10 Year Old Super Ammo

[RacerX1166]

I'm sure many of you have found yourself with close to a thousand rounds of 38 Super ammo you loaded a decade ago.  When this almost certainty happens, you'll remember this post and thank me. 

 

I thought is was serendipity that a used Pro Sx, like I shot 10 years ago, came on the market as I already had a ton of ammo already tuned to the gun.  Except, when I was consuming that ammo,  my gun went jamomatic on me.  At least once per stage, I'd get a failure to go into battery.  I swapped out recoil springs and worked to relax the springs in my brand new mags, with only marginal results.  Darn, was this why the gun had been up for sale?

 

Once about half of the old ammo was gone, I began loading fresh.  Much to my surprise, it fed perfectly.  The ammo was essentially identical, dimensionally, same powder, primers, bullets, etc.  Then it hit me; the new ammo was obviously nice and slick, with a lovely shine.  The older looked pretty good, but upon closer inspection with new as a comparison, it wasn't as 'slippery' to the touch.  

 

So, I threw it in my tumbler for 45 minutes and viola, a nice shine and more importantly, the ammo ran flawlessly.

 

Thus, for the legions of folks who wind up in the same situation, I offer my advice to retumble your old ammo before attempting to use it.  Back to kicking myself for not noticing sooner.

[Hi-Power Jack]

I'll see if this works for 40 year old ammo.     

 

Thanks for the great idea.     

[sauza45]

Could you just spray some case lube instead of tumbling. I don't like tumbling loaded ammo because I use  jhp bullets and the corn cob gets stuck in the bullet.

[RacerX1166]

Good point, Sauza.  When tumbling, it's best to have a large grain media.  

 

Case lube could work, depending on the active ingredient.  Lanolin gets super sticky, so I'd skip that.  I've started using Dillon synthetic lube, which seems to be silicon based; it doesn't have any stickiness to it.  May be a good alternative.

[Sarge]

A few things. I find it truly amazing that the ammo wouldn't run because it wasn't slick enough. Once a gun is broken in it should run any ammo that fits. I tumble all of my ammo after loading and have set up a system for blowing corncob out of the HP's. I use a hundo and just flip it over and hit it with a compressor. I found the smaller the better when it comes to cob. The small stuff blows right out where larger may get stuck pretty good.

[RacerX1166]

I found it strange as well, but I eliminated  all the other potential root causes, all scientific method like.  It surprised me as well, but the gun ran fine, once I tumbled the ammo.  The test case came from a lot of ammo known to cause jams.

[Steve RA]

I doubt that a piece (or two) of corn cob media stuck in a hollow point would make much difference as to how it shot.

[RacerX1166]

All is great, so long as that media stays stuck.  My concern would be what happens when it gets jarred out and starts getting places it shouldn't.  One source of feed jams is replaced by another.

[Sarge]

3 hours ago, Steve RA said:

I doubt that a piece (or two) of corn cob media stuck in a hollow point would make much difference as to how it shot.

I have heard stories of media jamming up guns.

[HCH]

My AR10 was having trouble till I tumbled the ammo. I use Dillon lube and the stickiness left behind wasn’t letting rounds chamber. 

[Sarge]

9 minutes ago, HCH said:

My AR10 was having trouble till I tumbled the ammo. I use Dillon lube and the stickiness left behind wasn’t letting rounds chamber. 

That makes sense. My Open gun stumbles a little with still lubed cases especially if the gun is dirty.

[sauza45]

20 hours ago, Steve RA said:

I doubt that a piece (or two) of corn cob media stuck in a hollow point would make much difference as to how it shot.

It doesn't take much, I know I had it happen that is why I don't tumble loaded ammo. To clean the lube off I just put the ammo on a towel and spray some alcohol on the ammo

and rub it off, take just a few seconds.

[Steve RA]

My reference was to it remaining in the hollow point, I agree that if it falls out it could help jam the gun.

[jackntucson]

22 hours ago, Steve RA said:

I doubt that a piece (or two) of corn cob media stuck in a hollow point would make much difference as to how it shot.

Where I have trouble if I don't blow it all out is that it falls out in the mags and causes problems