Found more old ammo.

[Axis II]

Going through the girlfriends dads stuff from Vietnam we found an ammo can with western Cartridge Company 45acp 1911 ball ammo. 303 British ammo, 30/06. Match ammo still sealed and a ton of 22long. She’s getting her grandfathers Winchester model 250 soon. Looks like she will have plenty of ammo for it. I can’t believe the age of some of this ammo.

 

[TikkaShooter]

I have a s-load of WWII 45 ACP ammo. About once a year or so, I load a magazine and shoot it; it still goes bang and so far not one F2F.

 

[Obturation]

I shot mountains of WWII (mixed with cartridges from other eras too) surplus, had a buddy (now deceased) who worked for a shop that dealt mainly in parts kit import rifles and militaria. He would stick a shovel into a drum of 45s and give me scoop or 2 for next to nothing. It was mostly good but there were some duds and some very odd looking ones too, i was about 25 at the time and had a new sig 1911 (when they first were released) and i didn't know anything about loading or much in general- i shot it all. I'm sure that those cartridges had not been well stored but mostly worked.
My point is if its factory ammo and well kept should be fine, 22s may not be as reliable but i guess you'll find out.
I have a win. Model 250, fun gun. I think parts may be scarce but i'm not sure on that, haven't needed any.

 

[Eddietruett]

Back in the late 70's one of the older members of our Gun Club was a retired Army Officer. Somehow he had managed to get at least 20 wooden cases of old .38 Ball Ammo. He said it was WWII vintage. Not sure how many rounds was in a wooden case, but it was a bunch. Every now and then he would decide to bust open a case and call a few of us and we would shoot all afternoon. Don't remember ever having any problems with it shooting well. I'll never forget some of those days. He liked to do a quick draw and snap shoot at cans on the ground. We had a ball. His health go bad and he quit shooting and soon after passed away. Never did find out what happened to his guns and all the ammo that was left. He also had a couple of cases of 30-06 but we never got into an of that.

 

[Tommygunn]

I still have some .30 carbine that my father brought home from his service in Korea, 1950-52.

Back when I was a kid, he had a full grocery bag (large size) full of it. Mostly it was WW2 surplus. During a move in the late 1980s he accidently left a large portion of the ammo in a hotel room he was staying at overnight.

I always wondered what the maid thought when she discovered a bag full of ammo sufficient in volume to launch a minor invasion!!!!! .....

 

[ThomasT]

I gave my son a couple of guns, a Hi-Point 9mm and a 10/22 and ammo for both guns. When he moved from the rent house he shared with two other knuckle heads. I found most of the ammo on a table in the back yard sitting out in the weather. The 22 ammo was Remington Golden Bullets in the 333 round count box and it still had around 230 rounds left.

I was P.O.ed about the lack of care given to the gift. I decided to shoot the 22 ammo and see if any of it still worked. The box was almost dissolved from sitting in the rain so I didn't expect much. Most don't expect much from this ammo when brand new. Anyway I shot all the ammo in one shooting session. Every one went off and all sounded full power. That surprised me. Ammo is far more durable than most give it credit for.

I did buy some 7x57 dated 1938 with 175gr steel cased bullets or what ever the silver colored bullets are clad with. It all went bang. But not when you pulled the trigger. You had to wait a couple of seconds for it to go off. I finally just pulled the bullets and saved the square cut powder. The powder seems to be fine. The bullets are cool and I have 235 of them. I will load these in my 7-08 and plink with them. The surprising part was how accurate the old loads were even with the delay. And how mild the recoil was compared to my handloads. No wonder it was such a popular round a century ago.

 

[TikkaShooter]

When I was a kid, one of my chores was shooting WWII .30 CAL ammo so we could reload it. The reloading press was a Herter's C press.

 

[Eddietruett]

Way back when I was just getting started in hunting a loading, a friend gave me a bunch of 30-06 Military Ammo. Since money was real tight back then, we pulled the bullets and reloaded them with soft points for deer hunting. Pulled and loaded around 500. We used the same weight bullets and if I remember correctly they were 150gr and we had no idea what kind of velocity we were getting, but surprisingly they shot very accurate and accounted for a bunch of deer in our group. 30-06 was the go to caliber around here in the 70's and you would have thought we hit the jackpot. I may be wrong, but the cost for 100 bullets was around $8 so that put our cost for a box of 20 at less than $2.

 

[Deus Machina]

Rule of thumb is that if it's visually good, it'll shoot.
A friend's neighbor used to shoot WWII-era ammo he had in cans to match the guns he had. They looked better than anything that had clearly seen a tour had a right to. Guy respected his guns.
After a while, I'm certain he kept just enough ammo for the display.
Not as recent, but my dad gave me half a can of .22LR (Winchester Wildcat) when he gave me a gun twelve years ago (A Ruger Mark 3 22/45; I still have it), and he'd had that at least since he taught me to shoot in the early- or mid-90s. I've shot .38 older than I am and 7.62x54 older than my grandfather.
I also had a little Carcano ammo I bought for the clips, but never did shoot that. Word is it was iffy even when it got to the front lines.

 

[Archie]

I did buy some 7x57 dated 1938 with 175gr steel cased bullets or what ever the silver colored bullets are clad with. It all went bang. But not when you pulled the trigger. You had to wait a couple of seconds for it to go off. I finally just pulled the bullets and saved the square cut powder. The powder seems to be fine. The bullets are cool and I have 235 of them. I will load these in my 7-08 and plink with them. The surprising part was how accurate the old loads were even with the delay. And how mild the recoil was compared to my handloads. No wonder it was such a popular round a century ago.

Ratshooter, any ammo dated 1938 will have 'corrosive' primers. They really don't corrode, but the salts left in the barrel are hygroscopic. The water is corrosive.
The silver looking jackets are cupronickel. As copper jackets will leave traces of copper in the bore, cupronickel leaves more. Much more. Which is why gilding metal jackets were developed. They do not cause problems the first time, make sure you clean the bore with copper solvent.

No point in saving the powder. There is no way to identify it, no way to get loading data for it. (Unless you keep records of the load data from the ammunition, then load the same bullet and such.) Powder from 'the old days' were much faster than current powders, too. Save some of that old ammunition to check with a cartidge collector. Much of it is simply 'old surplus' but some is collectable.

 

[ThomasT]

Hi Archie. I cleaned the bore on my rifle really well after I tried shooting those loads because I thought they might have been corrosive. The powder charge was 38grs of the flake powder. Ross Seyfried once wrote that most of those rounds in the size range could safely be reloaded with 38grs of Reloader 15 for a duplication load. And I clean my bores with Barnes CR-10 copper solvent. That stuff works very well. I have already pulled all the loads and tossed the brass cases.

The silver looking jackets are cupronickel.

I knew that but couldn't for the life of me remember the correct name. Thanks. Those should be the same bullets WMD Bell used to kill many of his elephants. If one gets loose from the zoo I am ready for him.

 

[theotherwaldo]

When I was attending the University of Alabama back in the 1990s, one of my many work-study jobs was with the Department of Space Management, inspecting all of the spaces within the campus, updating the drawings and assigning room numbers. One of the buildings that I inspected was the ROTC firing range, now demolished in favor of more dorms.
It was a fun place to shoot, especially since they had a huge backlog of .38 S&W and .38 special that needed to be used up.
I helped.
I also helped them to dispose of the used brass, which was usually just stuffed into gunny sacks and then jammed into the crawl space inder the lanes. I declared that this was a safety hazard, as it would impede any attempt to access this space in event of an emergency. I even helped them by hauling this debris away.

The salvageable brass was de-capped, cleaned, resized and mostly sold, with the remainder helping me to learn how to reload modern ammunition (previously I was mostly limited to .22 and muzzle-loaders). The rest was scrapped. This little project brought in some welcome cash for a near-broke student
Most of the pistol ammunition and brass was dated between 1917 and 1957, but all of the loaded rounds worked fine. There was also several hundred pounds of 5.56 brass, but all of that stuff had a much later date. Apparently, AR-15 rifles were no longer being fired on the campus grounds... .

 

[Archie]

I knew that but couldn't for the life of me remember the correct name. Thanks.

You are most welcome. One of my main collections - hobbies (obsessions?) is WWI rifles. So I tend to be conversant with that sort.

Those should be the same bullets WMD Bell used to kill many of his elephants. If one gets loose from the zoo I am ready for him.

Karamoja used the 7x57mm Mauser in FMJ (military) form for elephants. That rifle was known in the United Kingdom as the ".275 Rigby". (Karamoja's favorite rifle and round was the Y1903 Greek Mannlicher-Schoenauer in 6.5 Mannlicher-Schoenaer caliber. But he couldn't get ammo, WWI was on.) I think he used the Spanish loading for the 7x57mm, a heavy long bullet of 173 grains, FMJ and had the amazing muzzle velocity of an official 2300 fps. Yup, it would penetrate an elephant's skull.

One leetle thing about duplicating Mr. Bell's feats. Be able to put a shot exactly where the bullet will hit the brain, and have ice water in your veins. Karamoja worked rather close and precisely. Which is why his score is Bell - 1100 plus and elephants - nil.

 

[ThomasT]

Karamoja used the 7x57mm Mauser in FMJ (military) form for elephants. That rifle was known in the United Kingdom as the ".275 Rigby". (Karamoja's favorite rifle and round was the Y1903 Greek Mannlicher-Schoenauer in 6.5 Mannlicher-Schoenaer caliber. But he couldn't get ammo, WWI was on.) I think he used the Spanish loading for the 7x57mm, a heavy long bullet of 173 grains, FMJ and had the amazing muzzle velocity of an official 2300 fps. Yup, it would penetrate an elephant's skull.

I have read a bit about Bell myself. He was an interesting person.