Sir,
I want to thank you for your advice to obtain a 308
battle rifle. Last year I held off on buying one until December as I felt my
AR-15s
were "good enough". I paid around $1,600 for an Armalite AR-10. That
same rifle model now sells for more that $2,000 (if you can find it).
I
have
also
acquired
another
AR-10 lower that I am building for a "longer range" 308 rifle. I have
also been purchasing a lot of Lake City once fired brass and 147 grain FMJ components
and slowly reloading my ammo supply. Here is my question: Is it better that keep
powder, primers, cases, and bullets separated or just load everything up and
store it that way? I am worried about powder/primer long term storage and wonder
if its easier to keep powder and primers in original packaging for really long
term storage. I recently went to the range and shot off some ammo I reloaded
back in 1993. I had about 10 rounds with primer failure . My previous house basement
was flooded in 1998 and I think this ammo was in the basement at that time. So
now I am pulling those older bullets and am having to reload them as I suspect
more primers will fail.
Another question: Is there a way to quickly and cheaply waterproof loaded cases at the primer and case mouth? I have thought about clear nail polish. Regards, - Eric
JWR Replies: I advise that you go ahead and assemble those
components, whenever you have time available. A lot of things can go wrong
(fire, broken pipes,
flood,
etc),
so loaded
ammo
will be much safer than storing components. Store all of your ammo only in
military surplus ammo cans that still have nice soft seals. Include a small
bag of silica gel desiccant in each can. (It doesn't take much to suck up
the atmospheric moisture in a space that small.)
Don't attempt to seal case necks with lacquer, or you will cause erratic velocities
and possibly cause failures to completely chamber rounds. (The same effect
as
improperly
trimmed brass.)The US military arsenals have actually used tar to seal their
bullets, but I don't recommend doing so. (Not unless you want to set up a hot
tar bullet-seating assembly-line, and do the requisite pressure tests!)
For the primer pockets: Use
an tiny extra fine tip brush and red lacquer paint--available
from
any
hobby
shop.
Don't use clear lacquer. It is important to use a colored lacquer, so that
you don't lose track of which primer pockets have already been sealed. Some
folks
recommend
using just a single cat's whisker type brush. One ring around the edge of the
primer is all that you need. It takes just a tiny bit for each primer. Just
one ounce of lacquer will last you through
years of primer sealing if your are careful to keep the bottle
tightly sealed.
OBTW I recommend that you stock up on magazines for both your current AR-10
and your planned AR-10 "build". Those magazines are already scarce--now
up to around $80 each--and they may be $200+ in just
a year.
If you want to have a dozen or magazines per rifle, then it might very well
be worthwhile to order two replacement AR-10 lowers from Sonju
International in Kalispel, Montana. They make an excellent machined-billet
lower
receiver variant that the dubbed the "SI-AR-HK" that
can accept HK-G3 alloy
magazines (that are available as military surplus for as little as $2.20 each!)
Then, after those
lowers (and a box of 100 magazines from a vendor such as Scorpion
Arms arrive), you
can then sell off your current Armalite-made lower receivers and magazines
for an obscene profit that will infuriate Chuck
Schumer.
