How often to change out personal protection ammo

[Shadowrider]

Every six months (pistol quals) I shoot my defense loads and then load with fresh. Maybe a little excessive but it keeps me on a regular rotation AND I know its not too old.

Have you ever had any of them not fire? I'm betting not. And for the peanut gallery, a working LEO is putting them in and out of a far worse environment than most of the rest of us. From a warm patrol car into the cold and vice versa depending on the season and on a daily basis I might add.

 

[Shadowrider]

Here's Winchester's MSDS on ball propellent.

Powder MSDS

Scroll down to #7 and you will see:

Shelf Life Limitation: Indefinite at below 100°F




Here's Winchester's MSDS on centerfire primers:

Centerfire Primer MSDS


Scroll down to #7 and you will see:

Shelf Life Limitation: Indefinite at 50-90°F and 35% RH.


And vibration won't do diddly to the powder or primer. I tumble my reloaded match rounds all the time, to the tune of multiple thousands now. I've been known to put a load in in the evening and forget them until the next day. I've not been able to tell any difference whatsoever in those rounds and those that are not tumbled. Besides how do you think the factory gets the lube off and gets them so purty? Yes, they tumble them too.

O/P, you got some sort of contamination or just some bad ammo.

 

[Norman]

Have you ever had any of them not fire? I'm betting not. And for the peanut gallery, a working LEO is putting them in and out of a far worse environment than most of the rest of us. From a warm patrol car into the cold and vice versa depending on the season and on a daily basis I might add.

I shoot my Gold dots once a year when I get fresh ones. I carry them in nasty weather, and I've yet to have a fail to fire

 

[shooter226]

I change out my carry ammo twice a year. At Christmas and The fourth of July. I never had any problems. I have ammo in the safe thats over 20 years old and I never have had problems with it either.

What you need to watch for more than anything is with a semi auto the first round in the mag getting pushed back from loading and unloading to many times. This is not good in hi pressure ammo thats made today.
Mark

 

[David2012]

Posted on BOLO Report:

Officer Safety: Ammunition cycling and failure to fire

February 17th, 2012 ·BOLO Report Admin·Officer Safety, Training and education

http://boloreport.com/officer-safety-ammunition-cycling-and-failure-to-fire#comments

THE FOLLOWING TRAINING ADVISORY WAS FORWARDED FROM A POLICE DEPARTMENT IN GEORGIA IN 2011
In September of this year a PD officer was involved in a situation which quickly became a use of deadly force incident. When the officer made the decision to use deadly force, the chambered round in his duty pistol did not fire. Fortunately, the officer used good tactics, remembered his training and cleared the malfunction, successfully ending the encounter.

The misfired round, which had a full firing pin strike, was collected and was later sent to the manufacturer for analysis. Their analysis showed the following: “.the cause of the misfire was determined to be from the primer mix being knocked out of the primer when the round was cycled through the firearm multiple times”. We also sent an additional 2,000 rounds of the Winchester 9mm duty ammunition to the manufacturer. All 2,000 rounds were successfully fired.

In discussions with the officer, we discovered that since he has small children at home, he unloads his duty weapon daily. His routine is to eject the chambered round to store the weapon. Prior to returning to duty he chambers the top round in his primary magazine, then takes the previously ejected round and puts in back in the magazine. Those two rounds were repeatedly cycled and had been since duty ammunition was issued in February or March of 2011, resulting in as many as 100 chambering and extracting cycles. This caused an internal failure of the primer, not discernible by external inspection.

This advisory is to inform all sworn personnel that repeated cycling of duty rounds is to be avoided. As a reminder, when loading the weapon, load from the magazine and do not drop the round directly into the chamber. If an officer’s only method of safe home storage is to unload the weapon, the Firearms Training Unit suggests that you unload an entire magazine and rotate those rounds. In addition, you should also rotate through all 3 duty magazines, so that all 52 duty rounds are cycled, not just a few rounds. A more practical method of home storage is probably to use a trigger lock or a locked storage box.

FURTHER GUIDANCE FROM ATF FIREARMS TECHNOLOGY BRANCH:


[This was good quality Winchester 9mm ammo.... and the opinion given for the failure was from Winchester! The hard repeated slamming of the same two rounds into the chamber from the magazine is much more forceful than the vibration produced by a tumbler.]

 

[juscvin]

At CLEET they told us it was a good idea to change out our duty ammunition at least once a year

 

[slammed03gmc]

I'm in the twice a year cycle

 

[ugoleftillgorite]

A little update here. Just shot up my personal protection ammo in both carry guns (LCP and XD40sc), no problems from either and that LCP is exposed to alot. I ride my motorcycle all year, and I pocket carried that LCP every day for over a year with that same ammo. Mad3 me feel a little bit better. Either I got a bad batch (which is a scary proposition!) or I did something to render the bullets I originally posted about inert.