What to do with a bag of foam

We went to town for lunch so we went to Walmart. IMO the cans are made too cheaply so I passed.

Shanghai McCoy we shop at Atwoods getting grain and stuff for our horses. They sell 50 caliber ammo cans that are well made. Regular price is $15.00 and they run them on sale frequently for $10.00. TSC is down the road a few more miles in the wrong direction. The good news is there is plenty of time before Christmas.

GunnyUSMC said:

I prefer the military cans

Click to expand...

Ditto.
But, sadly, the days of going to the Ft Polk Surplus dock and buying a pallet for $50 have long passed into memory. (And, in those days, I was buying them for the wood pallets, not the cans--sigh.)

Very nice. I am a big fan of free things I can use for other things.

BSA1 said:

We went to town for lunch so we went to Walmart. IMO the cans are made too cheaply so I passed.

Shanghai McCoy we shop at Atwoods getting grain and so for our horses. They sell 50 caliber ammo cans that are well made. Regular price is $15.00 and they run them on sale frequently for $10.00. TSC is down the road a few more miles in the wrong direction. The good news is there is plenty of time before Christmas.

Click to expand...

I would be all over that. Around Indy gun shops, and shows run up to $25, depending on condition.

GunnyUSMC said:

Sleeping at night is the hard part. Is your brain suppose to turn off at night?

Click to expand...

Mine never has. I still like to build stuff and I still do some of my best designing at night when I should be zonked. My lovely wife complains of the same problem.

I use that type of foam to compress my leatherworking projects to get that moulded leather holster to take its shape.

Creativity at its best!

Ron

Wonder if it will sweat in there.

My house/home sat of 5.5 acres of river valley land. It was an old two story with both a front and back porch which was put on a new full basement. I lived there by myself and had plenty of room to store everything keepable for future use. (including folded down boxes and packaging material). I now live in an efficiency apartment where I have room for nothing. I would give anything to be back home surrounded by my "useless" stuff.

And they say American Craftsmanship is dead!

Take a look at Post #1.

Bravo.

GunnyUSMC said:

Been using ammo cans sense the 80’s and have never dad a problem.

Click to expand...

With stuff packed in tight with foam?

I know they are "sealed" but just thinking along the lines how some guns sweat in soft cases and rust, if the metal on the gun or mag, whatever was cool there was humidity in the air, unless you oil the gun with gloves on I think that there could....could....be some moisture on the surface. I know my safe queens get that treatment, oil then my slimy fingers don't touch them I use gloves. Without any kind of air gap I wonder if that water will just sit.

Water or humidity in the trapped air?

If water just drain it out, dry and reseal the lid.

For humidity control I toss the little desiccant packets that come with items such as a new pair of shoes in the can. There is little actual air in a filled up can.

A little trick I do with my cans is put a thin layer of petroleum jelly on the rubber seal in the lid before closing the can. It helps prevent the rubber from drying out and cracking.

I am shooting up my Clinton era ammo stash which are 25 +/- years old that are stored in 30 and 50 caliber ammo cans. The cases and bullets bright and shiny and the cardboard boxes are dry and are in excellent condition. So far every round has fired the first time and are not showing any loss in performance.

I like G.I. surplus ammo cans and keep finding things to store in them.

BSA1 said:

Water or humidity in the trapped air?

If water just drain it out, dry and reseal the lid.

For humidity control I toss the little desiccant packets that come with items such as a new pair of shoes in the can. There is little actual air in a filled up can.

A little trick I do with my cans is put a thin layer of petroleum jelly on the rubber seal in the lid before closing the can. It helps prevent the rubber from drying out and cracking.

I am shooting up my Clinton era ammo stash which are 25 +/- years old that are stored in 30 and 50 caliber ammo cans. The cases and bullets bright and shiny and the cardboard boxes are dry and are in excellent condition. So far every round has fired the first time and are not showing any loss in performance.

I like G.I. surplus ammo cans and keep finding things to store in them.

Click to expand...

This is what I was thinking, that air in there is going to have moisture in it no way to get out, no way to move....and I KNOW stuff will rust inside the "sealed" ammo cans, ask me about rusted steel cased ammo.

The little packs could work IF air was allowed to move around, however that is not going to happen with the way things are crammed in there.

But he knows what he knows.....If I remember I will show some of that rusty ammo I have that sat in the cases that never have things rust in them.

When I seal an ammo can, a good quality ammo can whatever the air temperature is and relative humidity is that is what goes in the can. On a sunny warm North Carolina day with a temperature of 80 F and a RH of 80% that is what is in my can. When the ambient temperature drops the air inside my can is going to cool and the moisture laden air will begin to give up the moisture it was holding. When my ammo can gets below the dew point of the air inside the can you can figure water droplets will form inside the can and the can contents.

The way I can avoid this happening is to place some desiccant packets inside my can along with the contents.Desiccant comes in a few flavors with the most common being a silica gel and a desiccant is little more than a solid which absorbs water or moisture. Keep in mind that desiccant comes in different flavors with different abilities to absorb moisture. You choose desiccant based on your application. I keep several bags in my safe and when humidity begins to creep up I place them in the oven and bake them out and reuse them.

Anyway if you place a gun or steel ammo in an ammo can on a warm 80 degree F day and that same can is later exposed to a cool temperature you can count on rust unless the air in the can has something to absorb moisture.What the air is in the can contains the moisture of when the can was sealed. I guess it makes good sense to seal ammo cans with important content under good ambient conditions.

Ron

fpgt72 said:

This is what I was thinking, that air in there is going to have moisture in it no way to get out, no way to move....and I KNOW stuff will rust inside the "sealed" ammo cans, ask me about rusted steel cased ammo.

The little packs could work IF air was allowed to move around, however that is not going to happen with the way things are crammed in there.

But he knows what he knows.....If I remember I will show some of that rusty ammo I have that sat in the cases that never have things rust in them.

Click to expand...

Something must moving inside the can. I had a couple decissant packs that you can reactivate inside the oven. I put them in my 50 caliber cans and when I checked them a year or so after they had turned to lighter shade of brown so they absorbed humidity. Since my 25+ year old 45 (and other) ammo looks like new I believe it is a good storage combination.

All I know about steel cases is it doesn't take long for them to start rusting when laying on the ground at my outdoor range. I have a large sealed tin container of 7.62 x 54r. It will be interesting to see what the ammo looks like if I ever open it. I may have a sealed container of rust.

BSA1 said:

Something must moving inside the can.

Click to expand...

Why?

Ron

Ron,

It is basic science. fgpt72 said "The little packs could work IF air was allowed to move around, however that is not going to happen with the way things are crammed in there."

Since the silica desiccant changes colors when inside the closed can it is proof that molecules are indeed moving inside the can exchanging the moisture that is in the air. Obviously the smaller the amount of trapped air the less amount of exchange of molecules will take place but it is happening none the less.

BSA1 said:

Ron,

It is basic science. fgpt72 said "The little packs could work IF air was allowed to move around, however that is not going to happen with the way things are crammed in there."

Since the silica desiccant changes colors when inside the closed can it is proof that molecules are indeed moving inside the can exchanging the moisture that is in the air. Obviously the smaller the amount of trapped air the less amount of exchange of molecules will take place but it is happening none the less.

Click to expand...

I agree but it is not like a breeze is blowing in the can.

I use desiccant in my gun safe. Once the descant is saturated to where it will no longer absorb moisture I bake it out removing the moisture and put it back in the safe.

Ron

theotherwaldo said:

I know what I did with a couple of SUVs full of foam. I made about forty children's seats for my library, insulated my server room, re-partitioned several Ryobi boxes to hold some of my larger pistols and their accessories, and used what was left to buffer the noise coming through the wall from some of our larger air conditioner compressors.
The foam came in 3 foot by three foot by 10 inch chunks, with rows of cut-outs on one side. I get the stuff for free from a company that recycles the waste from several large maquiladoras near Reynosa, Tamaulipas, Mexico. I think that they were for shipping car radios and other delicate electronics. Add a little carpet adhesive, some agricultural cloth, some contrastingly colored foam slabs, and a bit of imagination and the sky's the limit.

Click to expand...

Take a piece of that foam outside and try to start it on fire with a lighter. I was using it for sound deadening of our music room until I saw how easy it caught fire and burned. Lining an ammo can or making a seat cushion is probably fine, anything else I would probably not do.

Mike

Reloadron said:

I agree but it is not like a breeze is blowing in the can.

I use desiccant in my gun safe. Once the descant is saturated to where it will no longer absorb moisture I bake it out removing the moisture and put it back in the safe.

Ron

Click to expand...

True...but you have to understand air is always moving...the top and the bottom of your safe...I am guessing at least 4' tall. is going to be at different temps....also I bet your safe has much larger air gaps in it so the air can move around. As the air cools and heats it will move....this is all the motion that is needed for those little packets to work. In the smaller space of an ammo can you are going to have less differential in temps so less energy (the air moving and pressure change) is going to give the packs less to work with, plus stuffing the items right against foam, there is going to be zippo air flow.

This is really a very bad idea for long term storage.....now if you want to transport this way I think you would be good even in the more restrictive states....put a lock on the sucker, and I would bet you would be good in a very restrictive state as far as the transport rules go.