doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Surprising vitality of ancient ammunition

Fudd,

Brass fired with mercuric primers quickly degenerates, but I am not convinced that mercury would migrate from the unfired primers.

I think these were embrittled by age, and may have been pretty flimsy to start with. I will weigh a couple and compare them to more modern cases.

I had a 401 Winchester, 7 or 8 years ago, that I shot some very old ammo in, old enough that it was corrosive. It was kind of amusing, I got a delayed click-bang, but it all went off. And, apparently, it all developed full pressure, every round operated that heavy action, and pressures don't seem to have to drop much to turn it into a single shot. The brass itself looked fine, no cracks or damage.

I have other ammo not nearly as old that developed lengthwise splits on the first firing, and unfired ammo with cracked necks. My suspicion is that the cases were improperly annealed in the manufacturing process.

Tim

20 years ago I purchased a German 11mm double rifle and it came with 3 original boxes of ammo that was dated 1894. To my great surprise I fired an entire box with no misfires and I was able to reload the empties. Needless to say I was quite amazed.

The traditional date for rook shooting was the 12th. May; the other sort of Glorious Twelfth. Rooks are members of the crow family and nest communally in; you guessed, a Rookery. Oddly enough often in old Churchyards. They can be very noisy places with sometimes several hundred in the larger Rookeries. Due to the fact they like to pull out growing seedlings of cereal crops there used to be a bounty on them. Not only Rook Rifles, so used with a low velocity heavy bullet so they didn't travel too far and cause damage, but bullet bows were used. A sort of Crossbow designed to project a lead round ball.

I suppose that they are not eaten so much now because the modern housewife seems unable to prepare anything that does not come in a shrink wrapped packet from the Supermarket along with full microwave cooking instructions. (Not all as I suspect there are some highly competent spouses of members on this site). Lagopus.....