Riomouse911
Member
I will be interested to learn more in this thread, but I am finding it hard to believe that ammunition is noticeably sensitive to being moved or not. When I think about military history, there has been plenty of ammunition that was stored in place for decades, and then unpacked and used. And there has also been lots of ammo that has been trucked back and forth over rough terrain for extended periods before finally being used. In either case, results have been acceptable.
Also, since the first development of firearms, one of the great goals has been to make them more reliable and less sensitive to all environmental factors. In the last 100 years, as cartridges have gotten to be quite well refined, the great human endeavor to produce reliable firearms has been pretty successful, and the stability of ammunition has gotten very good.
With regard to oil affecting cartridges, there was an article in the last few years by a guy to tried his best to damage cartridges and primers with gun oils. Despite the widespread understanding that oil can destroy powder and primers, he was pretty much unsuccessful. That does not prove to me that cartridges are always immune to solvents, but it argues convincingly that cartridges are not as easily damaged by oil as we sometimes hear. I am sure google can provide links to the article.
With all of that said, I cannot offer any better explanation for the problems experienced by the OP, and I am subscribed to this thread in the hopes of learning more.
A recent gun mag (Gun Digest The Magazine, I think) had an article on water immersions’ affect on ammo. It was pretty informative, revealing that brief dunking in water or snow had zero effect, but 24 hours immersed would really damage rounds... and nail polish had minimal effect in keeping the primer/powder from being contaminated.
I will imagine that Penetrating solvents or similars would work just as effectively on getting inside cartridge cases and contaminating powder-primers as plain water if allowed to sit on the cartridges for long enough.
In any event I doubt it’s good for the cartridges, so I’ll still state it’s a good idea to keep them from being doused in oils/solvents just to be safe.