Ammo Shelf Life

I have a few boxes of Cor-Bon and golden sabres after buying them at discount from a gun show for a few years now. I usually do with reloaded ammo when I am at the range so I was wondering how long until I have to buy replacement ammo for the ones I have in stock. Any advice?

If stored in a cool dry place, I bet 20 years is easily feasible, perhaps much longer.

I still have a few cans of .30 Springfield MG belts from WW II. I still use them and seldom a misfire.

PoS said:

I have a few boxes of Cor-Bon and golden sabres after buying them at discount from a gun show for a few years now. I usually do with reloaded ammo when I am at the range so I was wondering how long until I have to buy replacement ammo for the ones I have in stock. Any advice?

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I have ammo in tins from the 60's and it is just as fresh as it was on day one after opening.

Yep...I would say the same as all the others. If its stored properly you can probably safely keep them or put them to work.

PoS said:

I have a few boxes of Cor-Bon and golden sabres after buying them at discount from a gun show for a few years now. I usually do with reloaded ammo when I am at the range so I was wondering how long until I have to buy replacement ammo for the ones I have in stock. Any advice?

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properly stored I have seen some ammo good after at least four decades

this is ammo from older, deceased family members & the ammo works just fine

I would say that I would trust it to use for target shooting. I don't think I'd trust my life with it.


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WW2 7.7 Japanese fresh out of a cave over 50 years old. Shoots OK. As cuban smokes says.Properly stored.

PoS said:

I have a few boxes of Cor-Bon and golden sabres after buying them at discount from a gun show for a few years now. I usually do with reloaded ammo when I am at the range so I was wondering how long until I have to buy replacement ammo for the ones I have in stock. Any advice?

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It's no good anymore, send it to me for disposal.

Winchester said:

It's no good anymore, send it to me for disposal.

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Sure thing, all I need is your credit card number and expiration date, please.

PoS said:

I have a few boxes of Cor-Bon and golden sabres after buying them at discount from a gun show for a few years now. I usually do with reloaded ammo when I am at the range so I was wondering how long until I have to buy replacement ammo for the ones I have in stock. Any advice?

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A misfire is the worst thing you have to worry about. Take your time firing in case there's a squib round that doesn't send the bullet past the muzzle. Firing a second round in that scenario will make bad things happen.

PoS said:

I have a few boxes of Cor-Bon and golden sabres after buying them at discount from a gun show for a few years now. I usually do with reloaded ammo when I am at the range so I was wondering how long until I have to buy replacement ammo for the ones I have in stock. Any advice?

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Store it in milspec ammo cans with good seals and maybe a dessicant pack and you are golden for decades.

BretJ said:

Store it in milspec ammo cans with good seals and maybe a dessicant pack and you are golden for decades.

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I would add, use the real deal dessicants (not saying you, here) some people think rice works.

In 1969 my grandfather died. He served as an artillery captain in the AEF in WWI in France. As I was his oldest grandson, I inherited his 1911 Colt that he carried. It came with a holster and a box of ammo that was made near where I live now-the Peters cartridge factory in Kings Mill Ohio (a major WWI ammo producer). To the best of my knowledge, that 45 and the ammo had spent most of the 50 years after the war in a desk drawer in my grandfather's study though, according to my father, when there was a wild cat strike and related disturbances at the factory he ran, my grandfather would wear that holster and 45 on his belt. But most of the time, it and the ammo (two magazines were loaded as well) stayed in that desk drawer.

Dad and I shot the ammo up around 1971. all of the rounds worked fine. Now I honestly don't know if the ammo actually dated to WWI, I didn't bother to look at the box. But my father stated the ammo was probably WWI era and it certainly predated WWII because in 1934 the Peters Company was purchased by Remington and cartridges made there afterwards were labeled "remington-peters

I don't think you have to worry much about Ammo going bad in your lifetime, so long as you store properly.

But I like to cycle loaded Ammo just in case.