Does high humidity damage or make primers go inert?

[Bexar]

Somehow I had a 1000 primer count box wind up in my bathroom. My Wife may have moved them in there thinking I'd see them since it's the bathroom I use. I remember buying the box about a year ago. Box looks fine but it had somehow gotten behind an ivy planter box. For the life of me I couldn't think what had happened to them. I found them when I went to trim the ivy back as it had creeped until it was all over the counter.

Anyway...it's my bathroom because I take long hot showers with the door closed as she complains about the steam and heat. Steamy foggy sauna type showers.

Have the primers been ruined? They look fine. I don't want to load them if their going to cause an occasional misfire...say 1/10.

Winchester large pistol primers.

Thanks...Bexar

 

[Walkalong]

They should be fine. Test a few and see.

 

[matrem]

I've purposely thrown primers in puddles, as well as accidently ran them through a maytag.

Takes far more to get them to fail than you may think.

 

[LiveLife]

It's hard to kill primers as they were designed to withstand extremes of heat, cold, humidity, vibration, shock, etc. Imagine the lengths various military units have endured while carrying their ammunition through the harsh conditions during various wars. Even in 100% humidity jungles of pacific islands, primers went bang.


As pictures below show, they have sealant/barriers to protect the priming compound. As Walkalong suggested, test a few and my guess is that they will ignite fine.

 

[MutinousDoug]

Modern primers are not hygroscopic, there is nothing in them that will dissolve in water, the cups and anvils are copper or brass so they do not rust. The priming compound is a compressed solid so there is almost no likelyhood that H2O could act as a lubricant sufficient to inhibit friction ignition/detonation on impact by striker/firing pin.
If the priming compound pellet is intact, your primers are good.

 

[rcmodel]

Set them in a dry place for a few days and they will be fine.

They are made wet with the priming compound the consistency of putty..

Then dried before packaging and sale.

Water or humidity shouldn't hurt them if you let them dry out before using them.

rc

 

[gamestalker]

I wouldn't worry about them having died, it takes more than humidity to kill primers. As RC stated, primers start out as a wet putty like substance, and only become live once dry. So I would venture to guess, that as long as they haven't been exposed to oil, solvents, or the like, water shouldn't have any ill effect on them, as long as they are completely dry when used.

When I moved back from S.D. in 2002, I left a bunch of stuff in a shed for a good 6 or 7 years. I got a call from the folks who own the sheds telling me the shed had severely flooded from all the bad weather, and apparently the snow melt off in the spring as well. This had been going on for a couple years or so before the owners realized how bad some of the sheds were flooding.

Long story short, I had a bunch of primers in one of the boxes that got soaked, the primer boxes were badly damaged from the water, so it was obvious the primers had gotten soaked. But I thought, what the heck, and loaded up a few just too seem they worked fine, so I ended up using every single one of those primers, including a brick of CCI BR primers, whats more, I didn't have one single misfire, or any other problems with them.

GS

 

[243winxb]

Soaked in water for a week, let them sun dry. All went bang.

 

[Bexar]

Thanks guys...really good info.

Bexar

 

[Baryngyl]

Read this http://www.shootersforum.com/handlo.../56321-stuck-case-live-primer.html#post423318 to see what happened to my 2,000+ primers that went swimming for over a month.


Michael Grace

 

[GooseGestapo]

Water, doesn't hurt them.
Had a shooting buddy leave me a box of 1,000 on his front porch. They got soaked in a thunder storm. I opened the individual sleaves of 100, and let them dry for several days. All went bang.

However, oils such as WD40, PB Blaster, ect will kill them dead as a hammer. Even in exposed loaded ammo, as it can creep past the loaded primers/bullets and kill them.