Safety Tip
Posted: Fri Sep 09, 2016 9:18 am
Interesting article. Here is an interesting situation I personally encountered about water and ammunition.
I recently got some grungy loaded ammunition from and estate. No knowing the loads, I pulled all the bullets and dumped the powder. The cases were really dirty so I put them in my water tumbler with Dawn dish soap and steel pins to clean the cases and neutralize the primers. Since the cases were really dirty I ran them through two three hours cleaning cycles. They sparkled when the came out of the tumbler. I was curious to see if the primers were still active so I chambered a few in one of my rifles and was surprised to find about three out of ten primers would still go bang after being subjected to tumbling in water for six hours. I had always heard the storied about careful handling of primers so they wouldn't get deactivated but I now think they are a lot tougher than many people say. Just a note that it may take a lot to intentionally kill a primer.