Thread: Handloading Ghosts

Originally Posted by Cigar

On a slightly related note....are cases from 25-30 years ago still okay to use, or do they go brittle with time?
I have a bunch of cases from the mid-late 1990's, no corrosion as such just looking a bit dull. Some of them were loaded so I pulled the projectiles, the ones loaded with AR2208 were okay but the 308's loaded with AR2206 had gone fairly solid inside the cases so those may have internal corrosion.

Greetings,
A lot of the cases are 40 to 50 years old and yes they do go brittle in the neck. The cases will be neck annealed after a thorough inspection. Some with neck cracks or external corrosion have already been tossed. Compressed loads often need a prod to get the powder to run out where it has been compressed in the neck, as was the cartridge I broke down, but the powder was fine.
GPM.