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Any ammo tech or ammo savy forum members care to comment on this article ?
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/d...in-afghanistan
As it's from Sept 2012 it may have been covered ,if so please delete.
I can't believe small arms ammunition is routinely destroyed after 6 months ......is this common practice now ? Considering what I have to pay for RG 5.56 it nearly made me cry !
ATB KG
Now I know what obturation means.
Ammunition has always had a military shelf life. Here in Canada, I believe it's 10 years under normal conditions. Ammo also has guidelines to storage. Heat and cold and wet... Afghanistan is extreme to say the least. Ammo cooks in the heat and it gets 50 degrees there routinely in summer. The ballistic qualities change and that's being mild. It can turn your ammo into a bomb. The govenment must draw a line somewhere so that's it. That simple. They aren't worried about how much your surplus ammo costs. They also aren't worried about what happens to you upon firing their rejects. This ammo wouldn't be surplused, it would be taken out to the desert and blown in place.
The item they speak of is one way to do it. The ammo cooker.
Stored in temperate climates it will last for ages and ages. But let it cook and freeze and it goes down the pan quickly. I recall in the mid 80's or so - it could even be later as we rear echelon troops still had L4 Brens, we had boxes of RG 69 ammo removed from Mobilisation or Reserve Stocks from a big Ord Depot in Germany that was being closed down. I think it was Bracht as the broiwn boxes were marked BRA in yellow paint. As I said, it worked perfectly and it was only that some of the links were a bit tatty that I even took any notice of it.
We had to de-link it for our L4 Bren magazines and that's how someone noticed the grotty links and came over to me to have a grizzle that the TA (the reserves) were getting rubbish ammo. I told him that if he didn't want to shoot it, he could either a) dish up the lunches and tea for the next two days, b) operate the phones for the nexttwo days, c) be a butt marker for the next two days or be my runner for the next two days.
Guess what he opted to do.....................? Yep, shoot the guns!
During my tour in Afganistan, it was common practice for all the multi-national SF to discard there ammo after one single mission....regards
Last week I watched a program that showed a US Demolition team blowing up 25,000 lbs of discarded ammo, artillery shells, grenades, and rifle shells by the case.
Their reason was just like in previous posts. Temperature! They were getting one dud round in ten with the .223s
I wonder how the taliban is using the ammo they have from fighting the Commies years ago. Is it a who cares attitude or a who really cares attitude??
I know they are getting supplies out of Pakistan however think a decent percentage is old, some being very old??
My first thought was that I bet they weren't useing less than 6 month old ammunition in the desert war in North Africa in the early 1940's !
ATB KG
Taliban uses whatever they can get their hands on...Including AK47s that you can't see light through the barrels.
As a deep desert dweler , here are two of my experiences .
1st...around the early 1980s I had some WW2 30-06 that shot wonderfully . Sold all my '06s , so I sold my ammo to a friend. About a year later , I picked up a Garand again , and bought the ammo back. Turns out he had stored in in a garage during the one summer he had it. Went from 2 MOA ammo to 12-16 MOA ammo just like that.
2nd...beginning in '84 I went into collecting WW2 USGI firearms and sold off most everything else , including about 20 various H&Ks . Around 2005-2006 I was cleaning out my '79 pickup and found in one of the many storage pockets a left over , loaded , H&K 91 mag. It had spent at least 20 years in the summer's heat baking in the cab. I gave it to a friend and we shot it off one day. Ammo functioned fine , grouped as good as you could want , and showed no signs of it's age.
So....you never know.
Chris