I had a freak accident with my furnace occurred, which resulted in four plastic flip to type storage boxes. becoming almost completely filled with water – for some unknown number of weeks. These storage boxes included reloading brass and quite a large quantity of factory ammo (both centerfire and rimfire), as a well as surplus ammo and reloads.
My first response was to dry everything out, throw away the stinky waterlogged cardboard boxes that contained the ammo and then tumble everything to at least make the stuff look OK. This was necessary because the water itself was turbid dirty stuff – and the cartridges had some lime scaling and surface corrosion.
I then went ahead and shot some of the 22 long rifle stuff – and was VERY surprised to find that about 85% of that was still Okay. I also was surprised to find that the communist surplus stuff was also all Okay/ remained completely shootable. However, some of the steel case stuff was slightly rusty on the outside – so I don't plan to shoot that stuff in semi autos – only bolt guns.
Then I checked out various commercial ammo loads as well as my own handloads. here I found that my 40 S&W handloads were all completely useless – and had to be taken apart. I have dried the powder and recovered the primers and have let them dry out too. I plan to reload those 40 S&W components and see if the 40 S&W stuff shoots now that everything is dried out. I know that wet reloading powder can be reused after it is dried out (I'm talking modern reloading powders, here not black powder – which I know can't be used after it's been wet). I don't know how much success I'll have reusing primers after I've dried them out – but let's see.
A trickier aspect of this situation is that some other handloads seem to be only PARTLY damaged by water. Some of this stuff I've tested out, in this category, seems to be such that only 1 in 5 cartridge appear to have been water damaged – and the rest shoot fire. However, shooting stuff in this mixed state means that one gets a few good shots off at the range and then a dud, a slow burning fizzle, or a real live hang fire. This is both inconvenient and potentially unsafe because one has to keep checking the gun to make sure there are no bullets obstructing the bore.
Obviously, I'd love to come up with a system for figuring-out which rounds are going to be Okay and which need to be taken apart, and dried-out.
I have discovered that a partial solution is to figure out what a dry round should weigh, according to the sum of its components. Then, one just has to weigh all the cartridges – and any that are unusually heavy would normally be the ones that have the added weight of some water inside. My plan is, after that, to start taking the heaviest ones apart first – to see how wet they are. Following this, I will take apart the next heaviest, then the next heaviest – until I find the threshold where I'm into dry ammo.
I already tried this trick with my 40 Smith and Wesson stuff but that was a bad choice because it turned out all the rounds from that bunch were wetjust some more than others.
Here is my question. Once I have suspected wet rounds taken apart, is there an easy way to use some sort of humidity tester to figure-out whether any borderline rounds have – i – n fact – got any water in the powder or not? I have used a Princess Auto dual probe-type humidity tester on wood – in the past – and had good results. I'm thinking of spreading out some suspected wet powders on a breadboard – which should have no humidity of its own – and then use the Princess Auto humidity tester to see if putting powder on the breadboard increases the humidity reading. To do this, I may just use of those Princess Auto humidity gauges that I already own) – which has two probe points.
However, since that tool is not intended for this use, I'm wondering if there's some better device that I can use for testing the humidity level of powder from a given round without touching the powder itself – that is, some sort of CONTACTLESS humidity testing device?
Has anybody had success, in these areas?
My first response was to dry everything out, throw away the stinky waterlogged cardboard boxes that contained the ammo and then tumble everything to at least make the stuff look OK. This was necessary because the water itself was turbid dirty stuff – and the cartridges had some lime scaling and surface corrosion.
I then went ahead and shot some of the 22 long rifle stuff – and was VERY surprised to find that about 85% of that was still Okay. I also was surprised to find that the communist surplus stuff was also all Okay/ remained completely shootable. However, some of the steel case stuff was slightly rusty on the outside – so I don't plan to shoot that stuff in semi autos – only bolt guns.
Then I checked out various commercial ammo loads as well as my own handloads. here I found that my 40 S&W handloads were all completely useless – and had to be taken apart. I have dried the powder and recovered the primers and have let them dry out too. I plan to reload those 40 S&W components and see if the 40 S&W stuff shoots now that everything is dried out. I know that wet reloading powder can be reused after it is dried out (I'm talking modern reloading powders, here not black powder – which I know can't be used after it's been wet). I don't know how much success I'll have reusing primers after I've dried them out – but let's see.
A trickier aspect of this situation is that some other handloads seem to be only PARTLY damaged by water. Some of this stuff I've tested out, in this category, seems to be such that only 1 in 5 cartridge appear to have been water damaged – and the rest shoot fire. However, shooting stuff in this mixed state means that one gets a few good shots off at the range and then a dud, a slow burning fizzle, or a real live hang fire. This is both inconvenient and potentially unsafe because one has to keep checking the gun to make sure there are no bullets obstructing the bore.
Obviously, I'd love to come up with a system for figuring-out which rounds are going to be Okay and which need to be taken apart, and dried-out.
I have discovered that a partial solution is to figure out what a dry round should weigh, according to the sum of its components. Then, one just has to weigh all the cartridges – and any that are unusually heavy would normally be the ones that have the added weight of some water inside. My plan is, after that, to start taking the heaviest ones apart first – to see how wet they are. Following this, I will take apart the next heaviest, then the next heaviest – until I find the threshold where I'm into dry ammo.
I already tried this trick with my 40 Smith and Wesson stuff but that was a bad choice because it turned out all the rounds from that bunch were wetjust some more than others.
Here is my question. Once I have suspected wet rounds taken apart, is there an easy way to use some sort of humidity tester to figure-out whether any borderline rounds have – i – n fact – got any water in the powder or not? I have used a Princess Auto dual probe-type humidity tester on wood – in the past – and had good results. I'm thinking of spreading out some suspected wet powders on a breadboard – which should have no humidity of its own – and then use the Princess Auto humidity tester to see if putting powder on the breadboard increases the humidity reading. To do this, I may just use of those Princess Auto humidity gauges that I already own) – which has two probe points.
However, since that tool is not intended for this use, I'm wondering if there's some better device that I can use for testing the humidity level of powder from a given round without touching the powder itself – that is, some sort of CONTACTLESS humidity testing device?
Has anybody had success, in these areas?
