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I rotate my EDC ammo once a month. Not for reasons of age but because I practice with my EDC and like to shoot the SD ammo.
I did a fair amount of shooting a .45 ACP 1911 in my Naval career. And just as WJH2657 stated, I was always issued ammo that was at least a decade old. I can't recall ever having a problem with any of it.
To the question; IMO properly stored ammo will last many years.
How long is too long to carry defense ammo? A day longer than it will go bang when you pull the trigger.
While I have not read all post most are saying "properly stored ammo will last many years" But the ammo we carry in EDC is not properly stored so its life will depend on the elements it has to face. So its life span will vary.
So when do you change it out? When you feel there is a chance it will not fire and before it actually wont. Is that time a set time NO! I go mainly by ammo's look and my gut. Every round I re-chamber with reloading get put in practice ammo every 5-10 reloads.
When I go to the range I will shoot what is in the gun and then to reloads. That cycles a box of ammo every other week (20 round boxes of Cor-Bon DPX). I will soon be going to 50 round boxes of Winchester 127Gr+P+ Ranger T's at way less expense. I also don't clean my guns but once every year or so and no oil, just grease in 5 places.
If the US Army keeps and fires theirs 40 or more years after it's made I think I can keep mine more than a year...:confused:
When I go to the range, I shoot all the carry ammo I had in my carry magazines, then I shoot target ammo. When I get back, I put fresh carry ammo in my carry mags. My carry ammo can get to be several years old, but it ages on a shelf in the basement where it's cool.
Back in the early 70's I had a 9MM Star 1911 style semi-auto. Just recently while rummaging through a drawer in my basement I found a mag full of FMJ. I had to laugh at that. I couldn't even remember having that mag but of course I can't remember what I had for breakfast so that's not surprising. My neighbor shoots 9MM so I gave it to him as a joke more or less. He shot it off (all 8 rounds) with no problem whatsoever. The ammo that I used then, since the only thing I could do was shoot at a range, was cheap European military surplus range ammo. Lord knows how old it was when I got it.
I was in the Navy in the 60's & shot plenty of WWII & Korean War stuff & the Army in the 80's to 2001 & shot some pretty old stuff & didn't notice any problems from any of my Soldiers shooting 5.56 or .45 cal.
I accidentally left a speed strip of Hornady Critical Defense .357 rounds in my pants pocket once, which went through the washing machine as well as the dryer. All 5 rounds fired just fine at my next range trip. The cartridges were nice and shiny too!
I have an inability to let any ammo get old. Lol. Glad you found out at the range and not at 3am in your living room!
I practice about once a week with my primary guns so my ammo rotates quite often.
Mas Ayoob recommends changing your carry ammo when your change your clock to/from daylight savings.
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I got a hold of Federal and they want the rounds that didn’t go bang sent to them, I am doing that today. The fellow on the phone at Federal thinks its contamination, even after I stated that I wipe the gun dry after lubing it. I will post the findings of their testing of the components in the cartridges that didn’t go bang.
I'd say if it's more than a year. I usually keep my defense loads for about 6-8 months before I expend them at the range and then get replaced with new ones of the same defense load.
Well I was contacted by Federal this week and the fellow on the phone told me just what I figured, that the charge in the primer cup had come dislodged and wasn’t able to be crushed by the anvil, in short no bang.
I put a reload through 20 chamberings and it went off without any problems, also in the past I have pulled bullets using a kinetic energy bullet puller and they all went off. Makes you wonder.
Cool, at least now you know what the problem was. I have to admit I had never heard of priming compound becoming dislodged from the cup.Quote:
Originally Posted by ntkb
As long as the primers aren't penetrated from corrosive liquids, potentially 100+ years.