Rusty ammo

[Jay Gardner]

Sounds like the punchline for a bad joke, I know.

Friday I pulled out a couple of old boxes of American Eagan (Federal) Copper Plated Field loads for my 20 ga. Now, I have not touched these boxes in several years but they were the only 20 ga ammo I could find so I took them. When I opened one of the boxes I discovered that several of theem were pretty rusty. Around the primers and around the base of the brass. Some were so bad I doubt that I could even get them to seat properly in a chamber. Most were not that bad, with just a little coorsion on the brass. I cut open a couple of the worst shells and found the shot to be in perfect condition.

What say you experts? Would you shoot the non-rusted shells that are not really bad and dispose of the rest or would you just dispose of them all?

Thanks,

JDG

[C Roger Giles]

Hell I would shoot all of them, guns are not sissys.

PTG Roger

[George Blair]

Jay, shoot those not rusted. Those that are rusted run the risk of hull seperation, or gas leakage. Just not worth the risk! George

[Pat Dugan]

I had several flats of winchester 20 ga that had steel hulls or the silver kind whatever they were made of, that were in an old ice chest to keep them dry.
Somehow my men moved it outside and it filled with rain water. They were so badly rusted, I had to put each shell on the wire brush wheel to clean them.

All worked fine on the skeet field, all 500 of them.

PDD

[C Roger Giles]

There is an old saying on the trap field that if you can get the round in the gun you can shoot it. This saying is praticed all the time even by those shooting Perrazzi's.

Roger

[George Blair]

Another old saying, shells are cheap, eyes aren't. George

[Jim Williams]

I did this recently with some rusted 20s. I cleaned them gently with a wire brush in a Dremel - they don't have enough power to heat up the primer! If they were pitted, I wouldn't have shot them, but none were pitted - it was all just surface rust so I shot them with no concerns whatsoever.

Jim

[Richard Flanders]

I've given a lot of rusty old paper ammo a try. I do clean the corrosion off and am careful to check the bores after shooting. I've had a few paper hulls separate entirely and go out, leaving the base in the chamber and have had a lot of base brass split longitudinally and even all the way around the extractor rim fold, but it's amazing what will still go boom and kill birds.

[Jim Williams]

I've given a lot of rusty old paper ammo a try. I do clean the corrosion off and am careful to check the bores after shooting. I've had a few paper hulls separate entirely and go out, leaving the base in the chamber and have had a lot of base brass split longitudinally and even all the way around the extractor rim fold, but it's amazing what will still go boom and kill birds.

Federal paper hulls have a tendency to split around the rim like that even when new. I bought a bunch of once-fired Fed. paper hulls from BPI or Precision that looked like they were in pristine condition - except when inspected closely about 20% were split exactly like that. I sent them back and they replaced them with good ones.

Jim

[Richard Flanders]

The ones I had split around the rim were/are likely at least 50yrs old if not 60 so the brass had turned brittle. I have one in front of me that is split completely around the rim but nothing separated. I give nearly anything a try but will always be very careful to check the bore after shooting them. I have a lot of old rifle ammo from my grandfathers collection. Most of old 6.5mm mauser ammo has split around the neck where the bullet put tension on the neck. I've seen that in a lot of old bottleneck type rifle ammo.

[john hickerson]

This thread reminded me of somethig back in the olden days. Way back in the forties when my father missd a bird he always blamed it
on old shells. In those days there really was some concern about the papers hulls and the deterioration of the powder.
I wondered if there is anthing true about that theroy
I might add that Dad was a extremely good shot and only rarely needed an excuse.

Hick

[Richard Flanders]

I think you could be right when it comes to the old non waterproof paper hulls. I've cut open old swollen shells and found the powder white and partially oxidized.

[Destry L. Hoffard]

Hick!

What have you been up to? We need a report.

DLH

[Brad Bachelder]

Jay, the greatest risk with rusted ammo is damage to the chamber and stress on the ejectors, extractor. As the base metal expands, it forces the rust paticles into the pores of the chambers. At first they may look fine, but with time, that trace rust will grow, rusting and pitting the chamber. The majority of repairs I do on extractors are due to corroded or poor quality ammo. I have a 311 that I use up bad rounds in. I would never fire any compromised cartridges in any of my fine doubles, rust is the bain of quality steel. I would allways reccomend using only the best quality rounds, in new condition.

Brad