What is the accuracy shelf life of target-grade ammunition, assuming that it was stored under reasonable conditions?

I have fired some Eley Rapid Fire Pistol Match Shorts made in 1972. They seemed no more accurate than recently made CCI Target Shorts.

Your comparison of accuracy of CCI and ElY shorts may have nothing to do with shelf life. Does not seem to be apples to apples to me.

Hardly a fair, scientific comparison, unless you fired the Eley in a firearm (or preferably about 5) that was made for that specific chambering - more than one so you could have a chance of finding one that clicked with the ammo.

The same for the CCI and then compare.

I had the general impression that rimfire priming is good for about ten years, then starts to deteriorate. Not necessarily so?

Not the case in my experience. Re my original post. I have 3 original Winchester single shots chambered for Shorts. I had questions about the accuracy potential of current Shorts when compared with the known performance 100 years ago of Peters Shorts loaded with King's Semi-Smokeless. Lots of 1898-1912 data available. For test purposes, I was loaned a Stevens-Pope target rifle, 44 1/2 action, gain-twist Pope barrel, rifle almost unfired. I gathered a LOT of different types of Shorts, all high-end. Several lots of Eley Rapid Fire Match, the earliest dating from about 1972, the newest made about 2000. Also Fiocchi (new, in copper cases), older Fiocchi Normale, Lapua match, CCI Target Shorts (several lots), & some Remington Standard Velocity from 1946. I built a modern-day copy of a machine rest, put a 12X Unertl on the Stevens and began testing at ranges from 50 feet to 200 yards. I found the Eley RFM to be consistent in accuracy until I started testing the stuff made in 1972. The accuracy had dropped off, even after I re-lubed 3 boxes with SPG and tried that.

I shoot in a smallbore league with a bunch of geezers like me. Some guys bought cases of Federal target ammo (LR) back when it was top drawer stuff, in the 1980s & 1990s. They still shoot their Federals and still win our matches.

My thinking is, given ordinary storage, not too many freeze-thaw events, the accuracy potential is OK for about 40 years.

I have some ammo here from both Remington and Federal and CCI that is about 30 years old.

It shoots as good as new ammo.

Cannot tell there is any deterioration.

But, we have not checked for accuracy then and again now.

waterman, what is your experience with the accuracy of 22 short match ammo vs. 22LR? Back in the 60's I owned a Manurhin MU1 Vostock in 22 short. The gun was designed for the Olympic rapid fire game and I had visions of competing in the Modern Pentathlon! I never made it, but shot the gun at standard Bullseye matches. The combination of myself and this gun was not as good as other combinations using 22lr!!
Peter.

After shooting several thousands of rounds of Short Rapid Fire Match ammunition in a Stevens-Pope, an Eric Johnson-Ballard and a Winchester Winder Musket, all rifles fitted with a 12 X Unertl scope and fired from a machine rest, all at 25 yards (not meters), here is my opinion:

The .22 Short Rapid Fire Match ammunition was designed for extremely reliable & very rapid functioning in very carefully balanced blowback-operated semiauto target pistols. My understanding of the 25-meter target (& I may be wrong) is that the highest scoring X-ring is 5 cm diameter. If the bullets would all group in a circle of about 2 cm, the accuracy was sufficient. The contest was to fire 5 aimed shots (1 shot at each of 5 targets) in 3 rounds; In round 1, 5 shots had to be fired in 8 seconds. In round 2, the time was reduced to 6 seconds. In round 3, the time was reduced to 4 seconds. Each target is 75 cm apart. Low recoil, reliability and rapid cycling time were critical. I obtained most of the RFM Shorts I tested from a former Olympic-level competitor, since passed away. Included in the lot were several boxes of Eley with a 1972 production code. Each of those thousands of cartridges had been placed in the 4-jaw chuck of a lathe and the head of the rim had been faced, trimmed to give the same rim thickness to within 0.001". That is how serious the competitors were about reliability in functioning.

The design of bullets for our present-day LR match ammo vary a little (EPS, etc) but really they are all variations on a 40-grain theme. With the RFM Shorts, every manufacturer I tested (Eley, Fiocchi, Lapua & Remington) used a different design. With Eley & Fiocchi, the design changed over time. All the bullets were much more pointed than what we normally associate with Shorts (CCI, for example). Those designs are intended to improve feeding reliability, not accuracy. I did most of the shooting with the Stevens-Pope, circa 1904. None of the RFM bullets fit properly into the leade of the Pope gain-twist barrel. I shot some in the Eric Johnson barrel (chambered for LR; 16" twist) with slightly better results. I don't know what the chamber and leade of a purpose-made RFM barrel looks like.

Velocity (measured with the front of the Chrony 5 feet from the muzzle of the 30" barrel of the Stevens-Pope) varied by make; Eley was about 720 fps; Lapua about 640 fps; Fiocchi Normale about 670 fps, IIRC. There seemed to be a lot of spread, but this was from older pistol ammunition fired in a long, gain-twist, choke-bored rifle barrel.

Ordinary CCI Target Shorts are every bit as accurate as any of the RFM Shorts I tested, and are often more accurate, but intuition tells me that they will not function reliably in a RFM pistol.

Almost any mid-grade standard velocity target LR cartridges will be more accurate than the RFM Shorts. I have not yet shot any Pistol Match LR ammunition, but at 25 yards, I would expect greater accuracy than the RFM Shorts.

In a pistol of the same weight as the RFM pistols, any LR cartridge will have a more pronounced recoil and longer cycling time. That means lower scores in the RFM game.

In 2004, the ISSU ruled that the RFM Short could no longer be used in competition; only the LR cartridge. Predictably, the RFM scores dropped. And the manufacture of RFM Shorts ceased.

I have seen no evidence that age makes a difference. I have quite a bit of 22LR ammo and some of it could be 50yrs or older.

We have one lot of Federal Gold Medal that is about 30 years old.

And we have a new lot we got last year.

I fired 6, 5-shot groups of each at 100 yards in the Walther KK 200 mat5ch rifle.

Average of all groups:

Old Gold Medal 0.9752"
New Gold Medal 0.9468