Shelve life

[charlie54]

I do have a tendency to get a little anal with my reloading, as I’ll prove with my question. When I’m going shooting, I like to load my ammo a day or two before I go shoot, to stay consistent. As much as possible I like to take variables out of the equation, and have the problem be something I’m doing, or not. Anyway, I read somewhere if a person lets his ammo sit too long before shooting it may change over time… Neck tension or seating depth may change? I’m sure it wouldn’t change much over a few weeks, but when reloading to work up seating depths, in 0.003 increments, it wouldn’t take much.

Any thoughts? Thanks

 

[4xforfun]

If you REALLY want to be consistant, load a years worth of ammo at the same sitting.

 

[dragman]

If you REALLY want to be consistant, load a years worth of ammo at the same sitting.

I could be completely wrong, but one of the things I try my best to do is to load my ammo within the week of the match. My reasoning is I like to run around .001 of neck tension and I am always worried that after weeks and weeks of setting you could start to get for lack of a better word some "weld" between the neck and the bullet. I also store my ammo nose down so the powder is not sitting on the primer. This could all be smoke and mirrors and BS, but it's like most of the things in shooting if you think it works then it does.

 

[charlie54]

I'll pass ???

If you REALLY want to be consistant, load a years worth of ammo at the same sitting.

 

[4xforfun]

I guess that they need to put a "sarcasim" face as a choice, cuz none of you get it the regular way!! ;D

 

[Ggmac]

It's called cold welding . PS magazine had a article on it many years ago . One solution is to take a hand held loading tool ( lee ) to the range an set oal at the range . Of course this means you need to a longer oal to start with .

 

[4xforfun]

Ok..now...I'll be serious. I have heard the "pop" on some ammo that had been loaded for just a few weeks when I seated the bullet a touch deeper. Other times I have taken ammo loaded for well over a year and never heard a thing. I know this because I was thinking the same thing....had read the same article, and was activly listning/feeling for it. It didn't matter weather I used molly or not.

Now, weather it makes a hill of beans difference on target, IDK, but wasn't there a world record LR group fired in the last year with ammo loaded well over a year prior? Something tells me I read that on this fourm.

As Far as the 'if you think it makes a difference, it probaly does' thing ....I beilieve this to be 99% true.

So..to answer your questions.....NO, it is not a dumb questions. Should you load your match loads just befor the match....a definate maybe!!

 

[Rust]

Cold welding takes place which either a new or sqeaky clean case and a clean bullet. With new cases a little graphite neck lube alleviates the tendancy, and in used cases not completely cleaning the neck does much the same thing.

I don't bother to do much more than clean the primer pockets to insure uniform primer seating and dump the cases in a vibratory cleaner. Anneal as needed. Targets haven't noticed any difference between ultrasonic cleaning and my normal lazy methods.

 

[Ggmac]

It all about dis similiar metals in contact . Some squeaky clean cases and bullets will cold weld quicker tan others . Some bullet / case alloys react faster

 

[searcher]

I have heard on more than one occasion where folks blame their bad performance in a match on the "cold welding" effect as they were using ammo loaded two or three months beforehand. Personally, I just have a very difficult time believing the cold-welling aspect can change enough to really throw groups off when ammo is stored in good conditions as it is not humid where I live - and it never rains (well, almost never). I tend to believe it is rather the neck tension diminishing which I have seen first hand and know to be an issue. Still, I decided to do an experiment that will take a few years. I normally have extra varmint ammo loaded up that carries over to the next season or two for a particular gun. I'm using neck-turned brass and all measured for thickness, etc. then loading. I'm going to check the amount of weight it takes to break the bullet loose at periodic intervals. I was thinking of doing the first check two hours after loading and do re-checks after 3 weeks, 3 months, 1 year and the remaining after 2 years. I have noticed a fair amount of neck tension loss after a few weeks on loads in the past, yet also have seen rounds cold-welded to the point I broke a kinetic bullet buller handle in half trying to seperate one without first re-seating to break the bond - but those were military rounds that were 20+ years old. At some point, the fusing overcomes the tension loss. No high-tech experiment but may be interesting.

 

[charlie54]

Thanks everyone, Good Info!!

 

[GotRDid]

Your difficulty in pulling the military ammunition could perhaps have been exacerbated by the asphaltic sealant commonly used to meet Mil-Specs. I have found that some lots of early 90s M852 Match ammo had little or none of this sealant and differences in neck tension must surely have existed even if I couldn't quantify it on target with iron sights.
GotRDid.

 

[hogan]

How old you think your powder is? Is the date on the can the date it came out of the chemical soup, or the date it was blended and burn-formulated? Maybe the date it was packed in consumer packaging?

How about your primers? You got a lot # on the package, but how long before being packaged were they produced?

Kind of silly talkng about shelf life of ammunition or any components in a matter of days or weeks. Keep your components and loaded ammunition in proper storage conditions and you can load then 20yrs from time you bought them, or longer.

Learn how to shoot well enough that you can be certain any variation in performance is inherent to your ammunition or rifle, rather than rookie mistakes. Worrying about crap like the question you posed is a for-sure rookie concern. Maybe ask over at Benchrest Central and see whet the guys there say. Unless you are trying to break your 5shot groups under .15" likely they will tell you fagedaboutit...

 

[Lbart]

Take a look at this thread http://forum.accurateshooter.com/index.php?topic=3850499.0