in the United States. The type of stabilizer used depended on propellant formulation.

Shortly after the end of World War I, the Navy and the Army each established permanent propellant surveillance laboratories to monitor the safe status of their propellants throughout their entire life cycles. Both services adopted the 65.5 degrees Celsius surveillance test as their primary tool. This test is a type of accelerated aging test and is known as the fume test. It is designed to preempt the auto ignition of propellant in storage by forcing it to happen much earlier in the laboratory. When a tested propellant lot’s “days to fume” reach a defined minimum level, all quantities of that lot, wherever stored, are ordered destroyed. Until 1963, Navy ships had propellant labs on board to conduct this test. Although techniques have improved over the years, the accelerated aging test is still conducted by the Navy service lab at Indian Head, Maryland, and the Army lab at Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey.


Imgur is down, I cannot access my pictures, which I use on this topic, and I have other things to do. Been leading a busy life this week. I don't know if the auto ignition characteristics of old gun powder have been established to the satisfaction of the deniers, and, I have not addressed storage, or how old gunpowder blows up guns. I may address that later.

Slam fire,
I want to say I believe the facts you have presented. Seems pretty clear.
I also want to say that indeed I WANT my ammo and powder to last forever. I concede that it will not. As you stated, it is not immortal.
Here now in this political climate we are facing another great disruption in the lifecycle of our guns and ammo economy.
My action item today will be to discard my 3 pounds of aa4064 that were recall in accordance with the directive western powder sent me. And I will pray for the peace of Jerusalem and that my powder and ammo will outlast me.
Shalom,
Fury01

quote:

Originally posted by SlamFire:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Saeed:

the new nitrocellulose powders had the desirable characteristics of being relatively smokeless, powerful, and nonhygroscopic. [Hygroscopic items readily absorb moisture from the air.]
.

I guess we were using old nitrocellulose at Hercules in the 1980's, as it was in 55gal SS drums and packed in more water than a can of tuna.

You can find smokers of 3-4 packs a day over 80 years old in Asia by the millions. Not here however, all I know is you would never ever tell a WWII or Korean Vet to put out that cigarette, pipe, chew, or cigar. Chances are they'd put you through the wall. We just got too huggy kissy after Vietnam to appreciate a person's free will.

Love the pictures though

This is an interesting video that clearly shows the dangerous of old ammunition, and everyone who has watched it, and everyone who is involved in it, are clueless why the rifle blew up. This is a picture perfect example of the culturally induced ignorance, “Agnotology”, that the shooting community has carefully, and deliberately, imposed on itself, about the problems of old ammunition and old gunpowder.


RN-50 Blow-Up
Kentucky Ballistics

https://youtu.be/1449kJKxlMQ


And the thing that jumped out to me was the immense fireballs, and finally the gun blew up.

The guy from Kentucky Ballistics says in the video that the “Slap round was very, very old”

And there you have it. Old ammunition. Unfortunately, the shooting community is not only ignorant of the problems with old gunpowder, it is deliberately ignorant. You don't want to know, because if you wanted to know, you would know. Ergo, you don't want to know.

Old gunpowder will absolutely blow up your weapon, and this 50 cal blow up makes a good example of two ideas: 1) that old ammunition will blow up guns, and 2) the shooting community does not know this.

Let me reassure everyone, that the story in your head, that energetic materials are safe, predictable, fail benignly, and will always be that way, well that is a nice story. Shoot enough old ammunition, and one day, you will find none of the main elements are true.Reloaders and shooters are lucky that more accidents don’t occur with old gunpowder, but what is also true, the shooting community does not want to hear the bad stories, and ignores all evidence that gunpowder does not last forever and is not safe forever.

Shoot enough old rounds, and you will find the one that changes the happy story in your head. It is only a matter of time. However, because the knowledge that old gunpowder creates dangerous combustion pressures, has been deliberately erased from the shooting community, the theories that come out after an accident ignore old gunpowder as a cause. I was talking to a machine gunner about the dangers of old gun powder, this shooter had purchased pallets of 1950’s Yugo 8 X 57 to shoot through his Maxim machine gun, and he said “that explains the two blown top covers.” Shoot enough of that old stuff and you will find a surprise, and it won’t be a Cracker Jack treat.

I used to collect stories of guns blown up with old ammunition, some of it around 20 years old. The shooter/owner is always surprised, and you can understand that having a weapon blow up in front of your face is most startling. And of course, the owner is clueless as to why the gun blew up. Given that the idea that old gunpowder is dangerous does not exist within the community, explanations for blowups are no better than the theories of Miasmist’s towards disease.


from wiki

But this is the situation the shooting community wants, it deliberately wants to be ignorant. It has successfully purged this knowledge from its memory, and anywhere else it might reside, and engages in active denialism. Any failure analysis will ignore old gunpowder as an potential explanation of over pressure conditions.

No matter how strong your delusions, and determination to stay ignorant, you will eventually bump into reality. As gunpowder ages, pressures go up.

This shooter does not know that the high velocities of his old Turkish ammunition are due to old deteriorated gunpowder. He thinks because his gun has not blown up yet, that his ammunition is safe. But given enough tries, he will hit a super hot round.


https://youtu.be/vX39uxaxjyI

This is worth looking at, it is a sales pitch, and I can't answer all the questions. If I had been at the presentation I would have asked a lot of non relevant questions to the presenter’s sales pitch. But you clearly see charts from the presentation that show that the combustion of old gunpowder results in high pressures.

https://ndiastorage.blob.core....18686vogelsanger.pdf

Effects of Long-Term Ageing on Small and Medium Calibre Propellants[/URL]

Rheinmetall is making the case that their gunpowder lasts longer. I can't explain everything in this chart, go ask Reinmetall for details. But the trend is clear, pressures rise with age.





Not that information matters. The shooting community does not want to know. I run into deniers all the time who are vehement that ammunition and gunpowder lasts forever. They read it in a magazine. And they did. In print gunwriters tell you want to hear, not that they know better: they are just as ignorant of the thermo chemistry of gunpowder as the rest of the community. They are part of an ecosystem that does not want the consumer to be picky about the age of the products they are selling. For industry, it is a win-win. The shooting community wants to be stupid, so, they keep the community stupid: Industry is never going to educate you on what not to buy. The vast majority of people have never figured this out. Is this not amazing by itself?

I am going to say, at some level of pressure, anything built by man, can be blown up by man. It is unfair to penalize the builder of the rifle when old, deteriorated ammunition, is fired in a rifle, and the pressure greatly exceeds the design margins.

Even the manufacturer has no idea of the dangerous of old ammunition. This is the most worthless, rambling six minute video I have seen in a long time. And lacking the knowledge of burn rate instability, the maker offers this :“round was counterfeit, was screwy”. It is apparent, he does not know that the first and most reasonable explanation is over pressures due to burn rate instability, due to old deteriorated gunpowder, in the case.


RN-50 Blow-Up

https://youtu.be/5AY6iEVhJE8

In my opinion, the most likely explanation was that the SLAP round was original military, was removed from inventory, sold as surplus, because the stock had reached the end of a safe storage and safe use life.

This is another concept that neither the maker or the shooting community knows about: ammunition surveillance. Given that the shooting community thinks gunpowder, hence ammunition lasts forever, the narrative in their heads is that there no need for someone to cull out the bad munitions. The implications of this chart will not register to the vast majority of the shooting community.



I have read estimates, that by weight, about half the weight of demilled munitions is small arms ammunition. The Department of Defense has a lot more than just small arms munitions in their bunkers. And they train and pay individuals, “Ammunition Specialists” to surveil munitions, and remove the old stuff. If you live near Camp Minden , Louisiana the big booms you occasionally hear, are old munitions auto combusting within the depot.

Heat ages gunpowder. Heat is used all the time to artificially age gunpowder. And the pressures go up.




Every so often, someone puts an old round in a gun, and this results.



But no one believes it. The shooting community does not want this to be true, so it ignores all evidence that it might be true.

Im careful about buying milsurp brass or loaded ammo, I toss the suspecious stuff, its just not worth the worry!! Better yet just spend another nickle and buy clean ammo and brass and be done with it..but to each his own on the subject..There is lots of good milsurp brass, both old and new available, I bought 500 to a 1000 Lake city, Rem and WW milsurp on AR in the last couple of months, all clean and priced right, some match some not, in both 308 and 30-06. the good surplus brass lasts forever if you take care of it..otherwise your just buying another mans problems is the way I see it....

The information Slamfire presents was mostly generated by the military or its contractors. While I will not argue that it is invalid solely for that reason, I will note that the sources of such information have vested interests.

The shorter the assumed life of an item the more often the item must be replaced. The military likes to justify the money it spends and if the presumed safe life of a particular munition is, say, 10 years rather than 20 years, then the supplier gets to sell twice as much of it than they would otherwise.

The practice of the military, complicit with military contractors, disposing of perfectly good supplies based on an arbitrary "shelf life" is a time-honored one which has lined the pockets of many a General, Colonel, or corporate CEO. Information generated under such influences should be taken with the proper grain of salt.

Perry,

PROOF ANY THEORIES by pulling/removing a bullet on the ugliest one of the group and inspect the powder, the case walls and the primer. Anything but clean and dry is a red flag on the whole group.

Nothing beats fresh ammo or handloads. Keep it dry.

I cleaned some loaded ammo in a viberator tumbler, 180 rounds in my shop..turned it on and went to the house and watched TV for the remainder of the day, it worked fine, pulled the bullets on 6 and checked the powder to see if the 4831 had turned to bullseye or whatever..It had not..I was real comfortable with it so I cut some of those cases lengthwise and checked the inside wall..I couldn't find fault with the cases...ended up dumping the powder in my garden..cleaned and loaded the rest and it was good stuff...

I do know of a case wherein a fellow had a box of 30-30s in his pickup for umpteen years, he shot a round at a coyote and the old gun locked up so he brought it to me, I pulled the bullets on two cases and the powder looked like gray talcom..Took it to a local smith who pronounced it dynamite!!...as to the gun it locked up so tight they ruined it trying to open it and the case was welded to the side walls, amazingly it didn't blow up and enjure the rancher..It now a wall hanger in his house or was. Apparantly his wasnt the first case of this kind..