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Well, I just took those plastic tubes out of the glass of water. They were totally submerged for over 24 hours. The powder in one was totally dry. The other two had a very thin clump on the top of the powder charge where the ball had compressed it. The clump came apart when I poured the charge out so I'm not sure if it was moisture for sure, you couldn't feel any. If I lived on a mountain in W.VA. or out in the boonies in TN. like SOME people around here, I'd have just stepped to the door and then I could report if there was a report. I think, though, for practical purposes the tubes are amply waterproof to use for hunting.
About sealing the caps with beeswax, I had an old Italian brass framed .44 made like a Colt navy I traded for in 1971. I shot it a lot when I was younger and had lower standards for the accuracy of my firearms. That one had a bore that was tight, loose, tight when you ran a patch down it. The thing was terribly inaccurate but still a heck of a lot of fun , especially since it was my only percussion revolver. Anyway, I got guns that shot better and stopped using that one. In 1994, I loaded it and melted beeswax around the caps and on top of the balls. I was going to carry it during muzzle loading deer season just to finish off a cripple, maybe, but didn't need to and didn't fire it. I put off taking it out to shoot it empty and after a year or so, I thought I had a test well started and decided to just leave it loaded for a while longer. This summer, 11 years later, I fired two chambers. No hangfires either. There are still four more chambers loaded and sealed with beeswax if my youngest daughter hasn't shot them. (I gave the gun to her, she liked it and is into the whole shooting thing) I had always worried about leaving a BP gun of any persuasion loaded for long, but if you clean with rubbing alcohol,warm the cylinder to dry it, then seal with beeswax after it's loaded, you've got at least 11 years!
It still didn't shoot worth a darn.
Steve
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