I just finished a two day job of bringing home a great find from a garage sale setting up in the little town just west of me, a "haul" of surplus 38 Spec. with the headstamp R A 66. I had seen this in Vietnam in 1967 as this is the ammo that was issued to us for the junk, rattly S&W Combat Masterpiece 38 Spec. revolvers that Army Huey pilots carried.

The lady having the garage sale was being helped by her daughter and my neighbor's wife. My neighbor told me about the ammo and I drove up the hill to check it out. It was in a late 1950's bomb shelter in what would be a 3rd basement. 25,000 rounds in the original boxes on some of the heaviest shelving I have ever seen. All the boxes except one were still sealed. The lady's daughter said if I was willing to haul it up 3 flights of stairs, it and the shelves were mine. No brainier, right.

After cooling off and thinking a little last night, I started to see what I could find out about this stuff. I know it has a 130gr. full metal jacket bullet, but now idea as to velocity. I do remember it seemed anemic at the time.

Anybody know anything more about this stuff? Thanks

I don't know what velocity that stuff has, but I shot a couple of thousand rounds of that stuff in the 70's. You're correct in the "anemic" loading. I remember that the velocity was around the same as "target loads". And, it was fairly accurate at 25 yds. from a revolver.

Have the ammo chrono'd. There's really not much that you can do about it, except to enjoy a lifetime of shooting and plinking.

Heck a life time maybe 5 to 10 years worth of paractice.

A friend of mine with a chronograph took a box of the ammo and my 6" GP100 to the range last Friday and shot them for velocity. He got an average of 797fps from the 6" barrel. He shot some through his Marlin 1894 with an 18" or 20" barrel and got an average of 1206fps. With my Marlin 1894 Cowboy with a 24" barrel he only got another 75fps out of the extra 4" of barrel. He said in my Marlin with its full octagon barrel there was not enough recoil to even call it that.

My grandkids are going to have a lot of good shooting and good marksmanship training with these anemic rounds. The lack of recoil will help this.

Why does the ammo have to be "hot"? There is only one way to teach precision shooting for accuracy, and that is with ammunition that is accurate enough to give the shooter the right feedback, and not be so vigorous in recoil that the shooter becomes afraid of the revolver.

I think what you have is perfect for teaching new revolver shooters the art of "putting them in the same hole"...

if i remember right it was supposed to give 830fps. but that is about the best brass you can ever find

I went through several hundred rounds of this in the 80's. Seems that I experienced quite a few pierced primers. Didn't happen with other lots of 3-D wadcutters.


Dutch

Strange... Just earlier today I was rumminging around looking for something and came across a full box of, BALL CALIBER .38 M41 loaded by WCC headstamped WCC 72.

I shot a few thousand rounds of this stuff back in the early to mid 1970's.

There is actually 2 versions of 38 Special M41 ammo.
Going from memory...
The first was adopted in the mid 1950's. by the Air Force. It had a 130gr FMJ bullet loaded at low pressure @13,000 psi for the aluminium cylindered revolvers, that were cracking cylinders with normal 38 ammo. The velocity was @ 730 from a 4" revolver.

Later @ 1961 the M41 was changed to a pressure of @ 16,000 psi which boosted velocity to @750fps in a 4" revolver.
The Aluminium cylinders being long gone by this time...

I never had any issues shooting this 38 Special ammo in a wide variety of 38 Special and 357 Mag revolvers. I was able to get it at a very good price at the time.

Fish Bait

Check all of your ammo and see if any of it is marked PGU-12/B.

This is higher pressure, @20,000psi with a velocity of @950fps in a 4" revolver, if I remember correctly.

I finally got all the heavy shelving assembled and stacked all the ammo. Every box is Remington and after opening who knows how many just to check, it is all headstamped R A 66. The cardboard boxes it came in with 10 50 round/boxes each also have U. S. Army Ordinance and the "bomb" symbol.

Being stored in a basement this stuff was kept in a cool environment . This is good. But don’t kid yourself that 46 year old ammunition is new or that it will last another 46 years.

Ammunition has a shelf life, due to gunpowder deterioration. The rule of thumb for safe lifetime is 20 years for double based and 45 years for single based. Heat reduces the shelf life. Shoot it up before you get squibs, pressure problems.

If nothing else sell it off a little at a time at gun shows, online, face to face. Then use the cash to buy whatever you want. Either way you hit the lottery. Great find. There will also be some collectors who will jump on sealed containers so do not open all of them.

quote:

Originally posted by SlamFire:
Being stored in a basement this stuff was kept in a cool environment . This is good. But don’t kid yourself that 46 year old ammunition is new or that it will last another 46 years.

Ammunition has a shelf life, due to gunpowder deterioration. The rule of thumb for safe lifetime is 20 years for double based and 45 years for single based. Heat reduces the shelf life. Shoot it up before you get squibs, pressure problems.

That might be a general rule of thumb but I have several hundred rounds of 303 Brit dated 1917 that still shoots at full power. I pull a few stripper clips (it came in light cotton bandoliers, two strippers to a pocket) every year and chrongraph some. No change since I bought the lot in the 80s.

quote:

That might be a general rule of thumb but I have several hundred rounds of 303 Brit dated 1917 that still shoots at full power. I pull a few stripper clips (it came in light cotton bandoliers, two strippers to a pocket) every year and chrongraph some. No change since I bought the lot in the 80s

Would you eat a ninety six year old twinkie? You bought a large amount of old WW1 ammunition thirty years ago and you are wishing it will last your lifetime. Well I clapped my hands for tinker bell as a kid but that does not make faires real. Physics has not changed much since WW1 and one of the things that stays true is that nitrocellulose is a high energy molecule that is breaking down to a lower energy molecule from the day it leaves the factory. There are many reasons why the military tests its ammunition stockpile and flushes the stuff out of its system.

I found this document, which is the meeting minutes between Nato Insensitive Munitions experts. I found the Bulgarian presentation the most useful for any discussion on the shelf life of small arms ammunition. Just look at who many tons of old ammunition they have to junk.
http://www.underwatermunitions..._disposal_-_NATO.pdf
Environmental Impact of Munition and Propellant Disposal

quote:

2.2.1 Introduction

The store of unwarranted ammunition is kept in units of the Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Interior and in the Republic of Bulgaria. The concept ‘The Unwarranted Ammunition’ (UWA), in accordance with ‘The Programme for Utilization and Destruction of an Unwarranted Ammunition in the Territory of the Republic Bulgaria’ (the Programme) means an ammunition which has had more than 30 years service life, while not employed in military business, resulting in irreversible physical and chemical changes.


The UWA are dangerous and economically unprofitable for the following reasons:

1) The UWA are unpredictable as a result of irreversible processes within them, which can result in
ignition and explosion of the main charge and environmental damage in the storage area.

2) The storage area for UWA is in roofed premises and in field conditions which are close to populated
areas and this raises the probability of a human injury;

3) The storage of the UWA in field conditions increases the probability of the non-authorized access
to ammunition and their use for terrorist purposes.

2.2.3 Quantity of Conventional Ammunition in the Expired Term
Long experience from laboratory and range tests on ammunition has established that after 30 years of
storage, they are not suitable for battle usage. On this basis, all unwarranted ammunition is divided into
two groups – prior to 1975 and post 1975.

The quantity of UWA is determined based on years since manufacture. Oldest UWA have a much reduced reserve of chemical stability and considerable deviation from the expected functional characteristics. It is assumed that there will be no opportunity for future use.

By 01.01.2005 the total quantity was approximately:
1) UWA – 76,100 tones.
2) Explosives and propellants in various forms – 12,400 tones and of that Propellants (7 400 tones)
and Explosives (5,000 tones).
3) Metal from shells and cases – 23,682 tones.
4) UWA packing material – 1,556,045 in number and by weight – 23,387 tones.

I have no qualms about people shooting up old ammunition. Just don’t do it near me. I warned you, you can Google “insensitive munitions” and find out that ammunition gets dangerous and unpredictable with age. You can find out that guns blow up with old ammunition, and after all that , if you want to shoot the stuff, you have been informed of the risks.

Slamfire you have little experience with old ammo.

Having read through most it is dealing with disposel not life expectancy. Then 13 percent of their dealings was small arms ammo. The rest much larger expolsives.

Citing this study really has nothing to do with the age of the will stored small ams ammo.

quote:

Originally posted by SR4759:
Slamfire you have little experience with old ammo.

He doesn't tolerate dissent well, either. I hear that's often the case with twinkies and faires.

I was a marksmanship instructor with the U.S. Air Force during the late sixties and early seventies. Yes the early ammo was poor in velocity, but accurate. The PGU12/B ammo was a combat round that would chrono out of 4" S&W Model 15 Combat Msterpieces from 800 to 850 fps depending on lot number. The brass would last forever if standard velocity loads were used.

quote:

I have no qualms about people shooting up old ammunition. Just don’t do it near me. I warned you, you can Google “insensitive munitions” and find out that ammunition gets dangerous and unpredictable with age. You can find out that guns blow up with old ammunition, and after all that , if you want to shoot the stuff, you have been informed of the risks.

Can you reference ONE verified instance of a personal firearm blowing up due to the use of old ammunition?

http://www.socnet.com/showthread.php?p=1344088

This is the best account I have, complete with pictures. People blow up firearms all the time, very few understand that old ammunition is risky, and even less want to talk about it.

I wish there was statistics on how many old rockets have blown up due to solid propellant instability, but there are bunches.

quote:

http://www.socnet.com/showthread.php?p=1344088

There was a thread on another forum titeled “What’s in your ammo can” and many guys had old surpluss ammo so I told this story. Ty (arizonaguide) asked that I come put it here also so here it is boys, draw your own conclutions.

Back in the mid 80s my Dad and a bunch of us went shooting in Arizona. Dad had a couple thousand rounds of WWII surplus .30M1 (30-06) ammo that looked great on the outside cut his M1 in half in his hands. He was kneeling with elbow on knee when the first round of this ammo went BOOM! We were all pelted with sand and M1 shrapnel.

When the dust cleared Dad was rolling around on his back with buttstock in one hand, for stock in the other, barrel and receiver hanging by the sling around his arm trying to yell “mortar” thinking he was back on Okinawa in battle. The blast had removed his ear muffs, hat, glasses, and broke the headlight in my truck 15 feet away but Dad was only shook up and scratched a bit once he got his wits back. It sheared off the bolt lugs, blew open the receiver front ring, pushed all the guts out the bottom of the magazine, and turned the middle of the stock to splinters.

After a couple hours of picking up M1 shrapnel we headed to the loading bench and started pulling bullets. Some of the powder was fine, some was stuck together in clumps, and some had to be dug out with a stick. It didn’t smell and was not dusty like powder usuley is when it’s gone bad. Put it in a pie tin and light it and it seemed a tad fast but not so you would think it could do that, wasent like lighting a pistol powder even. He had 2000 rounds of this stuff and nun of us were in any mood to play with it much after what we watched so it all went onto a very entertaining desert bon fire. I got the M1 splinters when Dad died last year and will post pix here below for your parousal and entertainment.

Anyway, I no longer play with any ammo I am not 100% sure has always been stored properly . . . cheap shooting ain’t worth the risk to me anymore! I still buy surpluss if the price in right but I unload and reload it with powder I am sure of or just use the brass.

She was a good shooting servasable Winchester M1 before this.

Most grands get taken apart like that from out of battery firing. Normmaly a defective firearm then ammo.

Looking at the damage amount of case left in the chamber the sheared off lockings out of battery.

Seen it before.

Very hard to prove one way or the other

quote:

Originally posted by p dog shooter:
Most grands get taken apart like that from out of battery firing. Normmaly a defective firearm then ammo.

Looking at the damage amount of case left in the chamber the sheared off lockings out of battery.

Seen it before.

Very hard to prove one way or the other

Left lug was engaged and sheared through the bolt body, that is how you know the bolt was in battery.

Plus it was on the first chambered round. The hammer nose on the Garand prevents the hammer from hitting the firing pin until the lugs are in battery.

And they disassembled rounds and found dusty and clumped powder. That is 100% positive indication of deteriorated gunpowder.


As it was explained to me by an insensitive munitions expert, as gunpowder deteriorates the powder grain deteriorates unevenly. Instead of a nice smooth pressure curve the pressure curve becomes irregular. This is bad. Worse, with double based powders the nitroglycerine migrates to the surface, spiking the burn rate. I was told that the surface of old ordnance charges becomes sensitized with age, someone moves the stuff, friction happens, kaboom!

ROLE OF DIPHENYLAMINE AS A STABILIZER IN PROPELLANTS;
ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY OF DIPHENYLAMINE IN PROPELLANTS

quote:

Nitrocellulose-base propellants are essentially unstable materials
that decompose on aging with the evolution of oxides of nitrogen. The
decomposition is autocatalytic and can lead to failure of the ammunition or disastrous explosions.

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/783499.pdf

Heat, as you can see in the report, will age gunpowder. Heat is bad.




Combustion pressures will rise after high temperature storage.

quote:

INVESTIGATION OF THE BALLISTIC AND CHEMICAL STABILITY OF 7.62MM AMMUNITION LOADED WITH BALL AND IMR PROPELLANT

Frankfort Arsenal 1962

3. Effects of Accelerated Storage Propellant and Primer Performance

To determine the effect of accelerated isothermal storage upon propellant and primer performance, sixty cartridges from each of lots E (WC 846) and G (R 1475) were removed from 150F storage after 26 and 42 weeks, respectively. The bullets were then removed from half the cartridges of each lot and from an equal number of each lot previously stored at 70F. The propellants were then interchanged, the bullets re-inserted, and the cases recrimped. Thus, four variations of stored components were obtained with each lot.

Chamber pressures yielded by ammunition incorporating these four variations were as follows. These values represent averages of 20 firings.

quote:

Having read through most it is dealing with disposel not life expectancy. Then 13 percent of their dealings was small arms ammo. The rest much larger expolsives.

Citing this study really has nothing to do with the age of the will stored small ams ammo

That report was the meeting minutes of experts and what must be done to prevent ammo dumps from exploding. I did think it was interesting because of the Bulgarian numbers. I have only heard of the US numbers for propellant shelf life. Maybe it was just too high a level for the people on this forum.

Play with the number: 13% by weight and 98% by volume:

quote:

The bullets for small arms (machine guns, assault rifles and pistols) have the greatest volume in the UWA more than 98%

So why are the Bulgarian's disposing of 76,100 tones of Ordnance, 98% volume percent small arms ammunition, if it lasts forever? Remember from your readings they said it is not acceptable for use, not that they are no longer using that calibers. So it if lasts forever, why not keep it and use it in training?

In so far as “explosives”. What propellant technology is used inside artillery shells, rocket motors, small arms ammunition, explosive warheads? Are the laws of physics different for an identical propellant if it is inside a rocket, artillery shell, verses a rifle round?

Come on twinkies and faires, why?

quote:

Slamfire you have little experience with old ammo.

I am just waiting to read your experience and knowledge.

quote:

He doesn't tolerate dissent well, either. I hear that's often the case with twinkies and faires.

You are free to do your own research and get educated on this topic. I respect those who do the hard work of getting educated, finding knowledge, having experiences to share. Ignorance is the natural state of mankind. It takes work, hard work, to learn, to explore, to increase the boundaries of your knowledge; it takes nothing to stay ignorant. Nothing. If all you have is ignorance and sarcasm don’t expect me to kowtow to you.

quote:

The hammer nose on the Garand prevents the hammer from hitting the firing pin until the lugs are in battery.

M1s are known to slam fire from defective firing pins.

Second you have not really provided any real reason this man's lot of ammo should be suspect.
All you have done is quote a lot of unrelated stuff. So now you tell us the real way to find out what is going on with the ammo....

Got no idea? Well you take a statistically valid sample and shoot it. If it is ok proceed with shooting it for recreation or whatever. As you shoot more of it your sample just grows larger and more statistically valid. After a few thousand rounds he can tell you more about the ammo than all the stuff you cut and paste from the net because it is dealing with the actual ammo and not something someone else did.

Now start kowtowing.

quote:

M1s are known to slam fire from defective firing pins.

Sure. Why would the rifle blow up from an in battery slamfire? I have had them in Garands and AR15's.

I have been giving people a warning about the risks of old ammunition. The stuff is not risk free, it gets worse with age.

That is not what the “experts” on this page have said. Everyone is shooting WW1 ammunition if not older. Ammunition last forever, perfectly safe, never goes bad.

And you don’t want to hear otherwise. Sitting on your pile of old ammunition, thinking it will last forever, or at least as long as you. Finding out it may be a pig in the poke not so much fun, have to push back, right? Denial.

You can advise people to shoot enough ammunition and see if the gun blows up. If the gun does not blow up than the ammunition was safe. If the gun blows up then the ammunition was unsafe.

That is one way to do it. If you don’t understand the chemistry or the kinetics just shoot until your hand/head is detached from your body by a bad round. Works every time and is a 100% indication of unsafe ammunition.

I look for the gross indications of age. Old gunpowder outgasses NOx. I have pulled bullets, looked for corrosion, look for cracked case necks, and I have seen how the ES’s and SD’s increase with old ammunition. Evidence of squibs and huge fireballs are positive indications of age. The best thing to do after those physical observations is pull the bullets and dump the powder, examine cases for corrosion. Once I learned about the problems with old propellant, I poured out over 75% of the surplus powders I bought. They were bad, they went bad. I got pressure indications or evidence of outgassing, like the photographs below. NOx attacks brass, causes it to fail.



This 303 Case was corroded. I am not going to shoot it due to concerns how the corrosion weakens the case, so I pulled the bullet to see evidence of corrosion. I don’t know whether the coridite has changed color, but I did not see evidence of internal pitting.




All of these Nov 1898 Krag 30-40 cases had case neck cracks. I pulled the bullet and found that the powder was red. This stuff should not be fired .




I am no longer buying loaded old military surplus. The stuff was rejected as unfit by the procuring agency. I am not buying old estate sale powders anymore. I am shooting up my oldest powders first.

I went to the Library this week doing more research on the topic of moisture effects on single and double based propellants. For my own edification. What research have any of my critics done?

What do you know on this topic other than what I have told you? Tell me something new.

Send me all the old ammo anyone does not want. I will be happy to deal with it.

One thing to think of, is eventually that the surplus ammo will run out, if the hoplophobes don't grab the "bolt action assault rifles" first. I have noticed the Serbs (?Yugo?) still producing 8x57mm military ammo, some as late as 1999 dates. The PPU ammo, also Serb as well, is produced in several military calibers that are normally only found as surplus - so if there are those that don't want to shoot ancient stored ammo they can go to this. I get 8x57 and 303 British this way that isn't as expensive as Winchester Super-X.

That and it doesn't seem to be under the same heavy demand as 5.56x45, 7.62x39, 7.62x51, etc.

I thought I would post these images from some very old Safety Reports. The first one is from 1969 and the second from 1970. Forty four and 43 years ago the ammunition surveillance experts were reporting that certain WW2 30 Caliber ball (then 27 years old) were too dangerous to keep in inventory.

As you can see they decided this upon fume tests, which is a test of the amount of stabilizer left in the powder. What makes anyone think that the surplus ammunition you bought is somehow new or as good as new? Don’t you think that the safety experts ran tests on the stuff before selling it off to you? After getting your money, don’t you think they laughed all the way to the bank?



And do you really think WW2 era ammunition has gotten better in the last 44 years?

I would like to update this thread with this account of an over pressure cartridge loaded with old deteriorated gunpowder.

http://www.thehighroad.org/sho...=7756780&postcount=6

quote:

Although it's remotely possible that a defective load (very unlikely if factory ammo) or poorly stored ammo that had deterioated. I had some H450 go bad and an "accuracy" load from a .30/06 w/180gr bullet locked up the bolt and removed case looked like a belted magnum...... but gun was unharmed.... primer was blown however and pitted the bolt face...... I pulled down the rest of the ammo and powder "stunk" like vinegar and inside of cases were turning green from acid corrosion..... Ammo had only been loaded 6mos earlier... and powder looked and smelled "ok" then.

Interesting... I guess I haven't researched this stuff much, but is there any way to visually inspect modern smokeless powder to see the deterioration you describe?

I've seen blackpowder that gets "clumpy" from poor (humidity?) storage, but wondering how smokeless powder reacts to like conditions...

Is there a "litmus test" so to speak?

Interesting... I guess I haven't researched this stuff much, but is there any way to visually inspect modern smokeless powder to see the deterioration you describe?

I've seen blackpowder that gets "clumpy" from poor (humidity?) storage, but wondering how smokeless powder reacts to like conditions...

Is there a "litmus test" so to speak?

Yes there is a litmus test, and it is conducted with methyl violet paper. I was told inspectors put methy violet paper in a test tube with a sample of powder. I don’t remember the time, but if the paper turns pink the powder is then tested for stabilizer content.

There are a lot of powder tests, and they require a chemistry lab. Take a look at Mil C 286C Propellants Solid, Sampling, Examination and Testing

http://www.everyspec.com/MIL-S...9/MIL-STD-286C_8618/

For us who do not have a chemistry lab, all you can really tell is the gross indications of powder that is way past its shelf life.

Pull a few bullets and see if there is green corrosion in the case and on the bottom of the bullets. If so, the powder is severely outgassing NOx indicating depletion of the stabilizer.


The red color change in the picture above.

Fuming nitric acid will positively knock your socks off if you smell it. So a bitter smell with red dust is a positive indication of old powder.

The nitrogylcerine in double based powders migrate to the surface, maybe that accounts for the glumpy issues. I would say anything that changes the composition, color, smell, free flowing characteritics of powder is a clue that it is old.