My wife and I recently completed the required training to apply for a concealed carry handgun permit. The teacher was sheriff-approved, NRA-certified instructor who seemed really knowledgeable about all of the topics she presented, except one.
At one point during the class, when she was covering types of pistol ammunition and how to buy it, handle it and store it, she told us that since 2005, by Federal law, the shelf-life of the primer in civilian ammunition had been somehow chemically limited to two years. She portrayed this as something that had been imposed on ammo manufacturers in some under the radar way, and that it amounted to back door gun control.
This little “revelation” set off my BS meter. Has anyone here read or heard anything about this? Is there a way to factually refute it? Snopes seems to have nothing on it, and a web search for ammunition shelf life turned up some rumors that even gun-nut forums seemed to think were false.
I don’t know about pistol primers, but I can vouch that I’ve got rifle primers produced after 2005 and older than two years. They’re still working just fine, although each primer works only once ( )
I have never heard of such a thing. Firearms ammunition is famously stable. It last indefinitely if stored properly. People can and do shoot surplus ammunition from wars many, many decades ago and ammunition over 100 years old will generally work fine as well as long as it has never been exposed to excessive moisture. I don’t think the manufacturers would make their product less reliable on purpose especially because two years is too short a time to be believable.
A little googling shows that rumors of that sort have been floating around at least since the start of Obama’s term, although many unsurprisingly reference Clinton as being the one who invented the idea. The limit ranges from 2 years all the way down to three months. No one seems to have any link to actual case law.
And here’s the thing about federal law: it’s all public. You can read it. If this were real, there would be an uproar as people quote the actual statute. That’s not happening.
I agree, sounds like BS. I have trouble imagining any items like ammunition that did not sit on a shelf, plus shipping and warehouse time of at least 3 months, and for less popular sizes, I bet 2 years is not unusual.
Does your ammunition box have any date code on it? (not batch number but readable date - unless every shopkeeper in the country is in on the conspiracy). If your local gun store has never heard of this and does not pulle expired ammo, odds are it’s not true.
Of course, there’s a big difference between “higher risk of misfire” and “does not work at all”.
Unless people get their primers from elsewhere or have a store.
I have heard more recently that 'they" were planning on 6 months. Dumb for the reasons md2000 says: it may translate to 1 month of actual shelf time. And this plan would be so wasteful. At best you’d have to pull the bullet, dump the powder (losing a tiny bit in the process), reprime, and replace the bullet.
I have only heard of this very recently (month or two), and am reasonably up to date. I think it’s just come back into consciousness recently.
I think it is an old rumor that won’t die. Right after the election, two of my gun owning friends were frantic, and I don’t use the word frantic lightly, about a rumor that Obama was going to outlaw ammo because he couldn’t get to the guns. They were stocking up extra ammo. My guess is that old rumor mutated into this rumor.
The priming compounds result in some of the nastiest pollution from firing guns. This is an issue at indoor ranges and also for those that reload. There has been some RoHS effort to make “greener” primers. Some of these efforts have resulted in ammo with less reliable primers. As I understand it, the new compounds are not so much inferior, as they are sensitive to different manufacturing parameters, and this should resolve itself as manufacturers gain experience.
While the OP is clearly an adjunct to porcine whole-body hygiene, the RoHS efforts may have provided fuel to such nonsense.
I work with and inspect ammunition for a living. Oldest small arms I’ve examined were from the late 30’s. Beautiful condition and functioned as new. Primers work fine but tracer compositions deteriorate over time. During the occupation in Iraq after Desert Storm II, we had major shortages of .50cal ammunition. Why is a very long story. Ammunition depots in the US reworked hundreds of ammunition lots from the 1950s that had deteriorated tracers and were restricted to training use only. The tracer rounds were delinked and new tracer rounds added. This covered the typical linked belts of 4 API / 1 API-T, 4 AP / 1 AP-T and 4 Ball / 1 Tracer. The “old” AP, API, and Ball rounds worked perfectly.
The only large scale problems with primers comes from an inadequate seal where the primer is inserted into the cartridge case. The lots will generally fail waterproofing tests. The cause is insufficient sealing compound or (when one of the dumber manufactures insisted they could get away with an “interference” fit and not need sealing compound at all). We find occasional visual problems or malfunctions from inverted primers or blown primers.
Thanks to all for the replies. She did seem knowledgeable, even about ammo (types, purposes, etc). She just seems to have fallen for a piece of paranoid BS and felt the need to pass it on. Her instruction was otherwise free of paranoid stuff.
I sometimes wonder how people can say such things without ever realizing how dumb it is. I’d like to see what she would have said if you asked her how she knew for a fact that her ammo was less than two years old, and “I bought it last week” doesn’t cut it. It could be like the dairy department in a grocery store putting the oldest milk out front to get rid of it. Geez, just think of the liability the manufacture would be subject to if their ammo was designed to stop working. Not everyone stores ammo in the box, it’s often not even sold in a box. The only way to lessen their liability would be to stamp every single bullet.
What an odd rumor. To me it sounds like it would (if true) be a conspiracy by ammunition manufacturers or vendors. “That ammunition is expired. You need to buy more now. Yes, I know we could in theory make non-perishable primers, but the Government won’t let us. Shooting ranges aren’t legally allowed to let you use expired ammo, either. Damned Government. Will that be cash or charge?”
So of all the crazy things that we know for a fact the government is doing that is equally ridiculous or worse why is this so hard to believe . And no if it were true , do you really think it would apply to their bullets? That would defeat the purpose. I had heard this supposedly when they passed it and yes if they did it is not gonna be public knowledge and apparently it would not matter cause you guys of all people should know that them doing this is not that far fetched. Also guys whoever disagrees because of how good old ammo is does not apply cause it would only be valid for ammo manufactured after the law( if passed) was passed. It’s quite amazing the response I get when I try to open the eyes of people around me with facts I know are true, I just get labeled as crazy. Fine, but what pisses me of is do research then call me crazy but don’t refute what I say as crazy without some knowledge of the subject. By the way , of course it’s crazy THATS WHY I AM TRYING TO TELL you about the bullshit the government is doing. Anyways I have not found the (smoking gun) evidence but I would not put it past them
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