White powder on lead

[wisconsin]

The other day I was at Sportsmans Warehouse about to buy some 44 mag. 240 gr. JHP ammo from American Eagle ( Federal ). As always I opened the box to make sure all the rounds were there and that they were what they said they were.The lead tips had a white residue on them, kind of like what you find on old chocolate or old lead fishing sinkers. I have some rounds in the Federal boxes of the same bullet type that are well over 20 yrs old with no residue on them. Are these worth the money or should I stay away from them. Not sure what it might do to the barrel or accuracy

[MikeBjerum]

The white powder is probably oxidation.  It will not harm your gun or affect accuracy, but it means that the ammo was not stored in a dry location like it should have been.  Somewhere along the line it has been either exposed to too high humidity for too long, or the bullets were not properly treated at the time of manufacture to protect it from oxidation.

If I owned it I would shoot it.  However, I would not purchase it.

[Pathfinder]

+1 on m58's comments.

And congrats for checking. I know store people get annoyed when I do it, but I have a good reason. Back in the day when I thought I was getting into CAS, I had a Navy Arms replica of a 1873 Winchester in .44-40. I bought three boxes of .44-40 at Galyan's (now part of Dick's Sporting Goods), and went off to the match.

My turn, loaded up with 9 rounds, and racked the lever. Jam! Lever would not move anymore either.

Some gunsmithing guys took pity on my - I had a loaded rifle with a round jammed in the breech and the action frozen. They took the gun apart and guess what they found? The ninth round loaded, the 9th round in the box, the first into the chamber (part way) of a .44-40 was a .44 MAGNUM!!!

Good thing it jammed or I would have looked like that guy on the I loaded a .308 in a .25 something (or was it the other way around? Anyhow, would have messed me up rather badly.

So now I always check.

[Big Frank]

It's not oxidation. Lead oxidizes almost instantly just like aluminim. It forms a grey coating and that's why the outside of bullets is grey but if you cut into it, it's shiny and silver colored. The white stuff might be lead carbonate. I don't know why it would be on the bullets unless they're really old or came into contact with acid and carbon dioxide.