Flood problems

[spook]

During tropical storm Fay my reloading room flooded. I had about 1,000 handgun reloads in the room and while they were out of the water it seems the dampness got to them. Out of 30 rounds I tried firing, three failed to ignite the powder and the bullets stuck in the barrel just clear or the case. Am I stuck with pulling all the bullets or is there some way to dry them enough to fire?

 

[Mal H]

Generally, when powder is contaminated, it remains contaminated.

If it is only very high humidity that is causing the problem, you might try leaving a batch of rounds in the sun for a few hours to see if the heat will force the moisture out. If you still get FTF's, then it's a lost cause and you'll have to pull them. The sun's heat (for a limited period of time) won't harm any good rounds.

Generally, primers are very hard to kill, so I would suspect that replacing the powder would suffice. I would let the empty, primed cases sit open for several days though before reloading them. Then only reload about 20 and see what happens with them. If you get FTF's then, you'll have to punch out the primers as well.

 

[spook]

I've got the ammo spread out on cookie sheets on the back patio. It's about 85 in the shade outside with 58% humidity and I've got my fingers crossed.

 

[scrat]

Well spook i hate to say it. if it was me i would start pulling bullets and primers. though many will say leave the primers alone. Nope. pull them and then neck size them all. then start reloading.

 

[rcmodel]

Salt water or fresh water flood water?

If salt spray got on the, I'd recommed tumbling them before shooting them to keep the salt residue out of your guns.

rcmodel

 

[spook]

All fresh water. I'm about 20 miles inland from the east coast of Florida. The clouds are piling up and my sunshine is about to turn into rain. The latest I've heard is that Fay dropped about 22" of rain on us.

 

[Horsemany]

If you have a digital weatherstation that reads relative humidity I'd try this. Put some ammo in a tightly sealed box like an army ammo box with the rubber gasket. Add a boatload of dessicant packs or dessicant box like you'd put in a gun cabinet. Add the weatherstation(mines small, the size of a large cellphone) and close it up. Check on it in a few hours and see if the relative humidity is significantly lower than in your house. This may or may not work but worth trying IMO. If it works you can put the dessicant packs in the oven for a few hours at 300deg. to dry them out occasionally.

 

[spook]

Baking the rounds in the sun and tumbling them has done the job. It took two attempts to dry out the 9mm and the .45's worked fine after the first.

 

[PCJim]

Spook, congrats on recovering your reloads. I'd only suggest that they be committed to range use only.