Reloading room dampness question

Root cellars are supposed to be humid so your beets and potatoes don't shrivel up.
I've found that RH in the 60s still offers decent margin from dewpoint, so just view 70% as the red line.
Amazon has reptile terrarium heaters that adhere to the bottom of the glass. I'll be sticking that to the outside of my cabinet to see if it's as good as goldenrods without having to drill any holes for power cords...
 
90% humidity is high

As mentioned, it's great for "root cellars" but do you want to store your firearms in a "root cellar"

I recently purchased part of an estate sale, which was mostly ammunition and reloading supplies, including powder, bullets and primers.

The stuff had been in a basement just as you describe for appx two years, after the fellow passed away.

His widow took all of his "hunting stuff" down to the basement because it made her sad when she looked at it.

All of this stuff was at least a decade or more old, before it went down to the basement.

She said it was all fine before she took it down.

I believe her, the other stuff, such as clothes, firearms in a safe, leather slings, backpack, etc, were still in the room where they stored all sorts of things, upstairs, along with his loading bench. All of this stuff was fine.

All of the paper boxes, containing bullets, some unopened, were damp, and some of the bullets were discolored. One "paper" container of H4831 was damp as well, but the others were in plastic bottles, so OK, but the lids were starting to get rust specs on them. I threw out the powder in the damp pressed paper container.

All of the primers were in plastic trays, but the paper sleeves were all damp, and the glued joints had separated. I marked all of the trays with the proper primer classifications and just taped them all together in a couple of sleeves. I tested one from each tray yesterday, and they're fine.

OP, your firearms and tools may not rust quickly, but they will rust, as will your firearms in such storage areas.

At 90% humidity, I'm surprised there aren't any mold issues.

IMHO, from past experience, I wouldn't be storing anything firearm related in such conditions.
 
55 is plenty fine. At 70, I'd start to take active measures if the temperature's steady. If the temperature varies, then 60 max.
Some powders may vary their mass with entrained moisture, so ELR benchrest types might want to be more anal about exposing their powders to a more consistent humidity, as humid powder will have less bang than dry powder at the same weight.
 
Buy a $10 a hygrometer and a dehumidifier oand actually see what your humidity would be . I'm thinking that a dirt basement is probably not ideal for powder and reloading tools but OK for potatoes. Get a humidifier running, then monitor your humidity for a month and find out what happens. Below 50% is good. You could try poly or something similar on the floor or you might find that it just opens another can of worms.
 
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