Cartridges / Shells / Ammo kept in a safe for 20 years

I have quite a bit of 5.56 ammo stored for a rainy day. It is stored in new metal .50 ammo cans with good gaskets along with 3-4 Silca Gel Desiccant packets in each. Recently, my wife purchased this "Food Saver' machine which allows one to remove all the air from anything you are storing in these special bags. I am thinking of doing this with all my ammo. I would continue to use the Desiccant packets but think this will provide increased protection. Yes/No?

Question:
Does anyone else do this and, if so, any tips and advice would be greatly appreciated and probably save me some money and time.

Also, do you think it is worth the cost and effort to do so?

I do rotate my ammo but it will take years to burn it up as I cannot live at the range, have too much work that must be done on the property during the good weather months. And, I do continue to purchase more when I see good deals, even though I sure as hell lack the storage space and ammo storage boxes but a deal is a deal and it will be used someday, of that I am sure.

 

Hey Bandit99, We vac seal ammo all the time! I find if I wrap it in waxed cardboard into a sort of box before sealing, it makes it easier to pack in cans or other containers as well, sort of makes a backbone for it! The 5.56 and most of my .30 cal stuff is loaded on stripper clips, so the Cardboard is a bit over kill, but seems to provide a bit of extra protection and keeps the ammo quiet! We make ours into "Battle Packs" which makes a load out easy to figure, each of us would grab one pack for each weapon system and have the correct load out for all the mags that system uses! We also started loading mags and vac sealing them in the same configuration! 12 mags of 5.56 or 8 mags of 7.62X51. Where things are different in the .30/06 which is loaded on 5 round stripper clips and sealed 6 batches of 4 loaded 5 eound clips, or the M1 Garand which gets 12 loaded clips in each bag! Others follow the .30/06, minus the stripper clips, except for the .338 L.M and .50 B.M.G. which have their own system. We even store Black Powder, bullets, and primers in Vac Sealed packs. It's complicated, but it really works well! Each arm gets it's own recipes vac sealed by bullet type and weight, makes it easy to select what is needed when the needs arise and the obious bonus it it' all weather proof until opend!

 

I like that idea @Ura-Ki. My wife has a couple of those food saver vac seal gadgets. She even purchased bags large enough to hold the whole damn rifle. Never thought about doing up the ammo. Hell why not?

Haven't tried sealing a rifle up yet because I can't seem to retrieve any of them off the lake bottom from when my boat sank.

 

@Ura-Ki Thanks! As always you're wealth of information... My 5.56 ammo, of which I am most concerned, is all loose (bulk)... I am not sure where I could get so many small card boxes so think I will try lining my .50 with cardboard (bottom and sides) then seal them into bags of 180 rounds each (6 mags worth) if these gallon bags will hold that much ammo and see how they sit in the ammo boxes. I do like the idea of loading all my spare mags and vac sealing them also. I keep two empty for the range and 4 loaded in the safe by my ARs. I am sure I haven't as many spare mags as you, no where close, think I got ~20 spare but like the idea of loading them and sealing them...

Anyway, I will try playing around with it today since I have nothing else to do. Wife is at church and I still have 3 feet of snow outside so it is a good day to experiment... Thank you.

EDIT: It appears I am prevented from doing this until the wife gets home because I cannot, for love or life, find where she put the bags. I swear sometimes I think there is a conspiracy at work in my own home to keep me ignorant and dependent on the redhead. Hmm...

 

Keep my ammo stored in ammo cans and spam cans. Got some 50's vintage Yugo 8 mm Mauser that still goes bang when I want it to. Stored cool and dry it should out last you.

 

This has been discussed in a couple of threads. The following search comes up with 2 pages of posts.

Search Results for Query: vacuum seal ammo | Survival Monkey Forums

 

Cigarette boxes will hold 7.62X51 in the "King" and .30/06-.300 W.M. in the "100" size. I Quite years ago, but my neighbor still smokes, so he saves me his old Packs! Much of my 5.56 stuff came in little boxes on stripper clips, so those just get sealed up as is! The dollar tree has hard shell sammich boxes with 0-ring seals, those I load with .338 L.M. and then vac seal! Works pretty slick, and some can hold 10 to 12 rounds of .50 BMG!

 

VacPac with desiccant sounds good. Small price for reliability. My uncle Lester gave me a Remington built '03-06, barrel dated 6-42, for my tenth birthday (1962) and we shot a lot of ammo headstamped NC18. Yeah that's the stuff that made some low number '03 s blow up. Have no idea what conditions of storage were for it.

 

So, I did a bit of experimenting and, of course, @DarkLight is correct as this is old news and plenty posts out there but it is always good to revisit now and then just for possible new technics, tricks or tips or even new members. I also think ghrit is correct and it is way overkill but overkill never hurt anyone so...

Anyway, I used some Quart bags for 120 loose rounds which weighs exactly 49.8 oz since using the wife's cooking scales was faster than counting...

For me, I think this to be too time consuming and think it also takes up more space than the rounds being loose. So, I will do 1000 rounds in this manner (120 per quart bag) and then see about getting some larger bags and putting them into the .50 ammo can first then pour the ammo into them and then sucking the air out and see how that works cause. If I read @Brokor correctly "seal ammo in bulk bags" this works also and currently I think I got 1500-1800 rounds per ammo box or something like that...

I also experimented with loading the magazine and sealing them and in my mind this is the best because the mag protect the rounds from puncturing the bag. So, for me it will be a mix and match approaching, majority will go into large bags and maybe a 1000 rounds in smaller bags/mag bags with of course my desiccant. For me it comes down to storage space as I just have no more room for containers...

 

I’ve recently shot .25-20, .45-70, and .44-40 ammo I bought at an estate sale. It was all commercial and probably from near 1900.

I shoot .38SPL and .45ACP ammo from WWII that’s been out of the tin and stored in a barn for 40 years (at least)

All worked well.

Ammo still in the sardine cans might last for hundreds of years.

If it isn’t obviously damaged by corrosion, I would shoot it.

 

If push came to shove one could implement milk jugs and other liquid filled containers for a water tight atmosphere for loose ammo .
Since you can see through them, labeling is superfluous .
Some are semi square so they can be stacked on their side.
Rubbermaid and other companies make square type storage containers that seal equally well and a vacuum can be applied .
Just takes a bit of imagination .

 

If it was and is dry and the cases are not green or worse around the primer, I hope you did not leave your gun in a leather holster, gun rug or any leather in the safe as it can cause corrosion as most has been tanned with chemicals or tannic acid back in the day and that will rust a gun PDQ.
20 years is not long more important is the date of manufacture if it looks good and American made after 1955 most likely non corrosive powder and non mercuric primers. I got SuperVel HiVel Peters old browning. S&W, green box Remington, Winchester Super Speed and other ammo older than that and it shoots just as good as the day I bought it.

 

I've been thinking about this, since I started this thread. No leather, definitely. I remember I cleaned and oiled the pistol. It was just laid on the shelf inside the safe, possibly on a plastic bag?

No boxes, no rags, nothing that would attract moisture was put anywhere near the gun. I did put a lot of those silica packs, that absorb moisture, inside the safe.

Ammo was stored in a military surplus sealed ammo can. I was purchased probably within six months of me leaving the US.

It will be interesting to see a 1990's model pistol, hopefully, in mint condition.

 

more than likely as you have described you should be fine (fingers crossed for you)

 

Only issue I've had is with .22 ammo... I've shot lots of military surplus from the 1940's...

 

I have some Winchester black powder .45/70 in the two piece box that ideer hunted with this year.

 

The vacuum sealer works well. Likewise, if you want to seal it so people cannot see that it is ammo, you can use the mylar bags that people use for freeze drying. Oxygen absorbents work a bit better than dessicants but both are fairly cheap.

 

Not to be stirring the pot too much but I got to thinking ,
That aroma you get when opening the gun powder, is the gas from the powder .
That gas is a part of it's charge I believe, ( I could be wrong ) but, Ammo is not sold in vacuum packed containers . military is not vacuum sealed only air tight to keep moisture out and I might assume to reduce the out gassing of the powder .
Even though most rounds are assumed to be crimped sealed I think it's possible that some are, through handling, potentially capable of loosing the seal .
Lead being soft is shaped easily and copper has almost no elasticity (spring).
A vacuum seal might have the propensity to draw the gasses out of said "loose ammo" rendering it less effective .
When I was a kid once in a while we'd find lose bullets and set them aside not wishing to take a chance . Though manufacturing standards have greatly improved materials haven't .
In the olden days they used wax to improve the seal, but the probems with wax created new problems .
O2 absorbers like we use for food in side air tight containers should be sufficient .