Flooded Basement

[C140flyr]

After returning from Thanksgiving vacation, I found the sump pump and battery backup had failed leaving 3 foot of water in the basement where my reloading room is located. 4 to 5 K rounds of assorted reloaded and factory rounds were submerged for 2 to 3 days. Do I pull them all apart and start over or range test it? Any advice would be welcome.Thank you in advance

[mete]

Pull some apart to see if you can find signs of wet or damp. If they're dry test fire some .If all is well use them . If there are dampness signs just save the brass. Spread the rest on your lawn for fertlizer.

[rg1]

My only experience with flooded factory ammo is from a friends flooded basement. He gave me a few factory boxes of 40 S&W that were submerged for only one day in their original paper boxes. I pulled them all to check if any were wet and out of about 100 rounds a half dozen had wet powder. Don't know if some primers were wet too. I pulled all the bullets, dumped all the powder, resized all the cases and removed the primers, tumbled and made sure the cases were dry. Reloaded them all with the factory bullets and new primers. I'd suspect you're going to find some wet powder if they were not sealed in ammo cans.

[RC20]

You have my sympathy, that's an bad thing to have occur.

The safe course is to disassemble them.

As you get .5 psi per foot of water depth, your ammo saw about 1.5 psi pressure.

If you pull a few and they are good and then get some wet ones? Squib at best and definitely curious if anyone has data on what worst case might be?

Military ammo is sealed, civilian not sure but reloads no.

[T. O'Heir]

Yep. Pull a few, dump the powder on something safe and light a match. If the powder burns properly you're likely fine. The factory is probably crimped and should be ok, but try a few of them too.

[buck460XVR]

Doesn't your home owner insurance cover them? I wouldn't start takin' em apart if I could get 'em replaced.

[Shooter2675]

Buck460,

His home insurance might cover it, but I think it would be in the OP's best interest not to share with his insurance company he has 5 thousand rounds of ammo, and Becuase he said he reloads, likely several pounds of gunpowder. If they ask, you tell them, but it's not something I would share unless they asked or I'm required by law to do so. It's sort of like the underground gun range thing I was looking at a year or two ago, it isn't illegal by any means nor is it neccasarily unsafe, just (and I pray to God this never happens) say a fire were to start somewhere in your house, and some of your gunpowder was burned, they could claim it was the gunpowder and you may be [color=#FF0000]█[/color][color=#FF0000]█[/color][color=#FF0000]█[/color][color=#FF0000]█[/color][color=#FF0000]█[/color] out of luck.

John

[TXAZ]

Question: What happens if you fire a cartridge that has wet powder or primer? Nothing?

[9MMand223only]

Wait a second. You were gone a couple days and 3-4' of water was in the basement?

Is there like a faucet on full blast? That is A LOT of water. The snow just leaks in the basement all the time, like a creek?

You have any pics?

[Tuzo]

Had a few hundred rounds of factory and reloaded ammunition flooded by Hurricane Sandy water. Tried shooting .30 Carbine, 7.62x54R, and .45 with little success and too many failures including 2 squibs, many failure-to-fire, and about 3 hang fires. One 7.62 hang fire let go after about 20 seconds.

Gave up shooting the stuff. Pulled and saved bullets, de-primed and saved cases, and dumped a great deal of wet powder. Surprised by the number of supposedly sealed military 7.62x54R rounds that were ruined.

Advice: dump the flooded stuff. The 20 second hang fire and multiple squibs were too dangerous and convinced me not to risk an avoidable shooting incident.

[Drm50]

Was given a couple bushel of ammo out of a shop that had water damage from
a fire in upstairs apt. Occurred in winter, so their was weather damage also. It
was weeks before ammo was recovered from shop area. Boxes were falling apart
I cleaned ammo with 4/0 steel wool and rags. I found rimfires ammo to be OK.
The CF ammo was not. Every thing from good- hang fire - duds, from same box.
I have no way of knowing if any of it was actually submerged or just drenched.
Anyway I ended up pulling bullets and salvaging cases. When I did this I found
rounds that would have been good. Some boxes were all good. There was enough bad ones that it was just not practical to shoot it. Rem. ammo seemed
to have less tolerance for moisture.

[Clark]

In Jan 2009 our hot water tank leaked in our basement and I called the insurance company.
The sent out a team of 4 or 5 guys in uniforms to deal with drying out the basement, using big drying heaters.
They sent me a check for moving my own reloading stuff out of the basement.

The total budget they had spent after a few months was $30k for 1/2" of water that was there one day.
I wondered why they went so overboard.
Then I saw a TV show where the insurance company was sued for injuries due to mold inhalation, because the insurance company stalled repairs.
The jury awarded $32M in 2001, but that was reduced on appeal to $4M.

Since then I have been asking people about their basement flooding experiences. It seems people only fall for that once.

I now have all my reloading stuff off the floor in the basement.
I have a tub around the hot water heater. There is a big sign on the hot water heater showing when the life on the sacrificial anode will expire. There is an electronic moisture detector [like a smoke detector] in the tub around the hot water tank.

I know one guy who's basement flooded. He now has a different house, but will not put any reloading or gun stuff in the basement. He no longer trusts basements.

[skizzums]

as a test, I left some lead cast, loaded rounds outside. I was only going to do it for a couple weeks, but I forgot and they sat out there for over a year.. just lead, aloxed, with a crimp. through a bad snowy winter, lots of rain and a very hot summer. they sat fully submerged for almost a year. they needed about four hours in the tumbler to get the rust and gunk off. all shot just fine. I got some leading in the last half in of barrel, so I guess the alox broke down some.

I know, stupid, pointless experiment, but I was seeing lots of threads about storing ammo an just anted to show how little importance it is for perfect storing, plus I just wanted to know.

I have some other pics, like after tumbling and the target, but I need to find them and upload them. I was surprised no chambering probs or splitting or anything. but I wouldn't worry about your problem. tumble, let dry in a good indoor environment and see how they do.** obviously this is me, and I do stupid reckless things and test gun was a high-point carbine, so the call is your. I am not recommending you do this, just sharing my mileage**



but even after my experiment, I still store in sealed glass jars with silica cause i'm a crazy prepper type

[g.willikers]

I've run many a round through the washing machine.
Somehow they like to hide in my range clothes.
Never had one that was a dud or even a hangfire.
They all fired quite normal.
And they are mostly reloads, with lead bullets in old cases.
Not the tightest of primer pockets, either.

Where we used to live we had a serious basement flood, too.
About a foot and a half of water.
Some loaded rounds were submerged overnight.
They, too, all worked fine.
But as the saying goes, your results might vary.

[j357]

First, I am sorry for your property loss and the hassle. I can share a similar experience my father had and the decision I helped him make with rifle and pistol rounds.

His basement was flooded in 2001. The basement was generally full of water for about 4 to 5 days, as the foundation would potentially cave if drained too fast. He had about 800 rounds of .223 (some milsurp some reloads), a couple hundred 30-06 (reloads), a 500 rounds of 7.62x39 (milsurp) and a bunch of misc. handgun rounds. All of it looked like hell weeks later after open air drying and most of it sat in buckets for years. Last year he started shooting the handgun rounds and after seeing a few failures and squibs I convinced him to let me have the handgun ammo to disassemble for the bullets and cases.

I had him pull a few of the .223 and 30-06 and look at the powder. A limited sample of each showed 3 of 10 had clumps of powder that appeared to have been wet. After a short chat about the potential for sticking one in a barrel I decided to get him into reloading and purchased a LCT and an RCBS bullet puller and gave him some good hands on lessons.

For him, it wasn't worth the risk of damaging a rifle or somebody. He's happy now and has a new winter hobby.

[William T. Watts]

I think salvaging the bullets and cases is a common sense approach, I'd hate to thrown components away but this is one of those times one should. What would hurt more is if this were 4 or 5 8pd containers of powder and 30-40K primers etc. I don't know how it could have been worse unless you had some firearms that were damaged, at least you will be able to salvage the most expensive components. When you factor in the aggravation I would imagine it is considerable, if your going to have help that may mitigate or lessen the stress factor. Best wishes and good luck with your project. William

[C140flyr]

Thank you all for your kind words and advice. All that was damaged was the ammo, some targets and headphones in my range bag. Powder and primers kept in separate rooms on first floor. Rifles, Pistols and shotguns are locked in a purpose built room on the second floor. Once again I thank you all.

[j357]

Best wishes to you and the family for the Holidays! Come back and share some pictures and stories with us after the New Year!

[THORN74]

I keep all my loaded ammo in 50cal or 30cal ammo cans. They all have rubber gaskets, and seal tightly. Hopefully this kind of situation they would hold up

[TimSr]

Question: What happens if you fire a cartridge that has wet powder or primer? Nothing?

Very logical question for determining the next move. Personally, I'd have to try them just to know. Worst case scenario, a squib.

[TimSr]

I know, stupid, pointless experiment, but I was seeing lots of threads about storing ammo an just anted to show how little importance it is for perfect storing, plus I just wanted to know.

Ive had 6 .38 rounds in a jar of water for a month now for the same reason.

[skizzums]

not sure if it matter, but I did let them dry fter tumbling for a couple weeks. I didn't go straight from water into my gun. if it's a .38, I would think you'll be able to answer the question just by being able to hear the powder shake inside.