How often do you shoot your defense loads

[tboesche]

Personally, Not very often. Usually when I am practising or shooting IDPA I shoot the Monarch Green box. Mainly 'cuz it's cheap. I have not fired a full box of my defense loads in over a year. What do the rest of you do and Why?

[Paladin]

I shoot the rounds I carry in the gun up once per year to be on the safe side. Some people advocate changing the rounds out every 6 months.

[Texasdoc]

I shoot my defence ammo every 6 to 8 month, then reload the mags with fresh ammo. with the price of ammo going up I am doing the ammo change 1 a year now.

Doc

[The Annoyed Man]

Every time I go to the range, I burn up a magazine or two of my defense ammo. It costs me more, but what's the trade off worth? To me, it is worth it to do that. OTH, while I try to get to the range at least once a month, sometimes more than that, once in a I while realize that more than a month has gone by since my last trip... so I'm not perfect about it.

[tboesche]

Does ammo have a shelf life?

I have several boxes of shotgun ammo that is at least 25 years old and a box of .32 S&W that is at least 20 years old. Not that I will ever fire that gun again since it is 115 years old. The shotgun yes but the S&W model 2 is going on the wall. As far as the defense loads go, I only have 1/2 box in reserve, I have all the mags that I use for defense loaded and have about a partial box in reserve. Just about 100 rounds total. Now I do have several boxes of FMJ practice ammo. I figure that if I go thru all the defensive loads and have to dive into the practice ammo, we are in some serious stuff.

I guess it wouldn't hurt to fire off all of the defense loads that I have now and re supply them once every six months or so. As previously mentioned though, the cost of ammo IS going up.

[Dan20703]

About every 6 months I will burn up the SD ammo I have in my mags. It is always the first rounds I fire and I shoot them as fast as I think I would in a real SD situation. Luckily I shoot on private property and can rapid fire through the mag without getting scolded by the range master.

[tboesche]

I wish I could find some where to shoot around Fort Worth where I did not have to go to a range. Sometimes, I just feel like bustin off some rounds as quick as I can.

[CodeJockey]

...I shoot the Monarch Green box. Mainly 'cuz it's cheap...

I tried a box of that for my .357 Magnum from Academy. It was very inexpensive, so I thought I'd give that a go. That ammo was horrible for me. I fired off about 4 rounds in my model 66 S&W with no problems, but then the 5th round caused my cylinder not to turn. I could not cock the hammer, pull the trigger or release the cylinder. It took me five minutes to get the cylinder released. The problem was that the primer had a lip around the edge of where the firing pin struck it. The lip around the edge of that indention was catching against the back of the gun resulting in the jam. I cleared the spent rounds, reloaded, and tried again. I was hoping / assuming it was a bad primer. I had this happen 3 more times in about 7 rounds.

I then fired 12 of my .357 Magnum Corbon DPX rounds to see if they exhibited similar problems (I didn't have anything else with me and the range was way too expensive). They fired flawlessly. It seems as though the primers used in that monarch ammo are too hard or something. They would probably be fine in an autoloader but I will stick to Winchester White Box which works flawlessly for me in that gun.

Just my $.02.

Edit: Oh and regarding defensive loads, I usually fire off a magazine or two of defensive rounds every 2 months or so. I'd like to do it everytime i visit the range (1 or 2 times per month) but that DPX is over 1.00 / round so I'm not going to do that.