Case of wet shotgun shells....ruined?

[citizensoldier16]

I recently had a water pipe leak in a storage closet and it sprayed a considerable amount of water on a case (boxes of 25 inside another cardboard box) of shotgun shells I had stored in there.

The box was not submerged, but was sprayed with a volume of water for approx 10 minutes. It was enough to completely saturate the outer box and most of the individual boxes inside got wet as well.

I have pulled the shells out and set them up on paper towels in the kitchen in hopes of drying them out.

Are these shells ruined? Can they be salvaged and safe to shoot? Some of the shells already show slight surface rust, while others do not. The case was a mix of lead and steel shot. All told, there were probably 200+/- rounds in there.

Any help would be appreciated.

[Buck]

I have accidetly washed and dryed 12 gague shells in the laundry before and they still worked fine... You may not want to bet your life on them, but they "should" be ok...

B

[citizensoldier16]

Thanks. I did some internet searching and pretty much found out the same. These are not defensive rounds, just upland bird and duck rounds for hunting. I'll try them this season, and if they don't work...they'll get destroyed.

Thanks for the reply.

[ucrt]

You might want to cut open a few of the steel shots and see if the shot rusted. I've dropped a lot of shells underwater and they've fired fine but I generally fired them pretty quick.

Since yours weren't submerged and probably didn't even have water running over the individual shells because the boxes shielded them from running water, you'll be good to go.

I'd just take a look at a few of the steel shot shells. I don't know if its true, but I've heard the steel shot can rust together creating a "lump" of shot that can cause problems??

Let us know what you find.

[Artos]

10mins of moisture wouldn't concern me...submerged, yes.


depending on the ammo you can usually hear the shot rattle. My guess is you will be fine....as stated, the steel is your only real concern.

[markm]

Bird shells should be waterproof.... or very water resistant. I wouldn't worry a bit about them.

[ST911]

Having fallen out of a duck boat or two, sat in torrential downpours, and otherwise gotten SG ammo wet doing other things, they should be GTG.

Like another posted said, no defensive/life-support use, but you're okay to chase birds and paper targets with them.