It’s important to know the different types of corrosion that can affect brass. I have found that if the corrosion comes right off with some fine steel wool, it’s usually fine. But if there are pink spots (that didn’t come out) surrounded by a dark discoloration, that’s a sign of weakened brass that could fail.

I only buy surplus ammo from reputable dealers, such as SG Ammo, Ammoman, Lucky Gunner, Ammoman, etc. Never had a single problem.

In the early 70's I graduated from 22 lr and 20 gauge single shot. I got a 1903 Springfield that my dad gave me from his uncle who was in WW1, I also got a .45acp Colt 1911. I shot 30.06 armor piercing that you could by at the store. No problem with that one but it would make a huge hole coming out the opposite side of a steel trash can. A neighbor lady who befriended me and took me dove hunting was thrilled with my 45 and gave me a box of ammo from ww2. It never blew up in my face but I got a lot of misfires.Those were great days a dumb kid with lots of awesome firearms.

Never thought of the tumbler scheme, that’s good to know. Great vid

my tip being whenever you get surplus, pull a few at random pull apart and examine the powder and round

I have seen 3 squib loads with new Winchester white box 2 in 9mm and 1 in 40s&w . Always pay attention to your shots

had some asshole at a gunshow do the tumbling thing to some surplus ammo i got. after a few rounds the brass ruptured under firing and blew smoke and unbrunt powder out the sides of the rifle. luckily the rifle was very sturdy and didnt blow up but the brass had a crack going from the neck to the rim. upon pulling the bullets on the other rounds low and behold the interior of the cases where corroded and structurally compromised, despite the brass looking clean and fine on the outside

Remember being told by the old timer at the corner gunshop NEVER put loaded cartridges in a tumbler back in the day. And now, thirty five years or so later, I have never put a loaded cartridge in a tumbler.

The box of the old 30-06 ammo-sell or give it to your cartridge collector friends-better in a collection than your rifle!

I thought the safety rules for tumblers----NEVER tumble live,loaded rounds!

Its super dangerous please ship it to me for safe disposal . In all seriousness thanks for the video and the information. I never thought of tumble cleaning old ammo.

I learned about squibs the hard way. After the split-second explosion and sparks in my face I set that gun down and didn't fire it again, took it to a local smith to push the round out, went back only to have more jam/ftf issues and threw it at Diamondback. Turns out the bcg was designed wrong. It came back with a different bcg (black from silver) cut better and a new barrel according to the note. No failures since. Having something blow up that close to the face was scary! It was new Federal ammo, from 115 to 147 grain. The bcg would screw up the bullets or fail to cycle so every other shot was a disappointment.

Yall see the .50 bmg, slap round, that blew up the Serbu? Thats some scary crap!!!

My father was a reloader and in the 60's he would get surplus ammo just for the brass 30-06 and 45acp. He said that the Government powder was durty so he would reload them with his own power.

If you have a Tumbler in your Bunker take a safety tip from Bert Gummer. Check your ground penetrating motion sensors before you turn it on if you live in a Graboid infested area.

One way you did not mention was buying surplus from SE Asia. Why? Because occasionally you could encounter a tainted round. During the US/Vietnam war, US spec ops employed a tactic where they mixed a few tainted rounds into NVA and VC ammo storage. These rounds did not have gun powder, but a small amount of high explosives instead. This was done in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. The goal was to shake North Vietnam’s faith in their Chinese suppliers. If you buy surplus from SE Asia, you could encounter a tainted round that will blow up your gun.

Thanks for the warnings. Any advice for avoiding these issues if you shoot surplus ammo?

That happened to me about 40 years ago with reloaded 30-06 a buddy brought it over and luckily it didn't destroy the rifle but put a nice Cresent shaped cut above my eye. Started reloading shortly after that.

I also had a squib load with Wolf 7.62x39 ammo, it left a bunch ofunburt powder in the magazine and pushed the bullet just into the barrel, I was very very lucky that it wouldn't chamber the next round as I didn't realize what it was at the time.

Thank you for that very useful information. Love what you do.

Love the vid. I shoot a ton of surplus ammo on my channel, and have run into the first 2: A squib with Indian 7.62, and very high pressure Turkish ammo that is generally believed to be safe in bolt action Mauser actions. Great content.

Years ago I was given a large amount of 357 and 44 mag ammo from the widow of a friend. All of this ammo was un labeled, so I had a couple of friends over and we had a bullet pulling and powder dump party. One of the guys asked why I didn't just shoot it and I asked him if he would shoot it as the shooter who loaded this ammo was know to load just a bit over the recommend load. He did turn down my offer of free ammo. In the end I just don't shoot ammo I don't. where it came from. Stay safe guys.

I’ll take that gp-11 off your hands. Best ammo around surplus or otherwise.

Only surplus ammo I use is in sealed spam cans, and it's been a few years since buying any. A lot of it came from the CMP.

If ammo is suspect, pull 2-3 and give them the sniff test. When ammo is normal, it has that mild smell. But when goes bad, the solvents have separated and will have a sharp smell that will irritate your nose. Dump, recharge and seat/crimp. When properly stored, I have shot some that was 50 years old. But even two seasons improperly stores will kill powder. Ammo that has gone bad will feel differently when fired. More like maximum loads. (My 70 years experience)

A vet from nam told me of totally unmarked ammo for killing snipers and enemy troops by exploding cases of ammo. These were allowed to be stolen, confiscated and lost for enemy personnel to use and get blown up! Some may be hanging out for you to buy! Buyer be a ware!

I would think 2 red flags would the dingy old rnds or the way to clean for old surplus ,both would have me thinking twice.

Very informative video. Excellent presentation as well. Thank you. Gave you a "thumbs up".

To be fair, that Swiss GP11 is probably the best quality surplus ammo. Not to mention, more accurate than off the shelf 7.5x55

My biggest fear with surplus ammo. I’ve personally shot thousands perhaps 10’s of thousands going back to the early 70’s. Is hang fires. Only saw it once when an impatient shooter immediately tried to extract it after the click when it went boom. Lucky for him he walked away with only a burned hand. My rule of thumb was counting from 10 backwards before I extracted a hang fire. Back about 1971-2 II got a bunch of pre war surplus Turkish 7.65 dirt cheap. Been way to many years to recall the price but I do recall the shipping exceeded the cost of the ammo. After way to many hang fires and squibs it went into my garbage can. We pulled a few and discovered the powder in many was a solid chunk. Have no idea what caused the powder flakes to clump together but it was to dangerous to shoot. We started to salvage the bullets but discovered the bullet’s base on many were corroded and green. During the early 90’s I bought two thousand rounds of Turk 8MM from J&G in Arizona. Probably the very best surplus 8MM I ever shot.

Very helpful, thank you.

I've had two squibs in same box of modern .22. Luckily I caught it in both guns and was able to clear it.

Where in Tennessee are you located? East cenral or west? We drove through last week going to Myrtle beach. Just querious?

I only shoot tumbled Turkish rounds! I'm getting 4800fps and have blown up three rifles but I'm king if the forest and range!

That happened to me with a 38 special reload, luckily I looked inside the Barrel and the bullets right there.

Never had any issues with surplus ammo.

Excellent presentation... really good information.

Very good information! Thank you!

The only surplus ammo I will buy is the sealed spam can , I hope that stuff is ok

I usually scrub off the green crud, with a green 3M pad, I've had very few duds, with surplus ammo.

I love old Russian 7.62x54R. I have purchased dozens of 800 round sardine cans from the 1960s. Never had a problem. I have been shooting since Ford was President. 3 squibs total. They were all off the shelf big name brass. The report did not sound right. I always pull the bolt and inspect the bore. Thank God I did. If it doesn't sound right, pull the bolt and check it out.

So I'm about to buy my first gun (I'm 14) which is a 1954 Russian SKS and I was wondering if anyone had any tips about ammo for it. My friend who has one keeps suggesting to use surplus ammo but I have also heard a lot of bad about it. Aside from some basic stuff like cleaning after use I don't really know too much about it. (edit) also I'm not sure if it matters but I'll be using it for sport-shooting and deer hunting

excellent vid!

Surplus ammo stored in sealed tin/ wood crate is great ammo also ammo in battle packs.

I never gave these a thought before now.

i got Winchester white box one round had a primer backwards

I have shot tons of surplus even some rusty crusty stuff that needed a wire wheel to get clean never had any trouble.the only bad ammo I have came across was mag tech 38sw got to squibs from a brand new factory box . You do have to be wary of reloads and people passing it off as orginal

Was shooting Surplus M1 Garand ammo, it started feeding the next round and went off before it chambered.. Bad primers I guess. I still remember that hot blast coming back.. I never buy Surplus ammo anymore..

How do you get rid of very old ammo? Have some 9mm Luger that's about 50 years old. Kind of afraid to fire it in my old Luger.

Kinda gives you a lot to think about. So my mother found .22lr CCI mini mags in her attic from the 80’s and I shot some out of my heritage and they are considerably stronger than he rounds I bought recently. They throw a huge fireball compared also. Makes you think

Great advice. Had no idea about the tumbler potentially making rounds hot loads like you describe. I have some surplus ammo that I'm now suspicious of as when I got it the seal was broken and the brass looked way too shiny and dulled quickly after I checked it.

Hey BC, nice to see you are feeling better.

Fact is: Surplus ammo isn’t dangerous if you don’t do idiotic things.

Thanks good information

I began shooting military surplus ammo for target shooting over fifty years ago and had (mostly) good luck with it. Let me comment regarding those shown. Way back when I had several boxes of 7mm Mauser made by Winchester in B&W boxes with that red 'W' at the end of the box. This is not surplus, but commercial and really old (Pre-WWII or older). Bad stuff almost all failed to fire-collector stuff only. The 1950's Kynoch .303 in the yellow boxes, good stuff mostly. The Swiss G-11 7.5mm has to be about the best surplus available-even will out group Norma commercial. Hiding behind the Swiss but shown earlier is the 1938 Austrian ten-round boxes of 8X56R for the upgraded M1895 Mannlicher straight pull rifles. I bought a case of these way back when. Shot it for decades. I've shot hundreds upon hundreds while occasionally selling off a box because I had so much. I never had more than ten duds, with no hang-fires. That white label Czech post-war stuff is good and the later non-corrosive is even better. Regarding WWII & 1950's .303 surplus, most will shoot just fine with a rare hang-fire or dud. Some Canadian 1950's .303 that came from Midway USA-all were hang-fires! Odd, as I have fired WWII Canadian that was all quite good. 1960's South African .303 was among the best. Previously, the worse for hang-fires was surplus 1960's Pakistani .303 MK VII. The worse surplus .303 that I encountered was the (supposed) Iraqi (headstamp in Arabic)-duds, hang-fires and primer blow-outs. Some of the freshest .303 surplus FMJ was made in Germany or Austria-very good.

Maybe a super hot slap round 🤔

I had a squib with Herters ammo. I use surplus ammo for my Mosin Naggant and never had a problem.

You know buying that 308 supercrusty ammo would be worth it just as decoration, the thing looks fly as hell, imagine setting up like a glass display with a couple World War I rifles ad putting that box open on the bottom. Now that's art right there.

Excellent video.

I never knew tumbling could have an effect on the gun powder. Thanks for the info

Why is this different from any other ammo? I used to shoot a lot and have had bad smmo that was brand new from a major company.

I got a pack of .303 British rounds marked on the box "7.7X56 BALL R1.M3Z" I suspect the R1.M3 could have been RIM3 ? On the side of the box it is marked "A7/79", which could be the type of round (MK7) and the year of manufacture. On the casing they are marked:"7.7 RIM3Z A79" . One opinion I found was that these could be South African prison service ammo for use in their Vickers heavy machine guns (???), supposedly with a little hotter load than the standard MK7 ammo. I was not aware the prison service had those Vickers, they were around, I know, because we trained on the VICKERS M.G. in 1975, but that was about the last I had seen or heard of them. Would it be advisable to pull the bullets and reload with current available powder and loads?

Squib loads scare me most with the semiautomatic and rapid firing

I reloaded a couple hundred rounds of 7mm mag 30 years ago a kept it boxed in the gun safe all this time. How long can you store it before it goes bad. No corrosion still looks like the day I reloaded it.

So I have been taking apart a couple of cases of WW2 or WW1 surplus 30.06 on 5 round stripper clips. I went to my bench tonight to find the container I used to store the powder hazy. I opened it for about half a second and a yellow gas was swirling around in it. I quickly got the container outside and placed it in the grass where I soaked it with water. What the heck happened? I have been reloading for years and have never seen this before. I have even used that powder to load other ammo over the past year. Can anyone help me with this?

If you are wllling to sacrifice them, would you be willing to tumble one, then open it up as well as an untumbled one to show the difference in two of the same lot of ammo? Just think itd be interesting.

Weatherby Vanguard is also the Howa 1500 made in Japan and of excellent quality.

Thanks.,.

@ 2:25 " From wolf ammo", those are the key words. Don't ever get me wrong....... I plink with wolf, BUT am VERY aware when doing it. For the most part......... You get what you pay for.

So long story short.The older the ammo is.The more unstable and dangerous it becomes.

i am on board with this... however my grandfather left me his M1 Carbine, and a large sandwich bag of Korea area ammo for it... well - I just had to shoot it... fortunately it all went bang and, was one of the best days.

The thing I hate most about surplus ammunition. Is cracking my steel targets with the Mosin Nagant 91/30 every time @100 yards. Second one I’ve cracked next to the bolt. It’s safe to say 3/8” & 1/2” static AR500 targets from Shoot Steel won’t hold up to the power of 7.62x54r silver tip. Not to mention the whole corrosive aspect. But, $.18 a round is nothing to sneeze at. Lol

2:00 I think that's one reason why bolt-action rifles lock at both the front of the bolt and at the back the bolt (I think the bold knob itself it what locks into th rear of the receiver, but not certain). That way if the front lugs give way the rear of the bowl will remain locked in into the receiver and the bolt won't fly back and strike you in the head. There's also a hole drilled in the front of the receiver near the front locking lugs as well that is designed to allow the pressure to be released in the event of a double charged load beyond the rifle's specifications. To be clear, I don't think it's a good idea to be careless about watching for squib load. Even if you don't get hurt, your firearm is gonna still be destroyed from the resulting explosion.

That's why you buy walker or electronic ear phones for ranger use because they have built in mic to hear hearing is important and to notice recoil, I've shot plenty of surplus ammo to know the dangers of corrosive stuff, but squibs no. I have tons of Chinese steel core AK ammo and is still in the box, and I've shot plenty of it where it didn't cause a problem, I have Romanian surplus tokarev ammo and use it in my Chinese type 54 tokarev and works fine just clean it after.

WOW, I had no idea about the HEAT FACTOR.

How long do you have to run them through to clean? 5 min, 10min? Thanks!

Fart in the wind good one I haven't heard that since my dad died in 1985 good one

Being inattentive while reloading....watching videos or drinking alcohol can easily cause a squib load where a round is not charged with powder. Anytime a round is discharged and the firearm doesn't sound or feel right check it out with a cleaning rod for a barrel obstruction. I know of someone who did this with lee loader tool and the 1911 pistol got a bulged barrel from the barrel obstruction.

wow, if u are a slow learner, // bless ur heart

Nothing about steel cased? It could look fine on outside and have major corrosion inside the case

if you use ammo out of an air tight spam can should be good

I've never understood tumbling for powder coat. I shake it for 2 minutes in a tube, and it coats great. Why bother?

Yup, I would never buy ammo before the 1980's, but some shooters will still shoot ammo made over 50 years ago

So best to get the ammo that is sealed in cans

2:40 blowing up a gun like that is harder than ppl think. yes, it can and will happen on older used guns that have barrel that is worn over time and might have microfractures in them. or at least blowing up low power handguns. high power rifles might be easier to break that way

Could you clean tarnished ammo?

See, I've shot surplus ammo for years and I've picked up a few things here and there that have helped me remain relatively safe when shooting surplus. I do not buy surplus ammo that is not still sealed in some form of tin or ammo can. I also typically don't buy ammo from non-European countries. Both because of the temperature fluctuations most of the rest of the globe gets and because of lesser quality manufacturing. My final rule thumb, test the ammo first. I've got a crap beater rifle in about every common surplus ammo that is available from 30-06, 7.62×54, and even 8MM Mauser. They aren't great accurate rifles or even in good condition for shooting. If I through a couple rounds of steel cased 7.62×54 from a spam can into my crappy Mosin and it doesn't blow up, I'm pretty confident in shooting the whole can. Same with 30-06 and 8MM Mauser. Usually, if you follow all 3 of these rules and don't try to cheap out buying surplus ammo that is questionable or try shooting ammo you think is questionable, AKA using common sense, you will be pretty ok I think.

I've never had any problem with shooting the military ammo and I shot 545 by 39 and 762-54r straight out of the can

I purchased 3 boxes of 20 7.62x39 it was From the 70s . I pulled two rds to check the powder it looks great . Purchased to try I my 7.62x39 AR 15. Found out either the primer or powder is corrosive. Don’t think I shoot it. Glad I didn’t purchase more. Thanks for the video

Surplus is no different than commercial. It's all about storage. Of course, if the stuff looks like it was found under a old shed floor, it's suspect. I have early 1920's ammo that is pristine, because it was stored correctly.

I love surplus rounds. Some u collect Some you shoot.

I have polished my older rounds with Brasso but I never use old imported ammo tho

So THAT'S how a tumbler can make cartridges Dangerous!!

Powder all burns at the same rate for the same set volume. How powder in reality burns at different rates are the shape of the grains of powder in effect adding or reducing surface area. This is how in effect pistol and shotgun powders burns faster than rifle powders. Heat often breaks apart grains of powder as it makes them brittle. Thus increasing burn rate, velocity, pressure.

Primer trivia Tetrazine begins to decompose at 140F. Water will not harm tetrazine based primers.

Where did you get this "poorly stored ammunition"? Name names.

He should have done more research because there are videos out there that list the types of surplus ammo that are early failure types (squib and total failure) and the ones that overpressure with extreme age. Thankfully the Russians did it correctly and that's what I have an ass load of!

Thousands and thousands of surplus 7.62x39 ammo bought and have never had an issue.... Most have been sealed in the tin cans tho. Here in Canada that supply seems to be getting harder to find....and getting more expensive. But since our wonderful government has banned more guns dont seem to be shooting as much.

Dont most rifle barrels have a thin spot milled into them infront of the action so that if you get an over pressure situation the pet Thats meant to fail safely does- and the bolt isn’t cannoned back into your orbital bone

I switched to all air guns don't sleep trust me