Wet primers

[fecmech]

About a week ago I returned from a cruise to find about 4" of water on my basement floor. It was my own fault as I had unplugged the sump pump to use the outlet for something else and forgot to plug the pump back in. Anyhow water had gotten in to my powder magazine and I had primers, both Fed SP and shotshell 209's in the magazine. The bottom 600 primes in both boxes were under water. In fact when I opened the SP's each little depression in the tray was full of water. I dumped all the primers on to some old towels and then set the primers in a couple of cake pans over my baseboard heat for a couple of days. First I just loaded a few cases with primers only and all went bang. Encouraged I loaded 50 38's,went to the range and no problems. Normal sounding rounds and usual excellent accuracy. Next up shotshells. Same drill, same results. Loaded 50 rds and went to shoot sporting clays (with a cleaning rod just in case) at my club. Had a couple that sounded a tad light but shot one of my best rounds lately(40X50). Loaded 50 more for Sunday and again success (38X50) and 1 or 2 light sounding rds.
I know they make primers wet so I thought I'd give it a try. Just thought I'd pass this on.

[CraigOK]

Good to know, maybe you'll have to start treating all those shotgun primers :smile:

[Wayne Smith]

Yup, primer exposives are inserted wet. As long as it didn't wash out you are good to go once dry.

[lefty o]

just about nothing kills a primer, other than firing it. once they dry out they will fire.

[dale2242]

I know the priming compound is inserted in the cup as a paste.
Is the priming compound in primers wet from water or some sort of solvent?......dale

[458mag]

I understand WD40 will kill a primer.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

There is a good chance that there never was anything wrong with the pistol primers, as they and rifle primers are finished off with a foil disc and varnish. I wouldn't want to count on it, though, so you did right to dry them out. This should be done very thoroughly. The chance of a very slight leak doesn't mean a very slight problem. It means that it will be difficult for water vapour to find its way out. I don't know if shotgun primers have the same protection.

This also means you can't count on the often advocated drop of oil to make a primer inactive, in deactivating a cartridge for collection or display. Maybe there was a time when this worked reliably, but not any more.

[fecmech]

There is a good chance that there never was anything wrong with the pistol primers, as they and rifle primers are finished off with a foil disc and varnish.
The Federal SP's I don't believe are that way, the anvil and compound are visible and I don't think there is any finish on them. The Win 209's look like they have a paper or some other kind of cover to prevent powder from getting into the primer cavity.

[M-Tecs]

I understand WD40 will kill a primer.

If the priming compound is wet with WD40 yes but once it dries no.

[MT Gianni]

I understand WD40 will kill a primer.
Until it dries out then it will go bang.

[Frank46]

I bought some 5.56 cases that the primers were supposedly killed. Don't know what they used but they were far from dead. Put the primed and supposedly dead cases in my ar and everyone went bang. when I had all the cases deprimed and not one went off during the process buried them where the sun won't ever shine. Probably a 100 years from now some archeologist will dig them up and conclude that there was a great battle fought there. Frank

[leadman]

One of the ballistics guys at a powder/ primer manufacturer stated in an atricle I read a few years back that it is almost impossible to kill a modern primer. I have wetted a few primer and they still went off. I would not count on WD40 or oil to kill them.

[MtGun44]

WD40 TEMPORARILY kills primers. Verified this when cutting a factory round in half for a hat pin,
after removing powder and "killing" the primer with WD40......... LOUD pop.

After drying they should be fine, maybe not best choice for self defense ammo.

Bill

[badbob454]

i wrote up an article on cast boolits a few years back 4-5 years ago ...i had found a 55gallon drum with primed brass left out in the rain was 1/3 full of water , i bought them all from a recycler , dried all the primed brass in the summer sun for a few days , i would say 99.9 percent all went bang, honestly i dont remember any that didnt ,once dry ... i still have a few hunderd in 30-06 cases i plan on loading .gave a bunch of 308 to my brother in law and he uses them

[Ballistics in Scotland]

WD40 TEMPORARILY kills primers. Verified this when cutting a factory round in half for a hat pin,
after removing powder and "killing" the primer with WD40......... LOUD pop.

After drying they should be fine, maybe not best choice for self defense ammo.

Bill

I wouldn't choose them for being attacked with, either. You are unlikely ever to be presented with the prairie dog of a lifetime, but with larger game and important target matches you might also want to avoid them. For WD40 drying, I could wish for the disappearance of the wallpaper stain I did by accident many years ago. It leaves something behind and my guess is that it would deactivate a primer if you don't want it to, but not if you do.

Quite a while back I bought some Winchester Western .22 rimfire cases for making bullet jackets. They were very desirable, having been primed but never loaded, avoiding the firing-pin indentation which Corbin say is the only limitation compared with commercial jackets, as long as velocity is moderate and bullet fragmentation is acceptable. They were an inch in length but ordinary LR diameter, so my guess is that they were intended for shotshells.

The seller in the US pledged his word that the primers would be removed by boiling, and maybe he tried. But when I got them, by international mail, I tested a few on a cooker ring, and they went off with a sharp crack which would surely have provided normal ignition of the small charge of fine grained powder rimfires used.

[DLCTEX]

I sprayed a batch is cases with brake cleaner once to remove lube from them. I forgot that 20 of them were primed and had given them a good bath, getting cleaner inside the cases. I loaded the primed cases and test fired them. All went bang.