Scored some ammo, have questions

[running-man]

This past weekend I was able to score a *large* amount of ammo from a buddy of mine I used to work with.  He accumulated it from multiple widows who he was helping clear out their houses and perform repair work for. 

I'm ok with all the factory stuff (there was several cases of Norinco .223 in there, lots of Romanian 8mm Mauser, S&B & Federal .30-06, Remington UMC in various calibers, Golden Bear, Swiss GP11, etc.), but these handloads in both .38 Special and .357 Magnum are making me pause a bit:










They look decent enough, primers and bullets look well seated, cases aren't in bad shape at all.  Still, not knowing the pedigree of them or the competence of the reloader, I've got a small case of the heebie jeebies. 

I've got ~150 rounds of .357 Magnum and 450 of .38 Special.  Just wondering what would you guys do with respect to this ammo (fire it, pull  bullets and check it (some of it, all of it?), download and use it for components, sell it, trash it)?

[Phosphorus32]

I don’t shoot other people’s hand loads. I’ve gotten some in mixed lots of ammo from auctions but never as much of one caliber as you have there.

The mixed cases bother me too. For the same case, you could weigh a few, pull them down and weigh the load of powder and the primed case, and then weigh the rest intact and discard or pull down any that had weighed an extra 5-7gr, for example. My fears with other people’s pistol loadings are a double powder drop, and hot loads.

[1mlt]

What P32 said. Sort them out, take one batch at a time. The biggest fear I have is they were loaded with the incorrect powder. We tied a K98 down on a mount after it was converted from 8mm to 25-06. It shot perfectly. Damn, I loved that rifle. It walked away somehow when I wasn't at home. I shot hand loads in it from day one. BUT, I did the loading.

[Greasemonkey]

I have shot other peoples reloads... I just use a very strong for the caliber action. Like I shot almost 300rds of someones unknown handloads in a .357 mag Desert Eagle..  no issues, but it's a strong action. Same with some 44mag.. I threw it thru the 44mag Desert Eagle..

Is what I did safe.. to me.. it's the same risk and liability as using 50-80+ yr old surplus stuff.. powder could degrade and be unstable, there be heavy corrosion inside the case that is not showing externally, or any other myriad of time and storage issues... and in reality... any new out the box ammo is a possible stick of dynamite, all it takes is just that one round to make it out of a factory.  In my experience, I have seen more hand loads loaded on the lower side of the power spectrum.. so squibs can be more of a possibility and every bit as much a hazard as an over charged round.

But.. you have to make the final judgement on your safety in the end.. it's your body parts on the line, guns are replaceable.. fingers and hands.. not so much.

[Greatguns]

If it is actual HSM reman'd ammo then you'd be fine with it, but if those are just leftover boxes the previous owner re-used to store hand load then yeah, I'd probably break them down. Another option would be to check the weight of them each against factory ammo. If they are all consistent with the factory load weights then you'll most likely be fine to shoot. Your call though cause it's your guns and your face that's at risk.

[running-man]

Thanks for the replies guys!  Excellent thought about the reman'd HSM GG!!!  I did not know they made reman ammo, but it certainly appears they do from their website and from what retail is currently selling in these orange boxes.  Here's a review I found for some of their .38 Special:

Can't give it 5 cause all of these are RELOADS. Not that I'm unhappy with the final result, but in a batch of 200, there were about 20+ different casings manufacturers. Haven't tried these out there yet, but they seem well put together. Funny enough, some are brass, some are nickel plated, some have +p markings, most casings are from Winchester and Federal with a few from S&B, PMC, Hornady, Blazer, etc. I'm a bit OCD so I organized them all and will use them in groups of 6 (for my revolver) by manufacturer of casing, when possible.

His description matches what I have almost exactly except I have mostly Speer cases. 

The .38 Special doesn't concern me as much as the .357 Magnum does.  The .38 Special has uniform primers in (possibly) correct HSM boxes whereas the .357 Magnum has a variety of different primers and is clearly in incorrect S&B boxes.  I'm still going to pull some of the .38 Special and probably all of the .357 Magnum to see what's under the hood to make sure, but I'm leaning more towards the .38 Special are commercial reloads rather than an individual's handloads. 

When I saw them, I assumed these were all factory loads (the first box of .357 Magnum most certainly is a factory load S&B as it is consistent beautiful ammo & is what I used to decide to buy these...who would have thought I should have opened all 12 boxes!?) and got them for $10 a box ($0.20/round) which I thought was an OK price considering factory .38 Special & .357 Magnum ammo prices these days.  Was a bit deflated when I found out all but one box was reman, but I guess at worst case I could use them for components and still be OK.  Retail prices for HSM reloads look to be just north of $20 so definitely not as great a deal as I though I was getting. 

I did much, much better on the factory rifle ammo I got from him.  Just the .30-06 is worth what I paid for the whole lot and heck you can't even find Norinco .223 or GP11 at retail anymore!

[Greatguns]

I was a Range-master at a gun shop years back and we sold HSM ammo to have strictly for the range use. Customers could bring their own, but we had that available at a slightly lower price than other brands, but it actually gave us a higher profit margin. I don't recall ever having any issues with it and we went through a ton of it in various calibers from .32ACP up to .50 AE
I also noticed the boxes look to be in pretty good condition which may be another indicator of it being factory reman'd stuff as well.

[Greasemonkey]

Factory reloads I havent had any issues with... LAX, Freedomunitions or HSM.. and others.  I've used HSM 30-40 Krag in my Krags many times... cause it's about the easiest to find and best bang for the buck..