full metal jacket M-1 Garand shells in 30/06?

[corndogggy]

I have access to a ton of these shells, like several big military boxes full of them. As far as I know, they will fire just fine in a 30/06, but I have heard that the gunpowder could be dirty or whatever. Are these things just destined to sit there or could they be used? Is extra cleaning involved if they are used in a nicer rifle? I assume that you can't hunt with them for anything other than coyotes or varmits but it would be alot cheaper for target shooting. Are these worth anything to collectors in terms of selling them?

[String Music]

They will fire, but the primers are more corrosive than primers made today. So, you'll need to clean more often and more better. Unless they are foreign made, all of them will be safe to shoot. don't know about foreign made unless it's ones made in Israel

[trust me]

Get a date off the old crates. If they go back too far, they can be very corrosive and you have to wash the barrel out with water just like a black powder rifle. If they are more recent, (1950's,-60's) I think you'll be fine.

As far as safety and reliability, there should be no safety problems and they should be reliable if stored properly.

I've got some old NRA data somewhere that should give us the dates. I'll try to hunt it up for you.

[Born to Hunt]

I have fired some old military rounds with no problem. I have also experienced "hang fires". Be careful with them, look them over and don't hesitate to throw out anything that doesn't look quite right.

If you reload DON"T resize these cases with your dies set for commercial cases.

[trust me]

Corndog,
Look for the headstamp on a cartridge. Look for something like "FA", "FCC", "LC", "RA", "SL", or "TW". If possible, get a lot number off of the packaging. There may be a year on the crate as well.

I've got the info here, but I'll need as much info off the crates and headstamps as you can get.

This is a common question and there are still tons of this stuff floating around out there. I can't imagine much collector value, but you never know.

[brandon2000]

A guy I know shoots alot of the old military style 30-06 rounds in fmj and says too use a little ammonia on a swab to help neutralize the corrosiveness of the powder and primers after each shooting event. Hope this helps.