blackwidowp61
New member
Hey guys, I'll be reloading a bunch of 30-06 rounds and storing them. Should I seal the primers and/or bullet/case junction??? I'm talking about 400 rounds.
to seal or not to seal
- Thread starter blackwidowp61
- Start date
I "seal" the primers using fingernail polish, but its for cosmetic/identification purposes and not anything functional.
Make sure the rounds are clean before you start to pack them us. Store the rounds in a plastic box that has a separate compartment for each cartridge. Place the plastic boxes in something like a GI ammunition can with a desiccant bag. Based on my unique experience of coming down with a neurological problem in the middle of loading a batch of cartridges, you should be good for the better part of 20 years with a loss rate around 2%.
Make sure the rounds are clean before you start to pack them us. Store the rounds in a plastic box that has a separate compartment for each cartridge. Place the plastic boxes in something like a GI ammunition can with a desiccant bag. Based on my unique experience of coming down with a neurological problem in the middle of loading a batch of cartridges, you should be good for the better part of 20 years with a loss rate around 2%.
As an aside, the military uses an asphaltic varnish to seal bullets and primers principally to protect them against contamination by petroleum, oils and solvents. Moisture is a secondary concern as neither propellants nor the active ingredient in primers are soluble in water, but they are soluble in a range of chemicals and solvents. If you are not going to be storing your finished cartridges around petroleum, oils and solvents, sealing the case and primer is not necessary.
NoSecondBest
New member
I've pulled bullets out of the cabinet that were stored there for over thirty years (reloads) and fired them in a new .243 Savage I bought. They grouped sub .5" five shots and each and every one of them fired and shot well. Keep them dry and out of the heat and they'll last longer than you will.
blackwidowp61
New member
Thanks for the replies guys. It seems more of a pain than I'm willing to go through, but I just wanted to tap your more experienced opinions.
If you have ammo cans heat the can and then stack your ammo in the hot can and close the lid before it cools. If you ever wonders it works open and listen for that 'whoosh' sound, If you ever wonder if sealing is necessary place your loaded ammo in a jar filled with enough water to submerge your cases; and then; close the lid and place a vacuum on the jar and watch for bubbles. escaping from around the necks and or primers. As a side note bubbles will escape from cracks in the case.
F. Guffey
Your primers and bullets are jammed in tightly and form an almost perfect seal as it is, there would have to be a very large pressure differential before air could migrate through it. Capillary action might allow a bit of water to seep in but that is ridiculously unlikely.
Brass and copper both compress under pressure rather than just stretch. Your brass and bullet are jammed tightly together so tightly that not even air should be able to get through.
The only reason that some military brass is sealed and some primers are crimped is that they are for use by military personnel, who are facing life and death situations. There is not a reason in the world to not go every last inch to ensure that the rounds will remain useable decades after manufacture when storage and handling have been really poor. If a can of ammo is dragged out of a sunken vessel from korea, they want it to have survived and should still be shootable. Not that shooting fifty year old ammunition from a sunken boat is a goal, ammunition that could survive that circumstance is the goal.
Brass and copper both compress under pressure rather than just stretch. Your brass and bullet are jammed tightly together so tightly that not even air should be able to get through.
The only reason that some military brass is sealed and some primers are crimped is that they are for use by military personnel, who are facing life and death situations. There is not a reason in the world to not go every last inch to ensure that the rounds will remain useable decades after manufacture when storage and handling have been really poor. If a can of ammo is dragged out of a sunken vessel from korea, they want it to have survived and should still be shootable. Not that shooting fifty year old ammunition from a sunken boat is a goal, ammunition that could survive that circumstance is the goal.
Properly assembled and stored ammunition that does not suffer any damage from deterioration of the powder should perform just as well following its hibernation as it did when it was new.
I have cartridges I inherited from my grandfather that were made during World War II. They were stored well and appear to have suffered no deterioration. That being said, I have also had cartridges assembled during the Korean War that by the late 1970's had already been ruined by the nitric acid released from the powder deteriorating.
Blackwidowp61,
If you are going to store cartridges, keep aside a sample of the lot of powder you used and keep it in the same conditions. There have been enough recalls of prematurely deteriorating powders in the last twenty years that I am hesitant to suggest long term storage without some easy way to remain assured the powder is behaving itself. It is best, if you want to load ahead, to plan on shooting and replacing the stored rounds on a rotation to maximize the "youth" of the stored ones.
Do not use desiccants. I used to think it was a good idea to use them, too, but after I read the most recent Norma manual, I had my mind changed. It contained two pieces of information I did not have previously: One is that loaded cartridges equalize their interior humidity with outside humidity over a period of about a year. Water molecules are the smallest molecules there are, and are over 150 times smaller than a wavelength of visible light. This means that even a surface that looks like a perfect mirror (1/4 wavelength or smaller) can look like a collection of hills and valleys to a water molecule. Water vapor travels in or out of a loaded cartridge through these paths between the neck and bullet and between the primer and primer pocket.
The second thing I learned is that as powder goes from about 80% RH down to 0% RH, the burn rate increases about 12%. So, if you develop your load with powder kept in normal conditions, and then desiccate the loaded rounds, you can expect that, over a year, you will see increased pressure and velocity. It may not be enough to cause functional problems unless you were loading up into the sticky bolt lift territory originally, but any sweet spot you found with your original load may well be detuned.
To prevent corrosion, final clean your brass with 5% citric acid solution, rinse and dry and handle with gloves to prevent skin oil contact, but don't polish. This technique is used by brass manufacturers to prep a piece of brass for long term storage. In effect, it appears to passivate the surface except that the yellow darkens a little over time, but stays yellow and does not form verdigris. Hatcher reported an experiment putting polished brass and unpolished post-manufacture brass, with oxides still intact, on the roof of the Frankford Arsenel for a year. The area had a corrosive industrial atmosphere at the time. After a year, the polished brass was eaten away and the brass with oxides was intact. This corrosion resistance is the main reason annealing stains and other oxides are left on military brass. I believe the citric acid treatment is allowing formation of a similar sort of protective layer.
Gilding metal is a form of very low brass. It may also respond to the citric acid pre-storage cleaning, but I haven't seen that stated anywhere. I would do it separately from the cases if you try it. Otherwise, try cleaning bullets with an automotive clean-and-wax product or you could dilute some Lee Liquid Alox bullet lube severely in mineral spirits and coat them in that and let it dry on them. Someone said it is the same material used in the Ziebart rust inhibition system, which may be, as Alox compounds are corrosion inhibitors. A thin coat of wax or Alox may help prevent cold bonding of the bullet to the brass over time, which also changes start pressure.
If you are going to store cartridges, keep aside a sample of the lot of powder you used and keep it in the same conditions. There have been enough recalls of prematurely deteriorating powders in the last twenty years that I am hesitant to suggest long term storage without some easy way to remain assured the powder is behaving itself. It is best, if you want to load ahead, to plan on shooting and replacing the stored rounds on a rotation to maximize the "youth" of the stored ones.
Do not use desiccants. I used to think it was a good idea to use them, too, but after I read the most recent Norma manual, I had my mind changed. It contained two pieces of information I did not have previously: One is that loaded cartridges equalize their interior humidity with outside humidity over a period of about a year. Water molecules are the smallest molecules there are, and are over 150 times smaller than a wavelength of visible light. This means that even a surface that looks like a perfect mirror (1/4 wavelength or smaller) can look like a collection of hills and valleys to a water molecule. Water vapor travels in or out of a loaded cartridge through these paths between the neck and bullet and between the primer and primer pocket.
The second thing I learned is that as powder goes from about 80% RH down to 0% RH, the burn rate increases about 12%. So, if you develop your load with powder kept in normal conditions, and then desiccate the loaded rounds, you can expect that, over a year, you will see increased pressure and velocity. It may not be enough to cause functional problems unless you were loading up into the sticky bolt lift territory originally, but any sweet spot you found with your original load may well be detuned.
To prevent corrosion, final clean your brass with 5% citric acid solution, rinse and dry and handle with gloves to prevent skin oil contact, but don't polish. This technique is used by brass manufacturers to prep a piece of brass for long term storage. In effect, it appears to passivate the surface except that the yellow darkens a little over time, but stays yellow and does not form verdigris. Hatcher reported an experiment putting polished brass and unpolished post-manufacture brass, with oxides still intact, on the roof of the Frankford Arsenel for a year. The area had a corrosive industrial atmosphere at the time. After a year, the polished brass was eaten away and the brass with oxides was intact. This corrosion resistance is the main reason annealing stains and other oxides are left on military brass. I believe the citric acid treatment is allowing formation of a similar sort of protective layer.
Gilding metal is a form of very low brass. It may also respond to the citric acid pre-storage cleaning, but I haven't seen that stated anywhere. I would do it separately from the cases if you try it. Otherwise, try cleaning bullets with an automotive clean-and-wax product or you could dilute some Lee Liquid Alox bullet lube severely in mineral spirits and coat them in that and let it dry on them. Someone said it is the same material used in the Ziebart rust inhibition system, which may be, as Alox compounds are corrosion inhibitors. A thin coat of wax or Alox may help prevent cold bonding of the bullet to the brass over time, which also changes start pressure.
Nick, I would question that report by Norma. A cartridge is very effectively sealed, and nothing is going to migrate in and out through microscopic channels without something pushing those buttons.
They are saying that in an unpressurized system, mater molecules will migrate back and forth, but in a similarly pressurized system, water vapor wont get through a brass fitting. A bottle of champagne with nothing but a cork holds everything. Drop good watches into water and the works are safe to 100 meters. There are just too darned many good examples to compare this to.
I have cigars that were bought almost twenty years ago, friction fit with pressed cork and paper band. The house here is always dry, I keep those tubes in a humidor upstairs. I smoke one every year or so and they are still fresh.
I'm not sure how they would even be able to test that. Pack 1,000 rounds that were filled with radon glass into a well sealed container and watch for signs of radiation? If water molecules could escape, could radon atoms?
They are saying that in an unpressurized system, mater molecules will migrate back and forth, but in a similarly pressurized system, water vapor wont get through a brass fitting. A bottle of champagne with nothing but a cork holds everything. Drop good watches into water and the works are safe to 100 meters. There are just too darned many good examples to compare this to.
I have cigars that were bought almost twenty years ago, friction fit with pressed cork and paper band. The house here is always dry, I keep those tubes in a humidor upstairs. I smoke one every year or so and they are still fresh.
I'm not sure how they would even be able to test that. Pack 1,000 rounds that were filled with radon glass into a well sealed container and watch for signs of radiation? If water molecules could escape, could radon atoms?
Another thread hypothesized about pressure under the bullet, in the case, was pushing it back out, after seating.
So I drilled and tapped a case and seated a bullet, 0 psi, all the pressure made it out.
Then I sealed the bullet and got 8 psi.
Then hooked it up to compressed air and it didn’t move at over 130 psi.
That said if I am worried about something getting into the case, I figure the outside will be messed up at that point. Not to mention as soon as I loadup years worth of ammunition, the next day I will find a better load and the components are now used.
So I keep preped brass, primers, powder and bullets, sometimes for years but I can make anything I want out of them any time I need to.
However, I have found rounds, unsealed, after a cycle in the washing machine and gone outside and fired them just fine.
So I drilled and tapped a case and seated a bullet, 0 psi, all the pressure made it out.
Then I sealed the bullet and got 8 psi.
Then hooked it up to compressed air and it didn’t move at over 130 psi.
That said if I am worried about something getting into the case, I figure the outside will be messed up at that point. Not to mention as soon as I loadup years worth of ammunition, the next day I will find a better load and the components are now used.
So I keep preped brass, primers, powder and bullets, sometimes for years but I can make anything I want out of them any time I need to.
However, I have found rounds, unsealed, after a cycle in the washing machine and gone outside and fired them just fine.
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You got through all of that without mentioning neck tension. I am the fan of bullet hold, if I had a way to measure neck tension with a tension gage I would be a fan of neck tension.
If the base diameter of the bullet is .45" and the pressure is in PSI the effort acting on the bottom of the bullet is less than the 1/4 indicated psi, and then there is the problem with the bullet being round, after squaring or rounding the corners the pressure acting on the base of the bullet is reduced by .2145%.
You did good and I want to thank you for your effort.
F. Guffey
blackwidowp61
New member
WOW!!! That is an eye-opener!
Don Fischer
New member
I still have a bunch of 1946 FA 30-06 case's that have military primer's in them. When I first started using them, I worried that the primer's might be bad. These are primed case's not loaded. Have fired a couple hundred so far and not one primer failure. 73 yrs with the primer's exposed on the inside of the case and not one failure. I don't shoot where many people shoot but if I did I might put finger nail polish around the primer so I could identify my case's from other's laying around.