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Thread: Very old SD ammo in my Glock 22
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24-10-2017, 13:13 #21
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Re: Very old SD ammo in my Glock 22
FC headstamp?
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24-10-2017, 13:50 #22
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24-10-2017, 13:52 #23
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Re: Very old SD ammo in my Glock 22
The FC headstamped stuff was a known problem. And 155gr 40 stuff is a gun beater at the best of times.
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24-10-2017, 14:19 #24
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24-10-2017, 14:20 #25
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24-10-2017, 14:52 #26
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Re: Very old SD ammo in my Glock 22
Not sure what you mean by in-line, but there was a documented issue with Federal (FC) nickel plated brass during 1995/1996 which related to weaker case web/base. They had many, many documented case failures that resulted in KB's. It would be related to the age of the ammo as the brass strength was improved after the problem was discovered and subsequent batches were ok.
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24-10-2017, 16:11 #27
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Re: Very old SD ammo in my Glock 22
One of these days I will create a more expansive write up on the hazards of old gunpowder, and it is a long list. But, if you are depending on ammunition for your life it is best to carry new ammunition, and by that I mean, less than 10 years old.
Everyone has anecdotal comments on ammunition that is 100,000 years or greater that their Cro-Magnon ancestors left for them, and shoots perfectly, but, the fact of the matter is, gunpowder has an indeterminate lifetime. Indeterminate means, "unknown, hard to quantify, difficult to predict", etc. Gunpowder is a high energy compound breaking down to a low energy compound. This is very basic and those with a science background ought to recognize something that they read on the topic. Gunpowder does not last forever, heat breaks down gunpowder at an exponential rate. Ammunition (gunpowder) stored in hot vehicles is deteriorating faster than ammunition stored in an air conditioned house. However, both are deteriorating from the day they left the factory.
I am tossing out kegs and bottles of gunpowder I purchased in the mid 1990's, the stuff has gone bad. The Armed Services pay people to go through their inventory and remove ammunition that had gone bad. It is either too dangerous to store, or too dangerous to shoot.
Army Not Producing Enough Ammunition
http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/archive/2003/May/Pages/Army_Not3866.aspx
Regardless of what the Army decides to do with its industrial base, the fundamental issue does not change: the Army needs to produce more war reserve ammunition, Naughton said. Time is running out, he said. “Most of the ammunition in the stockpile today was built 20 years ago during the Cold War buildup.” Most rounds are designed to have a shelf life of 20 years. “We are outside the envelope of the shelf life on 40 percent or more of our existing ammunition. The rest is rapidly approaching the end of its shelf life.”
Ammunition does not “go bad” overnight, after it reaches a certain age, but “once it’s over 20 years old, the reliability rapidly degrades,” said Naughton. Within a few years, it will become increasingly difficult to shoot it. “You can predict that you’ll lose 7-8 percent of the ammo after the 20-year mark.”*
To replace the obsolete rounds, the Army would have to produce 100,000 tons of war reserve ammunition a year for the next seven years. Past that point, it would need 50,000 tons to 60,000 tons a year to sustain the stockpile. That represents about “half the level of the Cold War buildup,” he said.
The amount of ammunition removed from military stores, every year, is in the hundreds of thousands of tons per year. It is a staggering amount, the only thing more staggering is the Agnotology of the shooting community about the facts and details of gunpowder shelf life.
Now, one of the issues with old gunpowder is that the burn rate spikes. So, if you are shooting ammunition that is already high pressure, with little margin in pressures before the case head blows, then you are best off not carrying decades old ammunition.
What you use for practice is not as critical as what your life depends on.
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24-10-2017, 16:16 #28
Re: Very old SD ammo in my Glock 22
Luck of the draw.
Last year I shot some .25ACP ammo bought from Laxtons in Market Street.
Worked fine.
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24-10-2017, 16:49 #29
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24-10-2017, 17:05 #30
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