Experience and questions on ammo storage.

[mastiffhound]

Years ago in the late 80's I knew nothing about storing ammo to last for the long term, I was just a know nothing kid. My only experience with old ammo came from finding some old paper 12 and 16 gauge shotshells in 00, #6, and slugs in our very humid farmhouse attic. This was in Ohio, anybody that lives there knows the humidity can be terrible during the summer. These were from the 1960's and 70's from the box art and what few dates we could find. My Dad looked them over for splits, cracks, or deformation and said we'll try them out with the very old single shot shotgun we had. After going through 10 or so shells we declared them safe and proceeded to shoot them. Out of the 600 or so shells we had 10 or 15 FTF, not bad really.

Now that I'm older I've been thinking about ammo storage and have started using Mil steel boxes and plastic ammo boxes with rubber seals. By the way, check for the rubber seals when buying because I've found Cabela's selling them without them. This was not just one lost seal either, that's what I thought at first too. They had a whole stack that they advertised as ammo storage boxes and not one had a rubber seal. With some sort of moisture remover (descicant, I've even heard of using rice) and a rubber seal I can only guess how long ammo will last. Some of those shotshells were approaching 30 years old and still went bang and had enough oomph to let your shoulder know you were shooting 12 gauge.

Before my grandfather died he gave me some old 9mm, .45acp, .30-06, and .308 that were stored in a non climate controlled Ohio house and all went bang. After close inspection for problems I shot them all. I even took a few apart of each caliber to see if the powder had degraded, no problems were apparent. The .30-06 and .308 used stick type powder, the 9mm and .45 used ball type. Both powders looked intact and had no dusty or broken down look to them. These were between 10 and 20 years old without a single FTF.

Now for the questions.
What is the oldest ammo that you have?

What is the oldest ammo you've actually used and what were your results?

Do you store your ammo in sealed containers with or without desiccant (or rice, I've heard some real old timers used it sometimes)? If not how do you store it?

I have had these questions come up a few times at work and with family so I thought I'd ask for others experience with ammo storage. If you have actual test data available that would be great too. That is all I'm looking for, experience and actual test data. Not things that you've heard or what a friend of a friend says. Thank for your time and answers in advance guys.

[markm]

I bulk dump ammo into USGI cans... sometimes I'll put a can or two on stripper clips. In AZ you can easily get away with no Desi paks... but I'll usually toss a little one in if I have it handy.

I don't really keep ammo long enough to have storage concerns. The oldest stuff I've kept was 2001 XM193 from the $85 per 500 round ammoman days... and that's not even old enough to even give a thought to.

[Pork Chop]

I do the same as Mark. Bulk dumped loose in .50 cans.
I wouldn't stress too much, I have quite a bit of 8mm Mauser head stamped 1943 that god knows where/how it had been stored until I bought it in the 90's and I've left it in garages, basements, etc. with no desiccant at all and it all goes bang.

Ammo is pretty resilient. Keep it from getting sopping wet and you'll be good.

[Ryno12]

All my ammo is in 50 cal cans. The pistol ammo is 100rd MTM cases. My 5.56 is all on stripper clips & my 308 is either packed loose or in the factory boxes. The rest of my misc calibers are in the factory boxes, also within a 50 cal cans. All my cans have a desiccant pack in them and are stored in a cool, humidity controlled environment. I'm located in WI where humidity can get out of control. Climate control is just one aspect of my everyday job so I'm a little anal on how I pack my ammo. I also want it easy to inventory & to grab 'n go.

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[Agnostic]

My pops has some old surplus .30 06 rounds (headstamp indicates it was made in 1958) with the old silver-colored jacketed bullets that shoots just fine. It has been stored in a cardboard box in his basement.