doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com Found the gun.. now need Stevens 22-15 SS Ammo...

I think it becomes moot point when the thread changes to $195 collector ammo. If we were talking empty primed cases I'd agree, and deprime any regardless of what they were.

Vall, I'm guessing you are saying you wouldn't use collector ammo ($90.75 ea.) for cases to hand load for a collector rifle. As it happens, I pretty much agree with you, but I haven't been severely tested with a center fire rifle yet. From time to time, I do shoot a couple 25 Stevens Long RF cartridges for nostalgia's sake, and it is pretty expensive too. I don't know how many times I have tried to help a non-handloader get started loading for an obsolete caliber rifle that perfectly useable components are either easily or reasonably available, only to see them buy $180/box custom loaded ammo, instead.
Mike

Yes, that's what I meant. Even collectible ammo I bought way back before this stuff became collectible I still never shot as it was so old I didn't want to chance it for various reasons. I used to buy old lift top boxes of ammo at our local gun shows for $5-$10 a box just because I owned a gun in the cartridge and liked having original ammo for it. Now I see the same ammo selling for $300-$900 a box, and wonder how the ammo went so crazy?
I started reloading back in the 70's and had I not done so I'd never own most of the guns I have today since almost all of them are in obsolete cartridges that I couldn't buy ammo for. And most are also in cartridges I can't buy brass for either, so I have to make brass from donor brass that I can rework for my old single shots.

I'm about to break down and "break down" several boxes of old ammo for component use. I have 3 boxes of old reloads in 280 Dubiel which are valuable as cases and bullets only, and in fact they probably should be broken down to protect the brass, probably from 1929 if we go by the page from the Denver Post they were wrapped in. Also have a fair condition Griffin and Howe box of the same caliber, but the cases are all marked 300 H&H - I've never seen a 280 Dubiel or 300 Hoffman headstamp from that period - so there's no way to know if they're not just reloads put in a G&H box. Especially since someone wrote the load on the side of the box. I'm terribly sentimental and nostalgic but his old reloads are no more desirable than mine today, in fact less so, so I need to man up and just pull the bullets and clean up the cases. I feel their presence over my shoulder which makes it hard.

I've always had a soft spot for old ammo, but I find as time goes on I'm becoming less and less sentimental about it. Primers deactivating themselves aren't even an issue with me anymore, I'm more concerned with brass getting brittle, and what seems to be the biggest problem, powder breaking down. I have a box of old Krag ammo that the powder began to deteriorate in, it actually ate holes in the shoulders. When you start buying old ammo, you have no idea how it's been stored.


Tim

A friend owned a sporting goods store in the late 50's and closed it up in the 60's. He asked myself and another friend if we wanted any of the "junk" he didn't bother selling, and we both got a really nice counter top Remington ammunition display case. They have two sliding glass doors, and are sheet metal cases with shelves built in. Above the doors is a pretty, colorful Remington logo. It was a good place to store old ammo I never planned to shoot, and it fit on top if one of my safes and just hung over each side a few inches. Easy to access, but sometimes tough to find a particular box if it's buried in the back of one of the shelves. So far anything I've opened to look at has stayed in very nice shape, and my finished basement is dry and pretty much the same temperature all year round.

Not trying to be argumentative, but I'm not seeing the point you're making. It seems that you're saying if you go out tomorrow, buy an 90-year-old box of ammunition, then store it in your ammo case for a few years, when you open it up it'll be in perfect condition. If that's the case, sorry, but I know better than that.


Tim