Wyoming270
Active member
- Joined
- Jul 9, 2026
- Messages
- 311
I thought I would bring up the topic of old ammunition storage, particularly for our new shooters.
Here is a photo of a 300 win mag load of a popular powder. I took this picture in 2019. The ammunition came with a rifle, several boxes labelled as 1992. in this case the powder broke down into nitric acid which ate the brass. Case neck and shoulder splits, inside of case eroded and brass extremely brittle. Unknown how it was stored aside from the seller stating when he cleared out his parents place this was in a damp unfinished basement.
Ive shot lots of foreign milsurp 50+ year old ammunition without issues. Forgotten weapons on youtube has some great videos on that topic.
My personal storage is a locking metal cabinet in an interior ground level room of the house. Temperature sees less than 10 degrees difference between summer and winter. Humidity is around 15% in the room. No direct sun contact. I keep a golden rod in the cabinet. Boxes spaced out. Silica gel packets throughout. I run a golden rod continuously in the bottom. Im still shooting shotgun shells from the bush days that spent their first 10 years of my ownership on a closet shelf where humidity would hit 60+% every summer. No issues with that stuff.
I keep ammunition in mtm ammunition boxes when going afield. The stuff in my rifle, on my person, and in my pack has a required 3 day sitout period before going back in the cabinet.
Before the obama scare i didnt think twice about throwing ammunition around. Once it got scarce i started getting careful of keeping track of everything, keeping it packaged correctly etc. Nothing chafes me more than to clean out a vehicle after duck season and come up with 3 pockets full of assorted shells with all of the numbers worn off the hulls.
Here is a photo of a 300 win mag load of a popular powder. I took this picture in 2019. The ammunition came with a rifle, several boxes labelled as 1992. in this case the powder broke down into nitric acid which ate the brass. Case neck and shoulder splits, inside of case eroded and brass extremely brittle. Unknown how it was stored aside from the seller stating when he cleared out his parents place this was in a damp unfinished basement.
Ive shot lots of foreign milsurp 50+ year old ammunition without issues. Forgotten weapons on youtube has some great videos on that topic.
My personal storage is a locking metal cabinet in an interior ground level room of the house. Temperature sees less than 10 degrees difference between summer and winter. Humidity is around 15% in the room. No direct sun contact. I keep a golden rod in the cabinet. Boxes spaced out. Silica gel packets throughout. I run a golden rod continuously in the bottom. Im still shooting shotgun shells from the bush days that spent their first 10 years of my ownership on a closet shelf where humidity would hit 60+% every summer. No issues with that stuff.
I keep ammunition in mtm ammunition boxes when going afield. The stuff in my rifle, on my person, and in my pack has a required 3 day sitout period before going back in the cabinet.
Before the obama scare i didnt think twice about throwing ammunition around. Once it got scarce i started getting careful of keeping track of everything, keeping it packaged correctly etc. Nothing chafes me more than to clean out a vehicle after duck season and come up with 3 pockets full of assorted shells with all of the numbers worn off the hulls.
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