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abunaitoo
12-17-2019, 01:29 AM
Yesterday I got a bag of .22 ammo that had white powder all over it.
It was being thrown away.
Not sure what the powder was, but I think it had gotten wet sometime in the past, and never dried.
So how to clean them????
I put them in my wet tumbler, just as I would empty shells.
After an hour, they came out clean.
Dried them, sorted them, put into CCI boxes.
250+ rounds.
I'll see if they will shoot on Sunday.
Hoping things are getting better, after all the things that have happened the last few weeks.

mebudman63
12-17-2019, 01:43 AM
You put "loaded" rounds in a wet tumbler?

I have heard guys talk in other forums that they do not run loaded ammo no longer than 15 minutes after loaded in a dry media tumbler. They do this to re-shine the brass after handling. Any longer and the vibration can break down the powder more and it can burn faster.

lefty o
12-17-2019, 02:25 AM
that white powder is likely just lead oxidation. about the wet tumbler, with rimfire ammo i certainly wouldnt (i wouldnt wet tumble with any ammo, but especially rf), as generally the crimp on rf ammo isnt a perfect seal, and there is a good chance you got the powder wet. in the future, id just wipe em off with a rag.

abunaitoo
12-17-2019, 02:25 AM
I have read tat also.
hat's why I put the in the wet tumbler with the stainless pins.
Lemishine and car wash wax,
I'll see how they shoot on Sunday, but I think they'll be OK.

mozeppa
12-17-2019, 02:25 AM
You put "loaded" rounds in a wet tumbler?

I have heard guys talk in other forums that they do not run loaded ammo no longer than 15 minutes after loaded in a dry media tumbler. They do this to re-shine the brass after handling. Any longer and the vibration can break down the powder more and it can burn faster.

i believe that is a often repeated myth.....but wet tumbling?....that's not good.

cwlongshot
12-17-2019, 06:07 AM
Well Ill tell ya this. LR ammo that goes thru the wash for me is a dud. Dosent go off. As stated its crimp is not water tite. Ever spin a bullet in its case? Thats cause they aint water tite.

Good luck but I think your gonna find water and LR/L/S ammo aint gonna survive a wet tumbler.

Conversely and not associated 22 magnum ammo almost alwats survives the washing machine.

CW

Three44s
12-17-2019, 06:17 AM
I would put on a hot window sill to dry spread out and give it plenty of time.

Then try it

Good luck

Three44s

Gewehr-Guy
12-17-2019, 07:22 AM
I've found a few cartridges that looked like that, found them under the seat of the truck,in the pockets of old coats,ect, and I wipe the bullet with a rag soaked with Bens Liquid Lube. Use them to shoot trapped coons and short range garden varmints.

dangitgriff
12-17-2019, 09:02 AM
Dry tumbling in a vibratory cleaner is the best bet.
I wouldn’t expect many to survive a wet tumble.
Good luck. [emoji106]

wnc435
12-17-2019, 09:32 AM
I am interested to see how many fire. I have a couple large coffee cans of 22 ammo that are pick ups from gun ranges. They have been like new looking to as brown as brown gets. the ones I have grabbed have all went bang but I grab the best looking ones.

lightman
12-17-2019, 09:52 AM
I'm another thats curious about how many of those 22's go off. Wishing you success.

I twist the bullets off of the 22's that I find on the ground and add them to the range scrap for the next smelt. I'm just concerned about any grit that may be stuck to the bullet getting in my barrel. I pull the bullets on any center fire ammo that I find laying around too.

gwpercle
12-17-2019, 01:32 PM
This is going to be an interesting range report .
Waiting for it with baited breadth . Should settle the good idea / not so good idea once and for all .
I would not have wet tumbled live 22 ammo , I don't think it's water proof but you just never know.
Gary

JonB_in_Glencoe
12-17-2019, 01:40 PM
I put them in my wet tumbler, just as I would empty shells.
After an hour,
22LR isn't sealed, I'll bet this experiment will be a total failure.

Old oxidized 22LR.
Depending on how bad they are, I would either spritz them with WD-40 and wipe off everything that will come off easily, then if they look shoot-able, I'd shoot 'em.
OR,
I'd recycle the Lead and dispose of the rest.

Thin Man
12-17-2019, 08:57 PM
Might be a good idea to take a stout cleaning rod to the range with you for this test. Be sure it is long enough to pass completely through the barrel of the firearm you will be using. Good luck.

country gent
12-17-2019, 09:07 PM
Another issue may be the soap lemi / shine / pins may have removed the wax resin coating from the bullet. This is there for a lube . Just something to think about.

kerplode
12-17-2019, 09:52 PM
250+ rounds.
I'll see if they will shoot on Sunday.


100% duds...

abunaitoo
12-18-2019, 03:25 AM
We'll see on Sunday.
i should have taken a picture before I cleaned them.
Plated heads, so no wax.
I think they'll be fine.
Hope so anyway.

fatelk
12-18-2019, 04:25 AM
You might want to pull a couple apart with pliers, see if the powder is wet. It might save you the trouble of pounding a stuck bullet out of the bore.

I've picked up a lot of live rounds off the ground at the range over the years. The .22lr ammo goes into a bucket, but in my experience if they've spent much time at all in the water, the powder will be wet. I've pulled apart a lot of them, and seen a lot of wet powder.

I don't know what kind of powder would have been on them, but I'll just make one comment about white powder on old ammo (though I expect most everyone here already knows this). I used to not think much about it at all, but an old timer cautioned me about it one day. I was at a gun show years ago and a vendor had a big box full of old dug musket bullets and Minie-balls. They were all covered in white powder. This old timer came along and told me I better wash my hands real well after handling one, because that stuff is lead oxide, nasty stuff and very toxic!

cwlongshot
12-18-2019, 06:42 AM
Agreed and there is good reason those where covered with wax.... If your somehow able to shoot a bunch be prepared for the leading that will likely be left.

CW

dale2242
12-18-2019, 07:36 AM
I found a small can filled with water and 22LR ammo some time ago.
The cartridges were completely submerged in the water.
I have no idea how long they had been in the water.
I attempted to dry them in my dehydrator.
I set it on a low heat for a LONG time.
After only getting 1 in 10-15 to fire, I gave it up as a bad idea.
I quit trying to salvage 22 LR ammo after I blew the extractor out of my gun when I fired a shell that had been snapped on and failed to fire.
This shell was a range pickup that was fired in someone else gun.
It blew right where to firing pin had hit it previously.
22 LR ammo is just too cheap for me to mess with range pickup.
I am waiting to see abunaitoos results.
Keep us posted....dale

sparkyv
12-18-2019, 10:42 AM
I hate waste like many of you who reload, but that's just too much effort for some old inexpensive 22LR that is likely to be undependable. My 2 cents...

cwlongshot
12-18-2019, 11:08 AM
I have half a CASE of R-50 thats just like that. All bullets are chalky white. They shoot ok in bolts and SS but not is autos. And too many lead the bore.

CW

fatelk
12-18-2019, 03:30 PM
By the way, no offense intended towards abunaitoo. I've tried all kinds of things like that in the past too, as I imagine a lot of us have. It's how we learn. I look forward to hearing the results too.

abunaitoo
12-23-2019, 09:12 PM
So it was like everyone said. Almost
300 rounds. All plated bullets, "F" head stamp.
Had around 10% go off.
Some hang fires.
Bunch of us were talking about it.
We pulled some heads.
Powder was dry.
Burned fine when lit.
Thinking was the tumbling might have dislodged the primer.
Kind of make sense.
One guy said he's heard that if .22 were bounced around for a while, they would also fail to fire.
So as far as water getting into the case, we didn't see any trace of it.
So now I know.
Cannot clean in a wet tumbler.
And probably any kind of tumbler vibrator.

Bazoo
12-23-2019, 09:51 PM
Thanks for letting us know. Very interesting.

Dieselhorses
12-23-2019, 09:55 PM
Dry tumbling in a vibratory cleaner is the best bet.
I wouldn’t expect many to survive a wet tumble.
Good luck. [emoji106]

That's what I did with over 2000 rounds, they looked new when finished and every one of em fired!

abunaitoo
12-24-2019, 02:49 AM
I should have tried half and half.
Tumble and vibrate.
I'll try to do it next time.
If I ever get more.
I pulled the heads off 50 of them.
It seems on some of the, water has gotten into them.
So I'm rethinking that water did get into them.
But the ones with the dry powder didn't go off either.
I looked on the shell, and could see the priming compound.
It was light green, so easy to see.
It was all there. Even in the wet powder one's.

Bazoo
12-24-2019, 03:52 AM
Perhaps only a minuscule amount of water got in the case but the primer is hydrophilic and soaked it out of the powder.

lightman
12-24-2019, 10:59 AM
I wasn't surprised to hear about the duds but thanks for posting your results. I pick up quite a few 22's off of the ground at my shooting spots. A few look to have a light firing pin strike and some are untouched. I usually twist the bullet off to go into my next smelt and dump the powder.

KCSO
12-25-2019, 07:29 PM
I got a ton of ammo that was soaked in the flood. he 22's were all oxcide and wore 1/2 and half dud or bing bang boom and with the oxcide not fit for firing in a decent gun. I tried them in a junker for information only. Just for info of the ones I fired 2 jammed up in the barrel and blew the back of the case off.

Throw wet soaked ammo away or tear down for the lead.

Wild Bill 7
12-25-2019, 07:56 PM
I also pick up tossed 22 ammo. Check for bent cases and boolit heads and other funky stuff. Then I take my trusty S&W revolver and plink with it. What doesn't fire comes back home and gets pulled and recycled. By the way semi auto's don't do well with that ammo.

abunaitoo
12-26-2019, 05:03 AM
Bullets are plated
Can I just smash them and melt for the lead???

Bazoo
12-26-2019, 05:28 AM
Should be just copper washed, and will melt without smashing.

kevin c
12-26-2019, 05:46 AM
Salvage for the lead sounds possible. I'm guessing you mean to smash the pulled bullets prior to melting, not smashing the duds?

The plated 22's I've seen seem to have a very thin layer of plating, which may explain the oxidation over enough time.

With a lot of the bargain priced bulk buy Remington Golden Bullets I can spin or wiggle the slug in the case, so I wouldn't doubt a high rate of duds if those rounds got wet. Maybe not in the better assembled/crimped/sealed CCI MiniMags I also have?

In a test of contamination in the case using aerosol and pump spray (water based) case lubes, I could induce hang fires or duds even with fresh powder if just the primer was contaminated with either type of lube, even if dried out prior to charging the case. My conclusion is that anything inside the case besides what's supposed to be there can really mess up the round, even if there's no apparent damage to it or visible presence of the contaminant when it's pulled apart.

CCI's sometimes misfeed in my .22 pistol conversion when the slide cycles, with the round fed not being held long enough by the feeding lips to chamber (they pop right out of the port, unfired). It seems that the cases are too slippery with wax, perhaps an eyebrow raising diagnosis, but briefly tumbling the cases in coarse corncob media with a bit of solvent like isopropyl alcohol makes them less slick and improves feeding. Maybe the CCIs are better crimped/sealed, but I haven't any duds or hang fires in the treated ammo so far, and the accuracy remains good. I haven't run the round through a chrono to see if average velocity or standard deviation have changed. My personal 40 S&W competition loads (with a short stick extruded single base powder) run in a vibratory tumbler over increasing times had a slight increase in SD and perhaps a slight increase in velocity, but still shot fine.

Traffer
12-26-2019, 07:27 AM
OOPS... All are dead.
If you could carefully pull the bullets out and salvage the brass I could use it. I reprime spent shells and if they were never shot I wouldn't need to size them.
However unless you have a special tool for pulling 22lr bullets or are very careful with a pair of pliers, you will not be able to pull the bullets without deforming the brass.
Sorry.

gwpercle
12-26-2019, 02:17 PM
Very interesting ... I would have bet money water would have gotten in .
I had also heard , from way back , that tumbling was bad for loaded ammo ... the theory being the powder gets changed/damaged during the tumbling process ... turns out it seems to be the priming compound that gets affected by the tumbling , not the powder per se .
This is why I don't bet money on things... you just never know .

Thanks for the range report , it was enlightening !
Gary

kevin c
12-26-2019, 02:23 PM
OOPS... All are dead.
If you could carefully pull the bullets out and salvage the brass I could use it. I reprime spent shells and if they were never shot I wouldn't need to size them.
However unless you have a special tool for pulling 22lr bullets or are very careful with a pair of pliers, you will not be able to pull the bullets without deforming the brass.
Sorry.

And here I thought spent .22 cases were for .223 jackets or metal recycling, and that repriming and reloading them was impractical.

I shoot sometimes a thousand rounds of .22 a week and pick up the brass per range rules. It goes to recycling, but if you want some, Traffer, I'll save it for you.

Traffer
12-26-2019, 09:36 PM
And here I thought spent .22 cases were for .223 jackets or metal recycling, and that repriming and reloading them was impractical.

I shoot sometimes a thousand rounds of .22 a week and pick up the brass per range rules. It goes to recycling, but if you want some, Traffer, I'll save it for you.

i have plenty of brass from fired rounds. Plus i have some Eley primed brass. What i was referring to is that if the unfired rounds are no good and if the bullets can be pulled without severely damaging the cases, That would be good for me because I wouldn't have to size them and remove the firing pin dents.

kevin c
12-26-2019, 10:27 PM
Ah, now I see. Still, reusing .22 cases like that is well beyond me. Back to recycling them to the metal scrappers!

KCSO
01-01-2020, 12:59 PM
Yes and yes the bullets pull easy and there is little damage to the case, done hundreds.