Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Water soaked small rifle primers

I recently had a flood in my basement and found a brick of small rifle primers (Federal) sitting in 4 inches of water. I figure they are toast, but before I throw them out, I want to ask the "sages" on here if I was right and they are wasted.

All answers gratefully appreciated.

When I moved I had some primers in a leaky tote ...they were large pistole....2k of them...
I let them dry and have been using them in 45acp and 44 mag....they have all fired....really don't know how wet the primers actually got but the packages were all stuck together and had to be tor apart to get to the primers...
I would just let them dry and see if they work....I just mad pinker loads with mine to use them up..

i once bought several hundred primers at a yard sale. after getting them home noticed water staining on all the boxes primers were dry.
used them for target practice only two misfired. at this late date don't remember how many primers were in that bunch.

Ed

Many shooters don't realize that most modern primers are sealed against moisture, or even minor amounts of oil. The advice many of us grew up with, or heard from older handloaders, was to keep our fingers scrupulously clean of natural oil, in order to avoid "contaminating" primers when touching them, making them go bad. But it's been quite a while since water or a little oil has affected modern primers. Yet I still know several handloaders who, despite knowing this, wash their hands before a handloading session, to "degrease" them and prevent duds--just as I still know many guys who change the oil in their vehicles every 2000-3000 miles, because that's what they were taught back when motor oils weren't nearly as good as they are today.

So true, and a compelling reason to update information on a regular basis.

Seems I remember a test where some guy soaked primers in WD-40 and they all went bang...

DF

I just want to thank those people who replied. Thanks especially to Mule Deer for the explanation. I would have thrown out perfectly good primers.

Just to be sure I'd spread them on a cookie sheet, open side up, in the oven at 300 degrees for a half hour.

I think I'd just let them air dry for a few days.

I'd be concerned baking them, worrying about that much heat causing damage.

Not sure.

DF

cra1948,

Is that your special baking recipe for wet primers?

They must be sealed pretty well. Put some in a glass of water for a few days and when loaded they all ignited

I would be that guy, or one or em',........ALL Of them sat in WD40 for a weekend,....submerged,....they were then drained on paper shop towel, loaded and fired.
I WOULD be concerned with ACIDS inevitably present in a basement flood destabilizing priming compounds though, and perhaps tipping there sensitivity threshold in the wrong direction.
GTC

I was impressed enough by that to remember it.

Just because something is intuitive doesn't make it factual, glad you did it.

Washing hands, worried about contaminating primers sorta went out the window with that test.

Another urban myth busted.

DF

Yep...

Ahhh, free at last, I'm free at last!

I haven't been washing hands my before handling primers, but I do keep a pair of forceps on the bench to pick up stray primers and put them back where they belong.

I will probably keep them right where they are, though, as picking them up with my arthritic right hand, and a thumb that no longer works like it is supposed to, is a challenge...

Only when maximum reliability is indicated.

Sometime I'll tell you about my system for reaccurrizing recovered bullets. Also the technique for reusing shotshell wads.

Not trying to rain on your parade, but it seems some things just aren't worth recycling, Shotgun wads and toilet paper are two that come to mine...

DF

Why take a chance? Primers are cheap and besides, one can get $30 worth of pissed off (at yourself) in no time at all if you end up pulling bullets on several hundred rounds.

Coot, I agree.

I would use such primers for plinking, etc. not for a serious, expensive hunt.

DF

Dirtfarmer:

These are strictly for my .223 I bought to give myself less expensive trigger time at the range (or at least that is what I told my wife ).