AMMO Find! Help.

Oh, and nothing wrong with shooting it, it will be just fine. Not old enough to be a collector item. I would hold back a box or so of each, just for the reason.

I’m pretty sure the 500 box marked .99, was actually the price of each of the 50 round boxes it contained.
Late 80’s early 90’s, cheap .22lr was about .02 a piece

Baldheaded said:

I came across some old ammo that was my fathers from years ago. Its been sitting in a 50cal steel ammo can. I have attached some pictures of the ammo in an attempt to get some information about the ammo. I'm sure some of you will be able to tell me about it. Any details will be appreciated. It is all 22LR. There is a price tag on the 500round box of Lightning that says .90cents. LOL. WOW!

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In for karma

Baldheaded said:

Is there any collectability to old ammo like this?

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Old ammo is collectable some people collect only full boxes and even the empty boxes are collected by some. I don't have access to my bookmarks at the moment but I have posted links in several threads over the years so searching MDS will turn up links about collecting and people who buy old ammo.

Baldheaded said:

Has anyone shot this stuff before?

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*****I have. It shoots fine. It's old but seems to have been stored well. Shoot away. I've shot cartridges from surplus ammo that is closer to 70-80 years old now, from WW2 or the Korean war, etc.. and it all shot fine, though some of it was corrosive in nature and I needed to clean my firearms immediately after finishing up at the range.

Good find!

So these are the general questions I'm gathering based on the thread so far:

1.) What is it/how old is it?
2.) Is there anything inherently unsafe about it?
3.) Is it collectible/valuable?

These are my answers:

1: It's pretty self-evident what it is - it's a bunch of .22 LR rounds of an indeterminate age. I can't say with 100% certainty, but I believe I shot some of those Federal Spitfire hollow points as a kid back in the early 1980s. So how old is it? Possibly as old as 35-50 years.

2/3: No and no - it's not collectible, and it's not unsafe. It's been stored really well - there's no real oxidation or degradation of either the case or the bullets. It is old, but not old enough for it to be collectible, and not even remotely old enough to be unsafe.

If I found it? I'd keep it and probably shoot it.

I'm going to share a quick story about my own experience with something similar.

My Dad died in 1997, and my Mom sat on my Dad's gun and gun-related stuff - roughly 130 guns, reloading equipment, holsters, ammo, bullet molds, etc - for 11 years before finally allowing anything to happen with them. in 2008 she finally decided something needed to be done, so the bulk of it was sold, but I got some guns, and I got a bunch of ammo for the related guns, almost all of it reloads that had been loaded by my Dad.

Some guys may have had some sentimentality toward that ammo, but I know what Dad would have said - he'd have said something to the effect of, "why keep it? Shoot it! That's what I reloaded it for!"

Keep in mind, the man passed away in 1997, almost 24 years ago, so the youngest of those reloads date from the mid 1990s, with some of them dating back to the late 1970s. I also brought back bricks of 22 LR. Every time Dad would see it on sale at Wheelers (Midwest farm store chain) he'd pick up a carton of 500. My shooting tapered off in my HS years when I became heavily involved in becoming a musician (85-89) but he'd buy them up anyway.

All of it shoots just fine with no issues. I went out a couple of months ago and was driving tacks with Dad's/my Mauser 98 sporter 25-06 with reloads he put together in 1984.

Ammo, if stored properly, lasts a long, long time.

Kevmo said:

wow those are some olddddddddddddddd boxes. i think the spitfire is from the 80s

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You must be a millennial.

Pinecone said:

You must be a millennial.

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I was wondering the same thing - I remember having and shooting some of those Spitfires. I think they're 33 gr bullets rather than the standard 40 gr bullet.

How cool of your Dad to have left you a fortune. I inherited a bunch of old ammo from my dad, some of it much older than what you have appears to be and it has all functioned 100%.

I think I am going to keep a box of each just to have and then shoot the rest. 22LR is the round I shoot the most. Fun and cheap. I know there is some old shotgun shell around somewhere also. I just need to find it in one of those old 50cal cans. Not sure what I will do with that since I don't currently have a shotgun.

Uncle Duke said:

Federal Lightning was Plain Jane high speed lead round nose .22lr. Your typical plinking variety. Nothing special about it really.

Spitfire was a hyper velocity round. Think more in the line of Remington Viper and Yellowjacket, CCI Stinger and similar rimfire offerings.

Not sure of particulars on the Hi Speed.

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Hi Speed was basic high velocity 22. Like MiniMags or Golden Bullets in the day.

I still shoot WWII surplus, so this 80's stuff is damn near brand new.
Go forth and perforate something.

Brickman301 said:

Oh, and nothing wrong with shooting it, it will be just fine. Not old enough to be a collector item. I would hold back a box or so of each, just for the reason.

I’m pretty sure the 500 box marked .99, was actually the price of each of the 50 round boxes it contained.
Late 80’s early 90’s, cheap .22lr was about .02 a piece

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Could be 70s also.

I have MiniMags marked $1.99 for 100 rounds from the 70s.

Baldheaded said:

I think I am going to keep a box of each just to have and then shoot the rest. 22LR is the round I shoot the most. Fun and used to be cheap. I know there is some old shotgun shell around somewhere also. I just need to find it in one of those old 50cal cans. Not sure what I will do with that since I don't currently have a shotgun.

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Fixed it for ya.

RegularJay said:

How cool of your Dad to have left you a fortune. I inherited a bunch of old ammo from my dad, some of it much older than what you have appears to be and it has all functioned 100%.

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Yes. My dad was a small time collector. I think he just liked having the stuff for a SHTF situation. I really don't ever recall him shooting any of the stuff. I have shot most of the ammo over the years but still have a little around. I do still have a bunch of the CCI mini mags and stingers left that have not been shot yet. Probably a couple thousand rounds.

I just saw the Federal Hi-Power selling for $15 a box on some site. I think I would be hitting the range and poking some holes in paper.

I received 8 bricks of old standard velocity Remington Kleanbore I was given when an old man I was friends with passed in 1998. I was merrily shooting it up 50 or 100 rounds at a time until I saw it on table at a vintage arms show at $15/box of 50!! I still have 2 full and 1 partial bricks. Does it shoot well? I'll put it this way:. I would have finished shooting it up long ago except it actually outshoots any modern ammo I have tried including Eley Match in my Ruger MkII and is about a match for CCI std velocity in a couple of my rifles. So I shot it primarily in matches....at least until I stopped because of prices I saw on it. By the way, there are 2 empty boxes of this vintage on eBay for 20 bucks. Also 1 so-so condition box for 13.99. That stuff dates from about 1960.

I remember as a kid in the early 80's, getting the Federal Lightning for 9.99 for a brick of 500 at Western Auto.
Used to go thru all 500 in no time at all with my old Marlin Glenfield model 60....
Great memories.

Merry Christmas OP!

Baldheaded said:

Is there any collectability to old ammo like this?

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ALL ammo is collectible at the moment.

Baldheaded said:

Has anyone shot this stuff before?

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Yup!!

The Federal "hi-power" stuff shoots incredibly well from my S&W mdl 41.

I still have 3 or 4 of the 100 round boxes (plastic) that I bought from Best Products, in Lanham, back 'in the day'. (Early/mid-'80s if memory serves me.)
I paid 98 cents per box of 100.

Not for sale, BTW!


A good friend liked the Federal "Lightning" because they were a few cents cheaper, per hundred.