Looking to seal my reloaded rounds for storage what do I need?

[atvalaska]

Okay, how about I prove there's nothing to worry about?! Since I'm "into" disproving loaded round tumbling being dangerous, how about I take 50 rounds of the same 40 S&W I just tumbled for 48 hours, go outside, bury 25 in a snowbank? 50 round midway/FA box, open, bullet down, case base up. Another 25 from the same batch saved inside where I normally store the ammo.

How's 6 months sound? That would be June 23rd. Exposed to snow now, melting then rain, sun and everything else central Wisconsin can throw at us. It'll take a while, but should prove whether that will cause problems. I'm betting it won't.

What do ya think? Should I?

yes u should, but i think u should only have to wait till "memorial day 2010" shoot them off and lay this thread to rest! .....i store in ammo cans in there boxes with that dryz air u get at dept stores...Never missed a lick yet...........

 

[agd1953]

Seal them in a Food Saver vacuum sealer. Seals them air free and water tight.

 

[fguffey]

Snuffy, if it is important to SEAL ammo use a vacuum 'the old fashion way' CANNING JARS'!! Use wide mouth jars, heat the jar, load the ammo, install the lid tightly, then wait for the ping/pop of the lid sealing, it is not necessary to count the ping of sealing jars, after a sufficient amount of time all the jars should seal, to check for seal use the visual test, all the lids should have the pucker look, just like the ammo can.

THEN! have labels printed or print your own "IN AN EMERGENCY! BREAK GLASS"

F. Guffey

But this would be the same problem in reverse, the atmosphere in the jar outside the ammo is low pressure and dry, the atmosphere inside the the ammo has the same atmosphere and moisture content that was in it when it was loaded, will the vacuum in the jar, over time, reduce the atmosphere/pressure/moisture inside the loaded ammo or will the jar stabilize all three. It maynot be a good ideal to reload on a rainey day.

 

[fguffey]

...all three? ...it may not be....

sorry about that,

F. Guffey

 

[Lafeswede]

Airtight

Greetings,
Just an addendum from my own experiences; when I turned fifty, I was presented a beautiful hand made leather holster and ammo belt for my .45 revolver. That Vaquero is now shattered, but that's another story. I filled the loops with ammo, it looked real cool. For some reason they sat there for about 6 months, before i decided to use them at the range. Of the 20 rounds, three were misfires. I have never before had a primer go dead on me. I believe moisture from the leather was the reason. The bullet to case fit is tight, with a good crimp, starline brass and federal large pistol primers, standard stuff.
I bought a bottle of cheap nail polish for three bucks and problem solved. The polish remnants will wear off in the tumbler.
Lafe

 

[woodsoup]

LocTite #290 wicking sealant.

 

[FuzzyBunny]

Foodsavers have a very nice mason jar attachment! Some use mason jars and some use mayonaise jars.

I have some .22s that are at least 30 years old and been stored in some sort of almost 3 foot tall rectangular mil ammo can. Every time its opened I pull out the sock I use and dump out the O2 absorber and silica pack and replave with fresh. I store all my O2 and silica absorbers in seperate vac packed mason jars to keep them active. I only open the mil .22 can (that weighs a darn ton!) every 4 or 5 years. All the .22s shoot like brand new except the Thunderbolts which are unreliable when even new. My match grade .22 are spot on like brand new after 30+ years. I will never shoot all these in my lifetime but if I keep this storage system up I'm sure my grandkids will be shooting them in 50 years.

This has seemed to work well with silver I keep in smaller mil ammo cans to prevent tarnish.

I use the foodsaver bags to vac pack any pistol I don't plan to shoot after a soaking in oil. My grandfathers 1911 has been packed like this since I first got the foodsaver 15 years ago. I opened it last year and did a disassembly and it was just like it was when vac packed, minus the wood grips of course. I only opened it up because it was double vac packed and the outside bag got a pinhole when being moved. The inside bag was not punctured. Some may say shoot the things and don't store them! They have sentimental value and have been passed to me with with letters on acid free paper from my relatives and are to be meant to be kept in the family. Also included are pics of my relatives with the firearms. So its really a archive thing.

Note: Remove all wood before packing the firearm in an oil soaked vac pack bag!. Also the foodsaver bags can be cut to any length and works with rifles too just be sure to pad the pointy parts so they don't poke the bag.

Mason jar vac pack is also great for primers and powder. BTW I do not do not work for Foodsaver and can't afford to buy the company.

Sorry I drifted off topic so much.

ps. I also keep all spare parts sets vac packed. Seperate bag I also keep all gun related manuals but keep them in the same box with the firearm.

 

[lgbloader]

I guess I kinda take the old school approach. Hand gun ammo, I use zip lock baggies for lots of 100 or 50 and then store in ammo cans. same thing with 223 Rem. Never had an issue.
Rifle gets stored in plastic cases except for all the surplace which is in battle packs and spam cans.

LGB

 

[snuffy]

Snuffy, if it is important to SEAL ammo use a vacuum 'the old fashion way' CANNING JARS'!!

fguffey, my purpose posting my proposed test was to dis-prove the need for any extensive protection. Primer sealants, vacuum packing are NOT necessary! Six months exposed to Wisconsin's notorious weather UNPROTECTED should prove ammo could survive just about any normal storage conditions.

If you have some G.I. ammo cans, then by all means store your ammo in them. They will keep things the way they were when put in there.

 

[Claude Clay]

i load for 4 people and we shoot each friday....

i can not even start to imagine the feeling of having more ammo
on hand than gets shot up in a week

please, please tell me more........

 

[delta5]

Its interesting to note that the soviet block 7.62x39 with the green lacquer cases (I have some 8mm mauser like this too..) all have that red sealant around the crimp and the primer...

 

[Duce1]

Nail polish for the primer side and I store most of my ammo in large plastic ammo carrying boxes or the steel military cans. I keep the silica packs that come in stuff I buy and put it in the cans with them for moister as well.

 

[rcmodel]

Its interesting to note that the soviet block 7.62x39 with the green lacquer cases (I have some 8mm mauser like this too..)

Almost all military ammo has lacquer sealed primers and asphalt sealed bullet/case joints.
Soviet ammo is all steel case, and will rust if any moisture at all gets in the primer/case joint.

But military ammo is designed for total immersion in combat conditions.

It's very unlikely you will be setting in the rain, in a fox hole full of water, for weeks at a time with your reloads.

As already noted several times, reloads stored in good GI steel ammo cans will last far longer then you will.

There is absolutely no good reason to seal the primers on reloads stored in ammo cans.

There is no need for desiccant packs either.
The military does not use them in ammo cans, and there is no need for you too either.

rc

 

[delta5]

I bought a few cans of that Indian .308 that was buried in the ground for years supposedly on the Pakistan border. It was a standard US ammo can. The cans were kinda cruddy, but when I opened them, the insides were perfect. No leaks or stains.

 

[My(2)Cents]

The military stores rounds in ammo cans... turns out that’s what they are made for.
As long as they are in ammo cans inside in a climate controlled environment they will last as long as you will ever need them.

 

[delta5]

It was definately not first quality ammo, but it was priced right and it did shoot. The cases were cheap, and the OAL's were all over the place, like they were done by hand. Very sloppy.

 

[Wildkow]

I put an small open plastic baggie of reloaded (a commercial reloader not me) 9mm in the trunk of my 1994 Ford Exploder over ten years ago, total about 30-40 rounds. California's San Joaquin Valley gets very hot and we drove that Exploder all over the Western United States in all kinds of weather including -20 F degrees below zero. The back of that Exploder wasn't babied it carried all kinds of crap and got quite wet and dirty. The bag of rounds was filthy and some where very corroded when I sold the Exploder in 2006. I pulled them out and tossed them into a drawer in the garage. Just recently 05/09 when I started shooting again I pulled them out and tossed them into my newly purchased tumbler for about 12 hours, some of the corrosion never came off so I tossed about a dozen of them in for another over night run in the tumbler. After that I took them to the range. Low and behold they all went bang in my G19! I surmise that those reloaded rounds were 10-12 years old.


Wildkow

 

[fguffey]

Snuffy, forgive, that must not have went the way I intended, there are other ways to seal out the atmosphere and lower the moisture content, long time storage for food grains in 55 galleon barrels is possible with the use of gases that are inert and heavier than air, in a vacuum moisture boils at zero degree F, and air that has been run through a compressor has the moisture squeezed out of it, moisture is separated from the atmosphere when compressed.

F. Guffey