doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Shooting old shells?

Anyone shoot old shells? I collect shotshell boxes and come across lots of old shells and have amassed a large box full of odds and ends. Ive thought about shooting them up. Are they safe to shoot? Any potential problems shooting them? I would probably use them in my 870 and not one of my doubles.

I love to shoot old shells at doves, lots of opportunities and
not much impact if the shell does not go off. I use up to size 6 for late season Collard Doves.

I use fresh ammo for quail and pheasants, too much labor involved for a misfire.

And if within shot size limit, I will use them for clays, but I do monitor the condition of the bore (base wads and shot columns left behind) before loading the next ammo.

Mike

I've shot old 16 gauge shells for years. As long as the shell looks good on the exterior, they kill doves fine. I bought a large lot of assorted 16s at an auction years ago, and have been using them ever since. I think I might have had one that sounded a little weak, but the rest have killed doves and crows just fine.

Gunpowder lasts a loooong time when kept cool and dry. Heat and moisture are it's enemies. I have a friend who found a War of Northern Aggression cannonball deep in the soil. It was fused but had never exploded, obviously. He opened it somehow, got some black powder out of it (it was really gray looking), loaded it in a percussion rifle and fired it. 120+ years old, at the time.

SRH

Shoot em every chance I get. They know me at the club and expect off sounding shells. So you miss a target now and then if they are weak. Big deal. Never had any old ammo get more powerful over time. I do check the barrel after every shot though.

One thing shooters should watch for with old shells is "clumping" of shot and expanded base wads. If the shot gets damp or wet enough, the shot can corrode and basically rust weld from oxidation and form a single projectile. Wet base wads can expand and raise pressures.

Thus said, I assume ya'll know this already but here is my ten cents worth, adjusting for inflation.

Plain lead shotgun cartridges are pretty cheap. Using old ones and risking barrel bulge or worse doesn't make much sense to me.

Jagermeister, it's particularly dangerous when a tire-kicker and gun counter drooler like you gets them all wet.

As long as Black Powder does not get "Wet" it will essentially last forever. Smokeless is subject to deterioration, but it gets weaker, not stronger. What is most apt to fail in older shells is the primers. This can result in a mis-fire or hang-fire.

As several have warned "Watch Those Bores", you don't want anything left in them before firing another shot. Have "Never Ever" heard of a shell getting stronger & blowing up a gun just because it was old. Shells don't get Stronger as they deteriorate, they get weaker, thus the risk of something being left behind in the bore.

Thanks for all the advise. I figured I would just get a few bloopers. I�m most talking about old target shells mostly plastic hulls etc. I just planned to shoot them up at informal clays. If they are of questionable origin or storage or look like reloads I just reclaim the shot for reloading or melt down the larger shot sizes for casting bullets.


I�m not one of those guys that are so cheap they won�t let anything go to waste and disregard safety and common sense. I shoot with a guy that�s been using of a stash he has of 20 ga wads in his 16 ga loads. He�s amusing for a few stations to be squaded with him on the skeet field. Every load is a blooper and he misses a lot. But after a few rounds it can become distracting.

Perhaps if that term were in more common use the actual underlying cause of the conflict would be recognized as Northern Corporate Greed as it was.

that would be a "follow the money" moment