Verdigris On New 7.62x54R PPU Ammo

You had me wondering about the ones I have. They were ordered about 6 yrs. ago. I just looked at the two remaining boxes. Both boxes look good on my end. I had ordered mine through Powder Valley, if that makes any difference. All of my boxes were/are of the 182 gr. loads.
I think I will pull a random bullet tomorrow to see how the innards look.

If it seems to be coming from the inside out, which is what you just described, DO NOT shoot them!
Remove them from the house, too.

They've turned...

Bad gunpowder. Eating it's way out from the inside, with Nitric Acid.
Bad powder doesn't burn, it explodes!

Here, let me call the Doc for you.

Paging Doctor @Slamfire !
I think we may have a case!

Do you have any pictures for the doctor to examine, @Catpop ?

Oh, wait!

We can examine the ammunition, but you’ll have to wait in the lobby. And if you have a temperature...

DON’T COME IN!

A guess would be it was mishandled at the time of packaging. Couldn’t begin to advise on whether it’s fireable or not.

You got the blue death, only the bullets are good when this happens.

RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY!

Catpop said:

Sorry I forgot you guys can’t read!
View attachment 903666 View attachment 903667

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PPU <> Wolf...I can see where one could get mixed up!

Yup. Powder gone bad. Very dangerous and unstable.

Catpop said:

I opened a new 4-5 year old box of PPU 7.62x54R brass case non corrosive FMJ ammo today only to find 3/4 of ammo covered with verdigris! It has been stored in my house with normal climate control. Some was at bullet/case junction and some was at base. One even had it at primer/case junction.
What gives?

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@Catpop , great pictures I would like your permission to use them.

Pull some bullets, dump the powder, and see if the corrosion is inside the case, and I believe it will be. Something like this:





Hard to believe that a new box of ammunition would have gone bad this soon. If gunpowder manufacturer was as simple as mixing sand, this rate of rapid deterioration would not happen. And, this should have never have been shipped from the powder manufacturer, I cannot believe the powder maker did not know that this lot of powder was defective. But, it was. Maybe their Quality Control staff came from Kobe Steel.

I am going to predict, there will be accounts of blow ups with this ammunition, gunpowder deteriorated to this level of corrosion will have burn rate instability, and someone's rifle is going to ka boom.

I pulled the bullet on a LC88 7.62 round this year, and I tossed the case.

Catpop said:

Sorry I forgot you guys can’t read!

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I would not describe that as verdigris. I would describe that as acid leaching. Verdigris is a gentle browning the greening of the case. Not a bright greenish powder emanating from a single point on the case.

A picture is worth 947 more words, and beside, I cain’t read.

But, yes, those are good pictures.
And totally don’t shoot those!

Darn.
Hopefully you can salvage the bullets.

Strange how it goes, huh?
Those could be fine for years.

Or not!

Is the general consensus that this is a flaw of the powder rather than metallurgy of the case? I assume that's the case (pun intended), I have several 30-06 rounds with 1908 headstamp that were stored in a musty basement for 80 years + that are tarnished but no visible corrosion. I pulled a few of them down and everything looked very normal, it really suprised me to hear such "new" ammo is suffering from such brutal rot.
If anyone can give me an idea on how best to section one of these cases with common tools I'll do one today and post pics if anyone's interested- I've got very little else to do...

Obturation said:

If anyone can give me an idea on how best to section one of these cases with common tools

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Take the primer out first!

Do you have a belt sander?
Brass, lead and copper are soft.

Break one down, pop the primer and leave it in, sand the case LESS than half way, sand the bullet the same amount so the faces match, reinsert bullet in neck, place powder back in half of brass, snap picture!

If you sand the neck down more than half it won’t hold the bullet for the picture.

Do not sand the bullet!!! That creates fine lead dust which is easily inhaled.

Just looked at some ppu 7.62x54r I have looks like the powders going bad, I'll see if I can get a picture. These are maybe 10 years old.

denton said:

Do not sand the bullet!!! That creates fine lead dust which is easily inhaled.

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True. I forgot, not everyone has one of these connected to their sander.



But a hand file or a sheet of sand paper aught to be docile enough. I think we all know we’re dealing with lead. The bullet doesn’t need to be cut, but some like it sectioned, too.


Five minutes later...


Only cut to one anvil foot. Dirty commercial powder. Factory case from the yard. One of my 75 Bthps seated at rifling length.

Be not ashamed of the sweat from your brow.
Not everyone has a shop to be so eternally grateful for as mine.

My case was boring. Yours has color!

I'll get it in the next day or two, got crazy today. My belt sanders buried but as soon as I get it I'll pop a couple pictures up. If I mangle the whole thing I'll still put a picture - we could all use a dose of humor.

Catpop said:

Here’s mine.
I pulled bullet
Dumped powder- it was clumped
Cut in half with a hacksaw- crudely
Sanded on a belt sander- if you try this remember brass gets very hot when sanded as I can attest!
Notice inside of case is not shiney and there was some powder stuck to inside of case.View attachment 904088 View attachment 904089

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I found reports in one American Rifleman magazine in the 1960's, the letter came from a shooter whose rifle had blown up with WW2 German ammunition. Probably a Mauser, but don't remember the action. He pulled some bullets and found clumped powder. Clumped powder is bad: