i just came across a few boxes of 7.62 mm rifle shells that are rather old i think. all the writing on the box is in french and the shells came from Paris. thats all i can make out on the box other than it has a stamp that says (30.06 BALL). will these rounds fire safe out of my remington model 7400 that is chambered for 30.06 springfield. i cant see any difference in the shells visually but i do not want this to blow up in my face or wreck my gun. any help would be great. thank you.

Its just a old 30-06 shell toped off with a FMJ bullet. Not legal for hunting of course but great cheap plinkin ammo's :nice:

I would have to agree about it beeing a old 30-06 round, my only concern is that it MAY have corrosive powder. Some of those shells from other countries,plus beeing old are sometimes known for there corrosive powder.

i agree with the others. if you use it, give the rifle a good cleaning as soon as possible just in case the powder is corrosive. ammo that has corrosive powder is fine to shoot but you need to get it out of the bore ASAP so that it doesnt harm the bore.

i wouldn't shoot it if i had found it but that's just me

It's actually the primer compound that is corrosive, not the powder. Corrosive primers contain potassium perchlorate, which decomposes when ignited into potassium chloride, an alkali metal salt, similar to table salt (sodium chloride) that will attract moisture from the air and accelerate rusting. Modern primers contain lead styphnate as their oxidizer, which is non-corrosive.

The problem with firing those in a gas operated semi-auto is that, if they are corrosive primers, you'll have to take the whole gas system apart to clean out every part that the gas came in contact with or it will rust very fast. If you were shooting a bolt action rifle, I'd say go ahead and shoot them and then rinse the bore out with water, which will dissolve the KCl and flush it away. In a semi-auto, flushing the gas system with water isn't the greatest idea because getting everything dry and protected might be hard. I'd say don't shoot them in your 7400. Not worth the trouble.

Mike

If you are like me and take EVERY thing apart when you clean it i would say go ahead but other wise i would say not to.