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Lifespan Of A Cartridge ?


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I know it would make a difference with storage and humidity but how long would a cartridge still be expected to function as normal ?

The reason I asked was P W member Old Boggy kindly gave me an assortment of old twelve bore cartridges and some of them were a bit like me they were getting on a bit , the last ones he kindly gave me were about three years ago and apart from some old Eley Hymax that are still in the original box that I kept , all the others I used with no miss fires and the dead Pigeons didn't complain .

Well today I used some more that he kindly gave me last week when he made a visit to Norfolk and called in for a cup of tea 😉 , the cartridges were Baikel in a Black case and could well be 20 , 30 or more years old , I took my ole B S A that is built like a cart horse and can take a fair bit of recoil , the first Pigeon that came in is now as dead as a dodo and to cut a long story short I shot 18 good Pigeons and only had one cartridge that wouldn't go in the breech due to corrosion on the metal part of the shell , I will give that one a rub down with a soft wire brush and it will not get a reprieve , I can assure you of that :lol:

So how long will they last or expected to last ?

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23 minutes ago, Weihrauch17 said:

I have a friend who collects British RTO cartridges and he shoots the none valuable surplus as he often buys in bulk that are god knows how old, well over 50 years with very few issues.

I will admit to firing off last year to get the cases to make inert rounds a box and a half of 16 bore SSG broad arrow /I\ marked Home Guard issue. And which themselves had been recycled as English #7 by having the lettered shot removed and replaced with birdshot and a replacement suitably marked overshot wad. Robert Churchill and others apparently made quite a business out of it immediately post-WWII. So they'd be what circa 1940 originally.

THE ONLY CAUTION I'D ADD...HENCE THE CAPITAL LETTERS...IS THAT THESE WILL HAVE CORROSIVE PRIMERS AND YOU'D NEED TO CLEAN THE GUN AND THE BORES OF THE BARRELS APPROPRIATELY AFTERWARDS. SO GET THE KETTLE ON!

Edited by enfieldspares
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We were still shooting 1955 RG .303 ammo until a few years ago when surplus supplies finally dried up. And it was still the best .303 ammo available. More accurate than PPU or S & B. Or my reloads! It was prized as the most accurate .303 ammo you could get, even though it was 65 years old. Legendary ammo  

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25 minutes ago, London Best said:

I have fired stuff marked Schultze and Smokeless Diamond and believe them to be amongst the first smokeless powders from, maybe, the 1890’s/1900’s.

Wow , I thought mine were old , all interesting stuff L B , now we are using steel I wonder if the steel shot would ever go rusty and weld itself together in the years to come :hmm: ,

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1 hour ago, Vince Green said:

We were still shooting 1955 RG .303 ammo until a few years ago when surplus supplies finally dried up. And it was still the best .303 ammo available. More accurate than PPU or S & B. Or my reloads! It was prized as the most accurate .303 ammo you could get, even though it was 65 years old. Legendary ammo  

Yes. And those PG members not in the know may ask why was RG and similar British milsurp loaded up to the 1970s so prized by Lee Enfield shooters? Because like the South African "PMP" .303 of the 1980s it wasn't "toy ammunition" intended for use only in rifles like the Greek HXP for Army Cadets. No. RG and the 1980s "PMP" was also meant for overhead fire support through Vickers Machine Guns (which the Royal Marines used up to 1968 or so). So the velocity spread had to be kept tight as shooting your own troops through the back of the head as they advance isn't good for morale.

Edited by enfieldspares
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